Ah, so that's what it was all about.

Today we decided to take the free walking tour offered by our hostel and learn a bit about the city.  In the process we found out what the demonstration was about yesterday.  Yesterday was memorial day (March 24th, it was declared such only in 2006).  This is the date that the "Dirty War" started back in 1976.  The government that reigned from 1976-83 was the last military government of Argentina and reportedly quite keen on disappearing any opposition or supposed opposition - about 30,000 people.  But of course we also learnt about the Perons and how big the Peronistic movement was and the equal divide between love and hate for them.  More recently we learnt about the 2001 revolution and heard one perspective from a local, as well as being shown the newspaper articles about the presidents that followed.  5 in one month, and then a photo of an empty chair as they looked for anyone who was willing to take on the job.  

As you can tell there's certainly been a lot of upheaval here in the past and there continues to be plenty of protests and demonstrations in the present.  In fact demonstrations are a daily part of life and all around the city there are barricades that can be quickly drawn across the roads to block demonstrators from particular areas.  Many buildings, such as the town hall, have an obvious paintline as demonstrators throw paint at the buildings daily and every now and then it is painted over.  One particularly demonstration has been happening every Thursday since 1977.  The mothers and grandmothers of children taken during the "Dirty War" march in a circle around the Plaza de Mayo.  At first it was to find out where their children were, now it is to get justice for their deaths.  On Tuesdays another group marches who disagree with the mothers message.  Every week this goes on and each group paints messages on the ground for the other group to paint over.  

Tomorrow we will go and march on a Spanish school and demand some lessons.

Hello, Buenos Aires

Singing “Hello Buenos Aires”, not that I’ve done any singing yet.  The journey over here was the worst and longest plane trip I have ever taken.  The longest having a lot to do with it being categorised as the worst.  The first leg of the trip was the shuttle to Calgary airport.  Unfortunately there was about 3 hours between the two appropriate shuttles and as the second would have cut it fine we were advised to take the 1:30, particularly as snow was predicted for that day.  The snow came.  The previous day had been 12 degrees and sunny, but that morning there was a foot of new snow in the driveway and it just kept falling.  It was quite  a send off we received.  After 1 and three quarter hours on the shuttle we were just coming into Calgary when we saw a pack of wolves!!! Wow!  Unfortunately there were a few people on the shuttle who were cutting it fine timewise so no chance for even a quick photo. 

We then waited around at Calgary airport for 4 hours.  Followed by an 8 hour flight to Heathrow on Air Canada.  Surely the most cramped economy class seats in existence, not to mention the worst in flight entertainment.  We arrived at Heathrow without any sleep, tired and cranky.  11 hours later we were finally on our Tam Airlines flight to Buenos Aires.  This flight was pretty empty... but we were still cramped thanks to the person who completed our three being the only person in existence who didn't see the value in moving to have 2 seats to himself and leaving Jason and I with 3 between us.  Surprisingly the food was really quite good and the in-flight entertainment beat Air Canada hands down.  

This flight took us as far as Sao Paulo, Brazil in a tedious 12 and a half hours.  Where we were supposed to have a fairly quick 2 and a half hours to wait around before the final leg to Buenos Aires.  Of course we weren't counting on the fog.  All in all we made it to our hostel at 2:30pm Tuesday 24th March, having left Banff at 1:30pm Sunday 22nd March.  The time difference of 3 hours leaves us with a total travel time of 46 hours.  Phew!  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  

But I really should mention What we've been doing for the 2 hours we've been in this part of the world.  Why, marching in a typical Argentine protest of course.  We tried not to.  But everytime we turned a corner the protest was continuing.  It seemed to go in every direction.  At one point we gave up trying to get away from it and just went with the flow, the sound of the drum forcing your heart to beat, the chanting and crying.  It just felt like what you hope Buenos Aires might feel like.  Alive.  Then there was that one point where we reached another section of the protest where all the participants had their faces covered and were walking with baseball bats, needless to say we were out of that area pretty fast.  Tomorrow I will have to find a street to dance down singing "Hello, Buenos Aires"  and if you don't get the reference go watch Evita.

Canada Summary

Farewell, oh canada. On our way to the airport today we had one final treat... a sighting of a wolf pack right outside Calgary. Cool!! Unfortunately being an airport bus there was no chance of stopping to take a closer look or even a photo. But a very nice way to end our stay.

What to say about our time in Canada? It certainly wasn't what we expected. We planned to spend a few months of our lives concentrating on skiing and in the process becoming fit and proficient in at least one sport. An early injury laid that idea to rest. Instead it became a time of reflection and of really deciding what we want out of life. Where we want to live and how we want to do it.
So what have we learnt:
1) Winter is fun, for a week or two. But neither of us ever want to live anywhere that has winter like they have here in Banff. Constantly putting coats and boots and gloves and beanies on and off, on and off... it's enough to drive you mad. When you have to put on more layers than you have limbs, it's just too many.
2) Thin rugs on top of carpet are just dementing, particularly when they are in every room!! They constantly get wrinkled and when you're cleaning, you have to vacuum the floors twice.
3) A small house is all we really need. Mega-mansions don't appeal at all.
4) For the first time on the trip we really started to miss working. When traveling we were always busy enough that we didn't feel the need to work. Here we have had a lot more time and found ourselves searching for neuropsych and engineering jobs back in Sydney.
5) We would ideally love to live near a beach. Warmth, sun and sand. Ah, heaven. This may be emphasised by the current, cold, snow and mountains surrounding.


I don't want to make it sound all bad though. So here are the things we will miss:
1) Snuggling together under a blanket watching the snow fall outside.
2) Checking each morning to see whether any deer or elk are outside or if they came during the night.
3) Trying to convince a squirrel to pose just so for a photo.
4) Having a really great kitchen to cook in.
5) Walking in the nearby forest by only the light of the moon.

Why you should always have travel insurance

Monday morning dawned cold, cold and snowy.  Despite it now being theoretically spring it was around -25C and snowing, so neither Mum nor I were keen to go skiing.  Dad and Jason waited until it had warmed up a bit (-18C) and went up together for the afternoon.  Then at 4:30pm or so Dad called to let Mum know that he had had a 'bit of an accident' and was on the way to the hospital with Jason driving and could she call the insurance company and the hospital.  Now for those of you who know how much Jason loves driving, particularly in a huge tank of a 4WD on snow and ice covered roads on the wrong side of the road, you would understand that this fact alone let us know how much Dad must be hurt.  

It turns out he was skiing down a black mogul run and got the turn wrong going over and landing on his shoulder.  He dislocated his shoulder and broke the arm in the process into multiple pieces.  He also tore the ligament in his thumb (on the other hand) completely off the bone.  From Banff he was transferred the 200km to Calgary for surgery to repair his arm and shoulder.   He now has a plate in his shoulder and 7 screws keeping it together.  When I left the hospital he had moved from being miserable and in pain the day before to being bored at having nothing to do.

There are a few raves that came out of this.  The first was for Avis.  The car was supposed to be returned to Calgary but none of the three of us wanted to drive it.  So someone from Banff Avis drove up to our house to pick up the car (he was the only one on duty so had to leave his car here) and said there would be no charge for it.  My parents were insured through the flight centre insurance "Covermore" and I can not recommend them highly enough.  Everytime we called they had all the details of the case on hand, purely based on our surname.  They were incredibly proactive calling the hospital, the surgeon, organising new flights with a business class upgrade for both Mum and Dad.  Our rough calculation is that they have paid out around $50,000 and almost all of this they have paid directly.  They weren't able to pay the Banff hospital directly as Banff refuses to deal with insurance companies but everything else they have taken care of.  

Ice, snow and mountains

One of the highlights of our trip to Canada so far has been a drive up the icefields parkway from Banff to Jasper.  We had planned the day carefully picking the day with good weather forecasted and a night with a good chance of seeing the northern lights forecast.  (How do you get a northern lights forecast, you ask - go to www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast)   When we woke up in the morning, however, we couldn't see the mountains surrounding Banff at all and the snow was coming down.  Our expectations for stunning views thus lowered we set off anyway.   Luckily by the time we got to Lake Louise we had left the snow behind us and the views were looking good.  It ended up being great weather for the trip.  There were occasional snow showers but at all the major lookout points we had great views.   One place on the drive is called the weeping wall which in winter is one massive sheet of icicles.  We were happily gawking at this wall and taking photos when suddenly I realised there were 4 ice climbers on the wall.  The fact that we didn't notice them gives you an idea of how big this wall is.  Sure enough a quick look back at the photos showed that they had been there the whole time.    

The hotel in Jasper was absolutely lovely and we went out for a nice dinner to celebrate Jason's birthday whilst we were there.  Then at 11 pm we wondered out onto the street to see the northern lights... which weren't there.  Hmpf.  We have looked out most nights in Banff as well, but it seems that the combination of not being far enough north, being in the mountains and it frequently being cloudy mean we aren't going to get to see them on this trip.