Archives mensuelles : août 2003

In Switzerland, banks are kind of venered and respected. They can merge, go through scandals, sack people, but they still are one of the images of the country.

As you might all know, some time ago there was a huge crisis in Argentina.

Loads of people lost a lifelong of bank savings as the economy totally collapsed. I still have to understand how this concretely happened.

As I was strolling through one of the two only pedestrian streets of Buenos Aires, I reached what looked like THE main bank area. They were all protected as Lausanne or Geneva were during the peak of the (pre) G8 frenzy, except that the palissades were of corrugated iron.

And except that there were security robocops guarding what was left of the entrance.

And except that there were crude messages insulting solely the banks on the palissades.

And except that there were demonstrators hitting the palissades and making a hell of a noise. I guess that some bank must have stolen them a lot of money.

I wonder if this happens every day. I’ll keep you posted.

What’s a good trip? For me, I might say uneventful, and that’s exactly what happened.

This first short note to tell you that I safely arrived in Buenos Aires. Leg space OK, food OK, timing OK, and what a sight arriving here by night. My private taxi was there, so was my luggage, and I am staying at least for the night in a youth hostel on what is probably the largest avenue in the world: 120 metres for 18 lanes. I haven’t counted them but I will have to check it out.

And yes, I will be careful when crossing THAT street.

There I am, at last, on the web. And, of course, subject to “Writer’s Block”, which will hopefully evoluate to “Writer’s Blog”. Day D-2 before leaving for Buenos Aires. Should start packing maybe…

Right, for the first one, this is Stephanie speaking. Jonathan is about to leave for 6 weeks in Argentina, so I kind of pressurised him to open a weblog before his departure so that the whole world can benefit from his adventures.

If you feel you need to blame somebody for the design, that person would be me. The rest of the content will hopefully be added in time by Jonathan himself.

The weblog has permalinks, comments, and (if I get it to work) an RSS feed… Enjoy!