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Nov. 11, 2006 Sometimes I find myself wondering if it’s humanly possible to feel better than I feel. Almost every day everything seems just perfect for me. There are times when I get distressed and annoyed for a while, but if the weather is right, such interludes are brief and infrequent. My biggest problems are wind, clouds and cool air. Barring these, I always feel just great. I have moved to a new neighborhood in Buenos Aires called Villa Soldati. I know it sounds fancy, reminiscent of Villa Borghese in Rome. But no, it is just a plain, austere, working-class neighborhood. In fact, I am sharing an apartment in a housing project. It came about in this way. In Los Angeles, a Costa Rican friend named Luís planned a very small farewell picnic for me the day before I left for South America, but we got rained out. One of the expected attendees, named Eduardo, was an Argentine I had never met but who was supposed to give me some tips. Because of the rain, I never met Eduardo in Los Angeles. But eventually he returned to Argentina. By e-mail, when I was in Paraguay just recently, we arranged a friendly meeting a couple of weeks ago. Then he proposed the share. So here I am. It costs less than half the price of my room at Hotel Los Tres Reyes in San Telmo, but I’d have been just as happy to stay there. I could tell that Eduardo was hoping to make a few extra dollars though, so I view the move as a matter of doing him a small favor. Argentines and Paraguayans are entirely different breeds. The people in Paraguay are predominantly Guaraní Indian with some Spanish blood, whereas Argentines are a Hispano-Italian blend, definitely more Europeoid both in appearance and behavior. Believe it or not, I spend only 95 cents a day for food, not counting a couple of soft drinks, which cost another $1.20. I love what I eat. There’s really nothing else that I want to eat, so it’s not really an economy measure at all. It just works out that way. I pay $200 a month rent. I’m probably paying most or all of Eduardo’s total rent, but that’s all right. It still beats the $450 I was paying. The real advantage is that I will now be able to take some side trips in Argentina without toting all my heavy baggage. As soon as it’s summer, around Christmas, I may take a bus to Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego and the southernmost city in the world. From there, I might conceivably return by way of Mendoza, a city in western Argentina near Mount Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas. I still haven’t decided just what I’ll do when my visa expires in mid-January, two weeks too early for me to be eligible for 6 months of visas in Brazil. One option would be to visit Uruguay till February 1. Whatever I do, I know that I am going to enjoy it 100%, if it’s anything like the past 2 years. I feel tremendous! I could live a thousand years! It must be the exercise I’ve been doing. I’ve never felt better. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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