Two Virgos Travelling in South America 3: Iguazu Falls

Matj and I went to see one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. We met a friend at tourist land who helped us out to decide on how to go about Iguazu falls. Matj inspired me to do the boat under the waterfalls which was so much fun. I spotted many animals out in the wild. I spotted a Tucano and I was so happy. In town we ate great pizzas and found some craft beer. It was nice to finally drink good beer again, I found it very hard to find great Argentinian beer. Sadly our private quarters involved a smelly, dirty, run down mouldy hostel that had broken down toilets. The staff (like the staff in Buenos Aires and Montevideo) were not very helpful, not handing out any maps or giving us tourist information. Furthermore they sometimes didn’t even talk to us at all when we requested the gates to be opened. 

I forgot my passport which was necessary for ID when entering into the park of Iguazu. Never fear, this was South America and I managed to cross all the gates without flashing any ID. I noticed that all the people in front of me presented their ID with pride. 

When Matj and I finally went to the Brazillian side of Iguazu Falls, we noticed the Brazillians were far more organized. There were lines for the buses, and plenty of buses. People knew what was going on, whereas on the Argentinian side, everyone was confused. 

Matj and I went on a tour so Matj could get a little peek of Paraguay and see the second biggest hydroelectric power plant in the world, The Itaipu Dam (Itaipu from Guarani language is an indigenous word which means Sounding Stone) Matj mistakenly thought that the rest of Paraguay was like Ciudad Del Este. This is a very common mistake because all the tours take tourists across the border into this jungle of sales on the streets and people just think that’s what the rest of Paraguay is like. Which is in fact nothing at all like that. I saw quite a bit of the country and it’s so different to that place.  

Two Virgos Travelling in South America 2: Uruguay

Matj arrived in Uruguay for the very first time via the Colonia express. It was country number 47 to be posted on the flag wall. The first few things we noticed were the short funny little houses, tables, stairs and taxis. The people in the hostel were not very helpful. They were just not used to tourists and were not very knowledgeable in this area. Matj and I were lucky to have his Uruguayan friends to take us around at night and see the preparation of carnaval. It was like Brazil, so many drummers walking around the streets drumming in unison. It was so amazing! We ate chuvitos which were amazing as they are all made up to be. However, they really are just like Steak Sandwiches. 

 

We went to Punta del Este and a kind Roberto who’s retired took us out for a lovely drive to see Casapueblo. He was accompanied by Eduardo who was very wise beyond his years. I told Roberto about the small houses and tables and demanded to know why these people have such weird things. Eduardo translated for Roberto and in his response and his defense, instead, he took as for a very much longer drive after being stuck in peak hour traffic to show Matj and I that there were many huge big rich houses in Punta del Este. This meant that Roberto was a very kind man to be patient waiting in traffic and driving us around everywhere we requested and he even added extras tailored to the tourist. Everywhere we went Roberto knew everyone. He was very unlike the Argentinians who were greedy and ripped us off claiming that Matj and I would save money by them driving us to the border in a car filled with baggage. We could not move our feet, my back was sore. It was a very long 7 hour drive only to find out they dropped us off at the wrong bus station and we then had to spend another $11 AUD to get a taxi to the correct bus station. We didn’t save anytime, we had to wait another 8 hours for the bus. This greedy Argentinian asked us for another $5 AUD to pay for tolls and boasted about his cold winter trip in Feb of Europe only spending a week there, 1 day London, 1 day Paris, 2 days Rome and 3 days in Amsterdam. He was driving this way anyway and asked us for overpriced petrol money. Whereas the kind Taxi Argentinian / German old man, spoke German with Matj and decided to stop the taxi to save us money where Matj and I ran across the highway safely with our backpacks. And that was the end of Uruguay for us. Until next time when we venture back into Argentina to see Iguazu Falls. 

 

Two Virgos Travelling in South America 1: Argentina, Buenos Aires

Matj and I began our travels with a young Israel guy in his early 20’s who had no idea about life or travels. My memory serves me well from the first time I travelled to Argentina when as always the Argentinians are so helpful like when they helped us with the trains. We got to see the President of Argentina randomly walking around the city. On the walking tour the tour guide had an intense talk of the history since 1976 of the currency of Argentina. He was also very passionate about the dangers of getting run over by cars in Buenos Aires. 

 

When we got a taxi, I would talk to the taxi driver in Spanish a lot just to ensure we wouldn’t get ripped off. He was such a great driver and undercharged us that we gave him a glorious tip. On the flipside, the driver on the way back rounded up our change so he short charged us as well. The people at the hostel were not very helpful. They charged us an extra $3 USD for breakfast and we had to cook our own eggs and clean up after ourselves. However the hostel arranged Tango lessons which were quite valuable and a lot of fun. I rotated between 3 dancing partners. The Argentine was amazing, laid back and fun of course. The American was a bit lost sometimes and all over the place. The German was intense and just could not loosen up enough. 

 

Matj and I went to the tourist trap of La Boca. We had so much fun learning about a short funny little bald man (Benito Quinquela Martin). This guy was an orphan and was taken in by a wealthy Italian family. He worked hard for them to bring back the money. However he decided to do his art and left them and slept on park benches etc. He then finally made some money from his hard and gave it back to the people. We also learned that due to no electricity people had kerosene lamps and sometimes accidentally knocked them over and burned the house down. Since this was the La Boca area not known for it being important, the fire trucks would not come to La Boca and put out the fire as it was a poor unpopular area not worthy of a fire truck. So the La Boca people decided to set up their very first fire volunteer people. 

The Rise of Skywalker Szabologist Review

*** WARNING: It obviously contains spoilers!***

It was my favourite movie out of the sequel movies. I enjoyed it so much and wish the previous two sequel movies were a bit more like this. What I liked about it was that finally Fin, Poe and Rey all teamed up together on an adventure with 3PO and Chewie

A constant action chase all the way through was overwhelming and highly entertaining. There was a lot going on and to take in. It was for a hyperactive audience. I was happy to see Rey get some training from Leia. A cultural callback to a few of the many different cultures I’ve encountered in my travels on that funky desert style planet (again) where the adventure of the trio (finally) meet up with Lando. I knew it was Billy Dee under that helmet. Lando made a huge impression to say how they won the war against the Empire by doing it all together, teaming up which made them stronger in numbers. When 3PO mentioned the celebration the planet has once every 42 years, I thought it was a great call back to the 42 years of Star Wars. 

It was nice Nien Nunb have another line and keeping him all the way through the sequels. It was still sad though that R2 didn’t play a part much at all like the previous sequel movies. The Knights of Ren didn’t really do much in the movie either. I was happy to see Dominic Monaghan! Billie Lourd wearing her hair similar to Leia in a darker shade was also a nice touch. It was funny how C-3PO had to lose his memory for the sith information and then R2 retried his memories again. I had missed C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), I haven’t seen him have a huge part like this since Attack of the Clones. It was great to have him back being a big part of this Star Wars adventure again. 

I liked the CGI used for a younger Luke and Leia, it really makes me want to see what happened between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. When Rey healed with the Force, it was like the unnatural Sith way of creating life, or to stop people from dying. It was great to see Palpatine back, but if we had him back from the start of the sequel movies, we would have seen more of him develop within this final story. It was such a short funny little while of him to reamurge and then die not long after. Finally I enjoyed how Han came back to Ben in his vision to say that Kylo Ren is dead, not Ben. Luke told Ben that if he struck him down in anger he would always be with him and his father.

Driveway Heart Attack – The Fauves (Album Review)

I was one of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to see The Fauves perform a few selected tracks from this album at an unofficial album launch located in Euroa. I enjoyed the few selected tracks they decided to play live that night. After I obtained my new Fauve CD, I listened to it with 3 others in the car trip on the way back home to Melbourne. It was overwhelming and I must warn you, this album will take many listens before making a decision to love it so much. It really took time to grow on me. Maybe I’m just a biased big Fauve fan. It is quite different to other Fauve albums. I have to point out that the recording quality on this album is so high tech, clear and sounds amazing!

Disc A is 37 minutes long, featuring 11 tracks of The Fauves (now in their 50’s) representing maturity in their songwriting. When you start to play the first track ‘Muezzin for the older guy’, you do not recognize it to be a Fauves song. Be patient, it will take time for it to grow on you. It doesn’t take long until The Doctor surprises us with ‘Gone South’. Parts of the song remind me of some Cure style playing with similar guitar tones. Coxy follows up with ‘Back on the Gear’. Terry holding the fort with his curious bassline and even pulling out some slap pop bass at the end of the song. The harmonies in this song are soothing along with a creepy guitar tune.

‘Overseer’ is another new Doctor Song not to be taken too light hearted. This powerful riff delivers a feel of a bouncing belief that ‘the mission is survive’.

‘Light and Frothy’ takes us into a new dimension of Fauve creativity. Coxy sings softly yet mesmerizing. I feel like I’m in an 80’s MTV Music Video dream.

When all else fails you can count on a ‘Beta Male’ Quinoa and Kale, we’re built to fail. Such beautiful poetry Coxy has in his lyrics. This song is obviously about the underdogs. The guitar riff and vocal harmonies are fantastic.

There are beautiful ‘oh’ backing vocals in The Doctor’s ‘The Ocean Just Came’. Such a nice laid back song to slowly bring Disc A to an end.

The Doctor leads the way for the second lot of 11 tracks and drives us into Disc B with a smashing ‘Waiting for the Solo’. I’m drawn in and cannot wait to keep cruising through another 33 minutes of a new Fauves CD. Terry takes charge again with his strong sounding bass. The guitars are all over the place (in a good way). Doctor sings with strange scratchy guitar sounds in the middle of the song. But somehow this works so well and makes me feel excited.

‘Quitting The Army’ is a revisit to our classic Fauve heavy guitar feeling of a smudging effect. A very nice fit with the other songs on this album.

The Doctor once again surprises us all with ‘Notice Me’. Such a short funny little song that connects well with the other songs on the album.

The Doctor belts out the acoustic guitar on ‘Cult Classic’. It doesn’t take too long before you want to start joining in on the singing once the chorus hits.

‘Colt-Style Thinking’ is an amazing new song from The Doctor. I find the song extremely catchy and uplifting. In my opinion quite possibly the best song on the album and another new classic amazing Doctor song to hopefully be performed live on a regular basis. We have all been waiting for a song this great to add to the Fauve setlist. ‘It’s over … 4-Leaf clover’.

‘Debbie’ the song that follows enforces our faith in The Doctor once again that his songwriting techniques never fade. The mix on this song is outstanding. Terry’s bass is so loud and full with his unique bass fills and pumping the song into an existence of Fauvemania. The acoustic guitars are so clear as well as the singing harmonies and bits and pieces of electric guitar tunes lurking all over the place. Thank you so much Doctor for coming back with songs that give so much joy.

Coxy sings about how valuable the schengen area is in the ‘Eurozone’. Coxy just wants to take advantage of it all with his degree in Spanish translation. Coxy explains:

‘The Eurozone, yeah I’m into it, If I can make it there as a translator, I can make it anywhere.’

‘There’s no time like the right time to retire, from human interaction.’

This song has motivated me to use my Hungarian Passport and take advantage of the Eurozone and migrate back to Europe. It’s such a fun song. Thanks Coxy for such an inspirational new goal to look forward to.

After this moving song, The Doctor once again does not let us down by allowing Terry to play a fancy bassline that is up front loud in the mix, in your face with a touch of spectacular bass effects. I can hear another Cure influence guitar reverb tone. ‘Sinking Feeling’ for me was the best option to end this entire new journey of The Fauves latest album of 2019. The low notes that the Doctor sings have a soothing effect if you dare to join in and sing along.

Two Virgos Travelling in Vietnam (Part 1: Arriving in HCMC)

Grenauld and his friend Matteo decided to travel together and meet up halfway in Vietnam. Matteo travelled all the way from Holland with a stopover in Moscow in the minus 8.3 degrees weather. Poor Matteo was severely jet lagged with the time difference of 6 hours ahead. Grenauld travelled from Australia that only had a difference of 4 hours behind. This was very easy for him to adjust. The hostel that both Grenauld and Matteo were staying at was going under construction. A short funny little man slept on a banana chair inside the entrance of the rooms close to the door of the hostel to allow people to come in because the door lock was not yet finished. Such a poor short funny little old man had to wait hours to pick up Grenauld from the airport when he was delayed in the visa landing cue. Little did Grenauld know that his Lonely Planet guidebook recommendation was not the best advice at all. Whereas Matteo organised his Visa online and jumped through all the Visa Landing cues. Matteo boasted about his successful organisation of being able to jump the cue and not let the poor hard working little man wait so long. Matteo and Grenauld decided to write up a tally each time one of them was more organised than the other. Such typical virgos. From then on Grenauld promised himself he’d find a better alternative than using Lonely Planet guidebooks for such information. Grenauld had been using Lonely Planet guidebooks for many years. Over the years he discovered their maps were not detailed enough and just confused him more. When Grenauld was guided by those maps he sometimes ended up walking in a complete circle like he did in Bruges. Poor Grenauld looking like an idiot.

 

In the end Grenauld’s driver was still waiting for him and drove him safely (only just) directly from the airport to his accommodation. He walked into an alleyway with many different coloured lights for signs of the other hostels and massage places. He woke up the owner of the hostel and checked in without any issues. He woke up the next morning to finally meet up with his Dutch Oven friend Matteo. It was now an even score on the tallys. One all. Grenauld may have had to wait for an hour for his landing visa, but at least he was not jet lagged like Matteo.

 

Find out what happens in the next episode of Grenauld’s “Two Virgos Travelling in Vietnam” when he has an argument with the tour guide and gets sent out to the ducks for punishment.

The New Adventures of Grenauld coming soon.

This time Grenauld travels in Vietnam for 3.3 weeks with his friend Matteo. Find out what these Two Vietnam Virgos get up to in the latest installment of Grenauld’s story of:

Two Virgos Traveling in Vietnam

Szabologist Adventures – India 01: Thailand, Phuket (2011, Blast from the Past)

Whilst on the plane from Melbourne to KL, I met a lovely fellow native from Borneo heading home from his 4 years of being an international student in Tasmania. I told him of my idea to do an overseas exchange like him to go to Peru or Ecuador. I was very interested and fascinated with the 4 or more languages that he knew growing up in Malaysia. He advised me he did not have a mother tongue, his whole life has been a few different languages and he believes he cannot master one language because he knows so many. Here I am trying to learn one language of Spanish and soon a second Portuguese, I’m still way behind him. I gave him a full huge list of movies to watch as he was a movie buff. Most of them were Spanish films. I actually slept on that flight, which is something I normally do not do.

As I arrived at the Phuket airport the old man Stan picked me up on his motorbike. I was wearing my faded green jeans and embraced the nice warm weather which was such a change from Melbourne, even Janurary in Melbourne has been way too cold for me. So it was great to know that I could enjoy some warm weather finally. The old man was very careful and slow on his motorbike, he would never get anywhere past 90kph.

Stan took me out to see the Biggest Buddha in Phuket which is a relatively new attraction. I put my name on one of the tiles which will be used to build the rest of the attraction. So now the Szabologist will live forever in Phuket. Stan told me of his religion of being a Buddah as he has now married one and now resides most of his time in Thailand. He took me to the temple to pray and have a look around. I managed to dump my feet into a fish tank and let all the fish eat off all my dead skin cells. This tickled! The fish went crazy for my feet.

The old man expressed many times when he got stung by the Thai people ripping him off every time he went shopping. He explained how every time his wife who is Thai went to go and buy something, she would get the cheaper price then what Stan would get if he were to buy the same thing. Stan hated the white price, the price for whities as he would say.

This is probably my 4th visit in Thailand and I think I’ve seen enough of this Country. There is probably many other little gems or hot spots that I have missed out on in Thailand, but Phuket does not seem to do anything for me at all. I only like it here because I get to visit the old man Stan.

Szabologist Adventures 345 – Solo: A Star Wars Story Movie Reflection

Before I saw the movie of Solo, I had a good feeling about this as I knew it would be a fun adventure and action film. I predicted that it would be a lot light-hearted than all the other Star Wars movies and my predictions were correct. This stand-alone film has set itself far apart from all the other Star Wars movies as it was the first Star Wars movie that did not focus on the Empire or the Jedi. This movie had a similar tone to A New Hope as the movie was full of fun and adventure. It did not have serious or sad stories about the Skywalkers, the Jedi or the Empire overtaking the galaxy like the other Star Wars movies.

The major reason why this movie worked for me was that Alden had big shoes to fill and he delivered. I did not feel the same for Lando, Donald like Alden also had big shoes to fill, but for me, he just did not seem to be able to live up to the challenge. I loved Lando’s wardrobe of capes and his cheeky cheating during the game of Sabacc. I liked the idea that Lando’s L3-37 droid became part of the Falcon, but I did not like the relationship between them both. I didn’t like it that Beckett was famous for killing Aurra Sing, because I love that character and I would like to see her in more movies after this timeline. There was nothing else I disliked about the movie.

Every actor did a brilliant job as they worked off each other really well. The pace of the story and fun filled action kept my eyes glued to the screen. It was such a nice light hearted movie, however there were still those serious moments when Beckett lost Val and he told Han not to trust anyone. When Rio died, he regretted dying alone and advised Han not to die alone. Han waited for three years to see Qi’ra again. When he did, she had changed and found herself in a situation where she was part of a crime syndicate of Crimson Dawn. Moments like these helped to illustrate the development of the character of Solo.

The surprise of Maul at the end of the movie, put shivers down my spine. I was so happy to see the return of Maul on the big screen. I am a big fan of Maul and I have always been so disappointed to see him only to have minimal screen time and dialogue in The Phantom Menace. After the return of Maul in the Clone Wars, I had never been so happy to see this character develop. Some fans do not believe that Maul could have survived his duel with Obi-Wan as he was cut in half. I love the idea that he survived and hope that there’ll be a possibility for a sequel to Solo or that Maul may pop up in another Star Wars Story Movie.

Underground Star Wars movies like this featuring bounty hunters is really what I would really like to see after watching this amazing movie of Solo. Finally the soundtrack to this movie is powerful.

Szabologist Adventures 344 – The Last Jedi Reflection

“Hope is like the sun, if you don’t believe in it when you can’t see it, you won’t make it through the night.”

 

Dislikes

It would have been nice to see more action from the original characters. Chewie had a minor part and once again, I was disappointed that R2 and 3PO did not contribute much to the movie at all. I do understand that like The Force Awakens, this trilogy is all about the new characters. In 2013 when I discovered that the sequel trilogy featured the old crew, I thought this trilogy would have focused on Han, Luke and Leia reunited together in action. It would have been nice to focus on the new characters in episodes 10 to 12. Like The Force Awakens, this was my only major disappointment about the movie. I wish Luke did not have to die after he had projected himself as an illusion to Kylo. For a moment when I realised it wasn’t really Luke, I was relieved, but then when he passed away, I was upset. He was there on that island to die and he did pass away at peace which put my mind at ease. I was upset that we did not get to see more of Luke in action in these sequel trilogies.

 

Likes

I enjoyed the fact that Snoke was killed and we have no idea where he came from and the same with Rey’s parents that they are no one special. I had no need to find out this information and like it that Rey is not related to anyone we know. We can now move forward and enjoy the mysteries of episode IX. This movie is like the Original Trilogy where we were introduced to a universe of mystery and we ask ourselves questions like where all these characters came from. Possibly one of the reasons I did not enjoy the Prequels much was because those movies explored the answers to those mysteries. If certain things about characters are kept a mystery in this sequel trilogy, then I will continue to enjoy it more. I do not need all questions answered. I was excited to see the return of Yoda and I was satisfied and happy enough with his appearance. Kylo Ren ditched that stupid mask that contained a horrible voice which helped me to enjoy his character more than I did in The Force Awakens. I loved the visuals using the salt flats location from Bolivia with those red minerals floating around when walked on. I really enjoyed the action of Poe in his X-Wing at the beginning of the movie and his call waiting phone call prank with General Hux.

 

The character’s decisions

It was inspiring to hear Rose express that it was more important to save the people that we love rather than kill the people we are fighting against. She had realised this since she had lost her cousin in war. I have more respect for Kylo Ren now as his motive was to destroy everything, the Jedi, Luke, Snoke and the rebellion so he could rule and not serve some Master. He manipulated both Rey and Snoke so he could gain power. When he told Rey that the need for our parents is a weakness demonstrated his ultimate commitment towards the dark side.

 

The Animals

I was happy to see the involvement of the animals take part in the action. The crystal critters (the silver foxes) used their animal instinct to run away and directed the rebellion to safety. It was also wonderful to see the animals of Cantonica from the gambling coastal city Canto Bight put their trust in Rose in order to be set free. The Porgs are so cute! I loved it how they made a nest in the falcon and one of them was Chewie’s co-pilot.

 

The Direction of the movie

It was refreshing not to have the movie mirror The Empire Strikes Back or for it to be predictable. I enjoyed the fact that I had no idea which direction it was going. Luke did not spend much time at all training Rey which was great that the movie was not focused on this. Rey learned a few important things about the Force which was enough. I enjoyed the final battle that featured AT-AT’s which had a similar scenery to the Empire Strikes Back by using the salt flats (from Bolivia). Luke’s meditation trick was a nice unexpected surprise and the same with Rey and Kylo joining forces to take on the Praetorian Guards.