Tag Archives: Argentina

Buenos Aires, March, Friday the Thirteen

March 16, 2009 jd

The smaller building on the right is the Metropolitan Cathedral accross the street from The Plaza de Mayo

I decided to go to the Museo de la Polica Federal on Friday the 13^th . My trustee handbook of Buenos Aires (three years old) said that the museum was open Tuesday through Friday. Therefore, of course, it was closed. Do not carry a three year old guide book with you, spend the money and buy an up to date tour book when you travel. I already found a couple of night clubs that were permanently closed that were mentioned in the book as a good place to go.Anyhow, the museum focuses on uniforms, badges and weapons over the ages. According to the guide book, it also has a truly gruesome room dedicated to forensic medicine, which includes dismembered bodies and other unpleasant sights. Not mentioned in the museum is the sadistic role the Federal Police had in the Dirty Wars of the 1970’s. Maybe it’s just as well that the museum was closed. The museum is located at San Martin 353 if you are in Buenos Aires and care to visit it.San Martin Street is near the Plaza de Mayo.

The Plaza is the exact location that the Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo marched for many years, during and after the dirty wars of the 1970’s. The mothers were women who had had their children kidnapped by the military to be tortured, murdered and never heard from again. The women marched to bring public awareness of what atrocities the military government was committing during the 1970’s Dirty War. This was a period when the military overthrew the government and took control of Argentina. They were responsible for up to 30,000 people disappearing. The mothers’ bravery finally put enough pressure on the military government to restore the country back to an elected civilian government.So leaving the closed Mueso de lan Polica, I walked over to the nearby Plaza de Mayo. Across one of the streets of the Plaza de Mayo is the Metropolitan Cathedral. The present building’s construction started in 1752 and built under the direction of Antonio Masella. The design is that of a Latin cross basilica. It was finished in 1822 (And you say your contractor is slow?) In 1827 a portico was built in a French neoclassical style. This is a wonderful building which is really a piece of art, I highly recommend a visit to the Cathedral if you are in Buenos Aires.

Inside the Cathedral. Notice the huge columns.

Leaving the Cathedral I walked over to the nearby National Historical Museum. The location that houses this museum was originally built in a location chosen by Juan de Garay when founding the city in 1580. It was remodeled in 1621, however in 1632 it was abandoned due to the threat of collapse.In 1731 the building was totally reconstructed and remains now almost as it was originally designed. The museum is a curious mixture of different things, as are many of the Buenos Aires museums are that I’ve gone to. There is an exhibit of lighting throughout the ages, such as candles, candle molds all the way to the present day florescent energy saver lights. Then there are portraits of famous Argentineans, pictures of jail scenes, a reconstruction of an old jail cell (The original structure had a small jail) and stocks. What I mean by stocks are those wooden blocks of wood with hinges and holes in them so you could stick a person’s head or legs through them as punishment. (I’m sure some of the people who had their money stolen by Bernard Madoff would like to see stocks make a comeback)

Real Estate

Octo- Mom Gets New House and Other Revelant Real Estate News

March 11, 2009 jd

Large building in back is Puget Automaker's Office Building in Buenos Aires (Possibe quarters for Octo-Mom?)

Nadya Suleman’s the gal that just had eight more children, along with the six she already had, is going to have to move. Seems like the house she is living in is owned by her mom, which is being foreclosed on. The news is that the family is about $20.000 behind in their mortgage payments.

So what is she to do, well, don’t worry, her father is buying her a bigger and better house. Seems like Nadya’s father is buying her a home in La Habra, south of Los Angeles for $564,000, that’s right over half of a million dollars. The home is around 2,500 square feet and features four bedrooms, three baths and a large fenced in backyard. Well one house foreclosed, another taken off the market, have to look at the bright side of things.

Let’s see, if Nadya sleeps on the couch, and you take 14 kids and divide it by four bedrooms, that’s 3.5 kids per bedroom. If she has two more, then it would be a better fit, 4 kids per bedroom. (Don’t tell her that)

Nadya gave birth to eight children in January when she already had six.

I’m not going to go into the fact that some homeowners are thinking of letting their house foreclose or just walk away because their house is worth less than their mortgage. I hear this more and more recently. So what are you going to do if you let your house foreclose? You can’t buy another house for five years, and if history is any clue, the value of the house you left behind will be more then the mortgage you walked away from. Well, I guess I did rant a little?

Real Estate, Travel

Refinancing? Be Careful

March 10, 2009 jd

Tile mural in subway at station Plaza Italia, Buenos Aires (I'm still here)

Along with scams to help you avoid foreclosure, which I talked about in the past, there are others out there trying to take money away from home owners in distress who need to refinance because they are facing foreclosure or those whom are just refinancing to get a lower interest rate on their mortgage.

Rule number one is that you never pay in advance to have someone help you get a loan. Some banks or lenders may require that you pay upfront for an appraisal, which can run between $300 to $450 at the most. However, my experience is that you are better off using your local bank, mortgage broker or credit unions before you pay for anything, which at the most would be an appraisal. Companies outside your home area are not familiar with local real estate conditions and you may spend several weeks or months until you find out they can’t make the loan. I was surfing the net, looking for some information to bring you that might be of help if you are considering refinancing and the pitfalls that I was talking about.I happened to come across Attorney General’s website, Jerry Brown, and he has prosecuted some scam artists. These scammers were taking advantage of people trying to refinance by charging upfront fees of between $1,500 to $2,500 and doing nothing. Here is part of his press release:“In November 2008, Attorney General Brown announced the break up of the First Gov scam ring. First Gov, — which also operated under such misleading names such as Foreclosure Prevention Services; Resolution Department; Reinstatement Department; and Reinstatement Processing — solicited hundreds of homeowners, offering to help them stop the foreclosure of their homes.Ring members promised victims they would renegotiate their mortgages and reduce monthly payments. They demanded an up-front fee, ranging from $1,500 to $5,000, to participate in the loan-modification program.

Victims were told to stop making mortgage payments and communicating with their lender because this would interfere with the loan modification process. After collecting their fee, ring members pocketed the money and did nothing to help victims.”

The full text of his press release is at Office of Attorney General

By the way, talk to your mortgage company if you can, but so far they have been dumb and want you to stop making payments before they will talk to you!

Real Estate, Travel

Jon Stewart Blasts CNBC

March 9, 2009 jd 1 Comment

: Another picture of a professional dog walker. Possible new occupation for some of the people on CNBC (I’m still in Buenos Aires and I love dogs)

I love comedy. Comedy takes a complex situation and makes it so easy to understand. This was so much so with the Comedy Central’s skid by Jon Stewart taking on the high and mighty prognosticators of stock market trends on CNBC. Those advisors on CNBC are always full of advice of which stocks to buy, interviewing CEO’s of large companies and glowing about their potential outcome. Jon Stewart shows several of these interviews by them. He then shows the outcome shortly afterwards where for all of their wisdom the companies fail. I love the interview shown of Sir Allen Stanford, a billionaire at the time of the interview on CNBC. Shortly after the interview, the FBI stated that they think Sir Stanford is running a Ponzi scheme.

But the most telling part of the program was when they showed Rick Santelli ranting and raving at the Obama Administration for giving a small portion of the bailout money to homeowners facing foreclosure. Wow, what a rant. (By the way, Santelli was supposed to appear on the show, but didn’t show) But Jon Stewart puts it all in perspective when he proceeded to show that these icons of prognosticators had no problem with the present and past Administrations giving billions of bailout funds to banks, General Motors, Chrysler, AGI and other large companies.

You know it’s easy to place the blame on people facing foreclosure because they should have known what they were getting into when they took out a loan to buy a house. But who set the standards for these loans? It wasn’t the Realtors or the mortgage brokers or the homeowners. Yep, it was the banks setting the lending standards, enticing people into buying a home with low interest rates. Once people bought a home, the loan was set to trigger into a higher interest rate. Don’t you think the banks knew some people could not afford the mortgage? In the old days they called that bait and switch. Now who is getting the majority of the bailout funds, hummm, of course, the banks.

I don’t know what CNBC’s qualifications are to hire Rick Stanletlli or any of the other interviewers. Is it that they are highly educated to help people lose their money, or are they poorly trained psychics? So Rick and his cohorts are hired by CNBC to advise people of the best stocks to buy, and they are almost always 100 percent wrong, so why are they picking on people who are losing their homes? Is it because the homeowners are not as educated in financial matters as they are and should have never bought a home? (Or their stock recommendations)

Like Jon Stewart said, “If I had listened to them, I would be a millionaire, that is, if I had started out with $100 million.” Their coding is screwed up so here’s the best i could do here’s the link to the video.

Real Estate, Travel

Trip to a Museum & Bits & Pieces in Buenos Aires

March 7, 2009 jd

Friday I went to the Museo Nacional De Arte Decorativo or National Museum of Decorative Art. First an update of what’s happening here. The peso was propped up Thursday by the Central Bank and state run banks as they heavily intervened in the market to stop the peso from further weakening. The US gained two cents on the peso Friday, its highest value since 2002. When the banks offered $100 million dollars of its reserves, the peso settled at 3.622 pesos to one dollar. It’s the pesos lowest level since November of last year.

If you think that your credit card interest rate is high, how about the interest rate for commercial construction in Argentina? Argentine President Christina Ferandez complained about “the usurious interest rates” banks are charging private companies for infrastructure works. “Local banks have offered rates of up to 40 or 41 percent” she blasted. Of course Argentina is presently having a 20 percent inflation rate and real estate in Argentina is bought for cash, no low down payment and 30 year mortgage.

Back to the museum, the original structure was built by Mr. Matias Erazyriz and his wife Mrs. Josefina De Alvear. They resided in this huge palace with their two children. The palace was the hub of many major social events until Mrs. Alvear passed away in 1935. The remaining family sold the palace along with the art collection to the Argentine Government shortly thereafter.

The museum is huge, with four floors and a basement that was used for servants, boilers and garage. The museum holds over 4,000 exhibits, some dating back to the 15^th century. It is well worth going to this museum if you happen to be in Buenos Aires. Just the workmanship of the building itself is worth the trip. The museum is located at Av. Del Libertador 1902 in Buenos Aires. Their website is Nacional De Arte Decorativo

So I called the bank again, after paying to rent a computer to get all the information the previous agent wanted. I gave a new agent my card number, social security number and said, now do you want my mother’s name, my address and she cut me off and said “Oh, no you’ve given me enough information.” (Grrr!) She got off the phone for a few minutes, came back and said they were upgrading my card, which was the problem, they were taking care of the problem now and I should be able to use my card in a few hours. So today, I was able to use my card, its fun dealing with a bank, NOT!

Professional Dog Walkers, There are many of Them in Buenos Aires

Prior to traveling abroad, I advised my bank that I was traveling to Buenos Aires. What a surprise when I went to draw out some money and my card was rejected! Calling the international toll free number listed on the back of my card, (which does not work here in Buenos Aires), I was asked for my card number, my social security number, my address, my mother’s name, and then what was the last deposit or what was the last expenditure or my account number. After 10 minutes, having none of that information, I gave up, went on line and got all the information that the agent for the bank requested.

Travel

In Buenos Aires

March 3, 2009 jd 1 Comment

Containing on from my last post, I boarded an American Airline 777 for a nine hour and forty four minute flight to Buenos Aires. I asked my agent who booked my flight to get me a seat next to the emergency exit as you have more room to stretch your legs. Instead, she booked me a seat ahead of the exit and in the middle row!

Now you may not know this, but when manufactures’ design airplanes, they spend thousands of hours designing the seats, using live people for testing, computers and engineers with PHD’s. When they find just the right amount of leg room so that people can barely get into their seats and when they find just the right angle for the seat to tilt back so there is no way you can fall asleep, they go, that’s it, put it into production!

I arrived in Buenos Aires at 9:30 in the morning. My friends were to pick me up and of course they went to the terminal for American Airlines. This being Argentina, our plane landed in the terminal for the Argentina airlines NOT American Airlines. After much searching for me and an hour later, they did finally find me.

Now you may not know that for the last three times I was in Buenos Aires, in addition to vacationing, I was also trying to get my DNI, fighting an endless amount of red tape. DNI stands for Documento Nacional De Identidad or National Identification Number. (Think of something similar to a social security card) Since I was born in Buenos Aires and left for California when I was seven years old, I have dual nationalities. Thanks to my girlfriend’s help with Spanish translation and Buenos Aires maps every time we went there, it was now finally ready to be picked up on my forth trip.

My friends that picked me up were helping me in my final leg of getting my DNI . You have to know in Argentina that is easier said than done. The first office that they drove me to said we had to go to another office. We went to the other office and they said to go upstairs. We went upstairs and they told us to go downstairs. We went downstairs and the clerk said they did not have my DNI. We said “Yes you do.” He asked where did you apply for this. We said here. He said “Oh”, and then he looked for my DNI and found it! So, I finally have it and everyone says what are you are going to do with it. I don’t know, when I figure it out, I’ll let you know. Chow.

Oh, by the way, I’m having breakfast, lunch at Lo De Mateo at austria y juan maria gutierrez

Travel

Last Day In Buenos Aires

February 11, 2008 jd

Our last day in Buenos Aires was Saturday February 9. My observation of the City this time from the sights of my trip here two years ago is that there are profound changes happening. Some of the changes are good, such as the majority of the stores are not locked now. When we were here two years ago, almost all restaurants and small shops were locked and you had to ring a bell to get in. There are still guards or security in a majority of the stores, but they’re not locked. You have to realize that starting in 1980 until 2001 there was huge unemployment and a large majority of people could just barely survive and as in all countries when times get bad, the crime rate goes up.

Florida Street, an upscale shopping area

Inside Galerias Pacifico located on Calle Florida, one of the most famous shopping malls in Buenos Aires, designed to recall the Galeria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Italy, with it’s long halls, glass cupola and several tiers of shops. The frescoes were painted by local artists.

Another change is that a lot of the stores and restaurants and shops prohibit smoking, although a large majority of people seem to smoke. Now a lot more stores are taking credit cards and there are constant ads trying to get you to get cards. Two years ago, it was hard to find a store that would take a card. People here like to deal in cash, since a national sport is to avoid taxes, which is currently on twenty one percent value added tax basis.

The bad is that there are a lot of fast food junk shops such as McDonald’s and Burger King. I counted two McDonald’s within one block and a Burger King thrown in the middle. In addition, it seems like a large majority of the people drink Coca Cola with their meals. I don’t recall seeing many overweight people last time, but now, according to the local news, sixty percent of the people are overweight and you can see it. It seems like the junk food boys are carpet bombing the world with their garbage.

The curse McDonalds & Burger King junk food

You can see a large McDonalds sign on the right, then one on the far left with a Burger King in the middle. The men in the forground is an outgrowth of the unemployment, they started making a living by collecting paper from garbage thrown away and continue to this day.

There is even a McDonalds in the Jewish District which serves kosher food, the only one in the world outside of Israel. However, if you want a big mac with cheese, which is a no-no in kosher food, all you have to do is turn around and there is another McDonalds and another one downstairs serving the super size me meals. (If you haven’t seen the movie, Super Size Me, about McDonalds, you have missed a great movie about fast foods.)

Also last time almost every woman wore high-healed shoes (despite the horrible sidewalk conditions.) In the intervening time there has been an invasion of flip-flops and now they are everywhere, women wear them with nice dresses now. Also I think it is much more informal in dress now, we saw many more shorts on women, however the tops continue to be let us say “revealing” of womanly charms, which I appreciate. And the pants are painted on in some cases.

It has been a great trip, the people are friendly and it’s easy to find a good cafe or restaurant with great food no matter where you go in the City. We stayed in the Microcentro area, which is a nice part of the City but very busy and lots of traffic. But next time we will go back to the Belgrano area where we stayed last time, a more friendly, residential neighborhood. It has a lot of clothing and other shops that have great prices because they cater to the locals, rather then the tourists.

One of the many beautiful streets in Buenos Aires

A nice area to sit, notice all of the cafes with outside sitting

Travel

Tigre Area Buenos Aires

February 4, 2008 jd

A train ride to the outer reaches of Buenos Aires (made a little longer than necessary because John and I didn’t know we had to switch trains in the middle until we had reached some other end destination). Then a switch to the new, obviously touristy “Tren de La Costa” Stopping at 7 or 8 little beach towns along the edge of the delta, north of Buenos Aires. Very nice real estate.

Tigre is one of the most popular weekend destinations from BA, on the banks of the lush jungly banks of the Delta of a lot of different rivers. Arriving, and avoiding the El Parque del la Costa (sort of an Argentine Disneyland/county fair combo) and the big Casino at the end of the line we walked in a discovered a very cute little town. We located a B & B to stay at (an OLD family home where the Grandmother rents 4 rooms a night to tourists) for 150 pesos (less than $50 US)

Typical treatment of many houses in area, with ornate treatment of front entries.

Walking, seeing the sites, visiting cafes and of course eating the great food. The next day we did some museum visits (the fantastically detailed Museo Naval, covering the origins of boat, Argentine navy merchant museum, lots of model ships, and relics from many old ships The outside display included relics of the Falklands Islands (Here called Malvinas Island) conflict with the British.

Then we were of on a 2 hour luxury cruse of a small portion of the huge delta, thousands of islands, waterways, summer homes, resorts, camping, restaurants and natural reserves. Really fantastic and relaxing. Next trip we are spending at least a week in one of these isolated resorts (I have the map, web sites and the phone numbers now!)

Looking out from the dining section of the catamaran. Great food by the way!

We passed (rapidly) through the smoky Casino and had a nice visit to the HUGE artisan and. fresh fruit fair, Puerto de Frutas. Handcraft wicker furniture and basketry (with river reeds and trees) are the specialty, and unique to the area.

Travel

Puerto Madero Buenos Aires

January 26, 2008 jd

One night this week we went for a tour of Puerto Madero with Julio Iannetta and his daughter. Julio is a brother of Albert Iannetta, one of my real estate agents. It is a beautiful, clean, new area of the city down where the old docks of Buenos Aires use to be. When the city outgrew the area the old warehouse and granaries were abandoned for a while. But recently the shells of the old buildings have been turned into apartments, lofts, offices and of course restaurants and shops. Very High Scale.

We toured the streets that are all named after famous Argentine women. There are great places to stroll, along the riverfront and around the four large diques (basins) of the former port, with many moving bridges, including this one:

This bridge which opens to let ships through, is a work of art.

In the area there are also two of the most exclusive hotels, the Faena Hotel and the Universe and the Hilton Buenos Aires. On the outside the Faena is all old brick, it used to be the Edificio El Portino (the main port building) but insideâ€¦an exclusive 83 room hotel costing from 300 to $1200 US per night. Each of the rooms has a home theatre and large totally mirrored bathrooms with a spa. When you check in, you are assigned and experience manager who takes care of all your needs while in the city. There are many treatment rooms, a huge health club area, and experiences such as polo with the pros and painting classes with a famous artist. On Friday John and I walked through the public area of the Faena â€“ a very impressive swimming pool area with a swim-up bar, beautiful dining rooms and nightclubs, the lighting was truly an art in itself.

The Faena Hotel, an architectural master piece

We also walked through the Reserva Ecological Costanera Sur, once a landfill that nature has taken back over and is now a protected area for migratory waterfowl, swans, coots, flamingos, and other little animals and reptiles.

We found a relative of Skippy (Judy’s turtle at home in California) just strolling across the path, and redirected (him/her) back toward the water.

A wondering soul in the form of a turtle

Our apartment is very centrally located within 1 1/2 blocks of one of the main Subtre (subway) lines. These are our main method of transportation around the city, although taxies are cheap and extremely readily available. It is the black glass front building you can see in this picture, just past the statue of Man of La Mancha â€“ Don Quixote and his house.

A view towards our apartment from the Av. 9 de Juilo, the widest street in the world

Travel

Back in Buenos Aires

January 21, 2008 jd

We left Bariloche Friday the 19th on a bus at three in the afternoon and arrived the next day at ten thirty. The ride is very comfortable and the seats fold down to make a bed. A hot meal is served at night and a very light breakfast in the morning.

We checked into our apartment which is right downtown and about five blocks from the Obelisco. The Obelisco is a monument to Buenos Aires and was built in 1936 in just thirty one days. It was built to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first, but unsuccessful founding of the city in. It was later founded in 1580.

Under the Obelisco is a shopping center and underground pedestrian causeway around the center of the subtre (an underground subway) The shops are old, dating back to the 1960’s. It’s called the Paseo Obelisco, with not much for shopping, a few barber shops, cheap clothing, cafes and other little shops. Three subways or metros meet at the Paseo Obelisco.

The Oblisco on the Avenida 9 de Julio micro central Buenos Aires

Later in the night we went to a restaurant that had a tango show. Dinner, the show and a small bottle of wine was only 70 pesos or so, about 22 bucks, we could almost touch the dancers. The dancing and singing was wonderful and full of great energy. The last time I was here I had my camera pick pocketed. This time, I bought a Cannon SD750 for our trip. I really like this camera, it’s small, you can put in your pocket, out of sight, and in crowded areas, I put both hands in my pocket. I put a four gigabyte card in the camera and was able to take movies of the dancers with plenty of memory to spare.

Tango dancers at their best

Another tip, if you have a laptop, download your pictures every night, then if your camera is stolen, you still have the pictures you took. That’s what I did last time, and only lost that one days’ worth of pictures.

Then on Sunday we went to San Telmo, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, it was the home of the very wealthy until the 1877 outbreak of Yellow Fever. It is the barrio most identified with the tango, also lots of shops selling antiques. On Sundays there is a huge market inside of Plaza Dorado (an entire block of stalls) and all the way up and down Calle (street) Defensa is a huge open air market. It is at least 13 blocks long, with no cars allowed, only side to side artesans selling their wares. And many of the side streets add another block or two of people selling there wares. It took us all day to complete the circuit. So that was the good part of the day, what comes next wasn’t so funny.

Judy and I were walking on down town street broad daylight, returning to the apartment when we both felt a sudden splash on our backs. It was a slightly smelly goop sort of the texture of weak concrete. Immediately, a women walking beside us came over to help clean it off. Then a man comes from the other direction, pointing up to a window he says he saw some one throw the stuff at us. While “helping” they took my wallet out, took two hundred pesos and my ATM card. Then they returned the wallet with 2 pesos left. I had been warned about more than one person coming to your aide yet missed it when it was happening. How naive we were when it was actually happening. Oh well, I hope this helps you in your travels. The card is cancelled and we are only about 60 bucks short for the lesson.

Pick pocketed!

On Monday we spent a disappointing day going from government office to government office, waiting in line, trying to get John’s official Argentine identification number and passport. After three places and much waiting, we have a fourth place to go to tomorrow morning as everything governmental closes down by 3 PM! What a life! (Of course I don’t know when they start but I really don’t think it is earlier than 8AM. They told us to be at the next office between 9 and 3 tomorrow.