In October 2012 we went to Argentina for our annual vacation.  Argentina is a big chunk of land and there is enough to see there to stay for a month or more.  In fact we met a retired couple that did just that.  With our jobs and using vacation days to visit family we can usually only get 10 days in.  We opted to visit he glaciers in Patagonia, Buenos Ares and Uruguay.  Our first stop was Patagonia.  Pardon the date and time on the pics.

Downtown Patagonia is pretty but there’s not a lot to it.  You can walk from one end to the other and along the way you will find outdoor clothing specialty shops.  Brands like… Patagonia, North Face, etc.  There is also native art shops.  We were able to find a lot of small treasures for sale, hand-made art work, sculptures and paintings.  Basically souvenirs for our family and friends.   And last but not least steak houses (more on that later).

Our hotel in Patagonia was amazing, thanks to my wife for all the research and planning.  I basically tag along and have fun.  This pic is of the lobby lounge, fire places, large table (8ft by 6ft, maybe bigger) surrounded by oversized couches and native art.

The main attraction in Patagonia is the glaciers.  There are several tours, we opted for the short walk.  Drink fresh glacier water straight from the source.  Spoiler alert, at the end of the hike we got Jameson’s Irish Whiskey on the rocks, rocks chipped from the glacier.  I hope this isn’t a source of “climate change”.

We took a bus to a boat ride to hike to the place where we walk on the glacier.  It sounds like Planes, Trains and Automobiles and it sort of is.  This is an all day trip so plan to do it then go back and rest.

Our group went on the “short hike” about an hour or so.  There is a long hike that goes for 3-5 hours with lunch (I could be confusing hours for miles).

The views were spectacular.  Lots of interesting folds in the glacier surface producing shades of deep blue.  Sun glasses are a must as you will get blinded.  And gloves are required.  The glacier ice is razor sharp, fall on your hands and you will cut them up.

Fresh glacier water soon to appear in bottles at your grocery store near you.  We filled up for free.

The best part for me, Jameson’s on glacier rocks.

Our next stop, and the home base for the rest of the trip was Buenos Aires.  Buenos Aires looks like any big city but with a lot of old world European architecture scattered throughout.  If not obvious, or common knowledge, Argentina was settled by the Spanish and gained independence from Spain after the American revolution.  While we were in Buenos Aires we did several things; a city tour with a tour guide, a trip to a Goucho Farm (with a group of hung over grumpy young women from England), Naval museum (I seem to have an affinity for them), day trip to Uruguay, dinner theater with a Tango show.  Pics provided below.

Our hotel lobby in Buenos Aires.  Another spectacular place and the site of 1) a Hasidic (possibly Lubavitch) match maker meeting and 2) a convention of white Sikhs, complete with daggers and turbans.

The next several pics are from our trip to a Gaucho farm.

The outside of the main house, my wife with the tour guide.

A view from inside the kitchen area.  Everywhere I go I see guitars.

A horse whisperer practicing his craft.

My wife getting ready to ride.  We all went in a horse ride with a leader and a professional rider behind us to keep everyone’s horse in line.  My horse had issues with that, he was quite an individual and not a follower.  He kept turning behind the rear leader and butting his horse with his head.  That was funny.

Part of our lunch, a BBQ with all farm raised beef, chicken, and other meats and meat products.  Argentina is NOT a place for vegetarians and we got to see that first hand.  The group of ladies from England were all vegetarian, two white and two Indian Brits.  It is as if Argentinians have never heard of vegetarianism.  These poor girls almost starved and I had enough for 5 or 6 people.

A view of our dinning room from inside the farm house.

Uruguay is a small independent country a short boat ride from Buenos Aires.  We went there for a day.  Uruguay has a very interesting history, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and other European settlements are all crammed together in the historic part of this country.  We were told that you could tell what settlement you are in based on the shape of the brick road and drainage curbs.

Though Uruguay is beautiful there is a dark element to its history. As we were informed by our tour guide Uruguay is the only South American country to successfully eliminate its native american population.

Both Uruguay and Argentina have a large population of stray dogs. This was a bit of a shock to me and actually scared me when we were in Uruguay.  In the US stray dogs are usually rabid and we’re taught to stay away from them.  In Uruguay pet owners are charged a high tax per pet to support government programs to care for stray dogs. They are large breeds, Labrador, Sheppard, Rottweiler, etc.  And they are all well fed.  Local businesses are required to leave water and sometimes food out for the strays.  They are actually very friendly, just want free food and they’ll follow you around until they get it or get tired.

The food we had there was not memorable, a tour group recommended a few places.  As with all South American countries Uruguay has churches.

Next, back to  Buenos Aires.  Before touring the city we spend a night at a Tango show.  It’s a dinner show complete with steak, bottles of Malbec, and live music and dancing.

The show wasn’t just a dancing show.  It was sort of a musical about the history of the Tango.

The rest of the pics are from all over Buenos Ares.  Some are just downtown buildings but a few have a theme.  There is a tour of a graveyard, Naval museum, and the town center.  Captions tell the story.

What better way to start a tour of Buenos Aires than with a tribute to Jose San Martin, the General who led the fight for independence against the Spanish.  He is their equivalent to our George Washington and led the revolution after becoming a Free Mason, like Washington.  Because of his oath as a Mason he is not buried in consecrated ground.  The Catholic Church had made it illegal for a Catholic to be a Mason (and this is still the case).  Mind you the Masons will accept a Catholic as a Brother but the Church will not consider you a Catholic once you swear an oath to another institution.

This is the first piece of street art I see outside our hotel.  So nu.  It says a lot.  It is pretty well known that Argentina was a final stop for Nazi war criminals, though I don’t think they would advertize like this.  There is also a large Jewish community in Argentina.  What is probably not as well known are the following two points of history. First, that during the beginning to the Zionist movement when European Jews were looking for a place to build a nation they were considering Argentina, which in the 1800’s had the largest amount of available fertile land that was not being farmed.  Second, that during this same time Argentina was implementing a Eugenics program. They had outlawed slavery in the early 1800’s but rather than free existing slaves they were all sold to Brazil and North America.  They wanted an all white population.  They also advertised in Europe that migrants willing to come permanently to Argentina could acquire land from the government.  What they didn’t advertise outright was that the criterion for admission was a pure white European blood line.

The past is the past and now it seem like a pretty progressive place. Though like all South American countries it is mostly Catholic and Buenos Aires was not as ethnically diverse as Rio de Janeiro.

Some more serious street art to lighten the mood.

Outdoor sculpture garden near our hotel.

This is an interesting piece.  A large mechanical flower with light sensors.  This is supposed to close in the evening and open in the sunlight but it’s broken.

Modern art, anyone.

My kind of guy.  The culture of Argentina, the Tango for example, is heavily influenced by Flamenco.

Here are a few views of the town center of Bueno Aires.

Every week there is a meeting of the Mothers of the Disappeared, a group of women whose children were detained by the Argentinian government during a period of military dictatorship from 1976-1983.

Everywhere you turn there are exquisite works of art.

We took thousands of pictures, too many to post and I can’t post enough to do justice to Buenos Aires.  Patagonia is the great outdoors and Buenos Aires is a real large city with so much eye candy your head will spin.  You’ll have to use your imagination.

Below are few shots of the Naval college and an old ship you can tour.

One of the more interesting tours was of a grave yard.  They bury their people above ground in very nice looking structures, apartments for the afterlife.

There were no shortage of ghost stories related to the deceased residents.

The resting place of Evita.

I’ll finish off with a picture of me and my dinner.

Here are a few things to consider about Argentina.

1.  Like Brazil, it’s expensive.  Be prepared to spend money, especially on food.

2.  There are stray dogs everywhere but they are friendly, don’t worry.  But I wouldn’t play with them either, just let them be.

3.  There are at least three major tours you can do, The glaciers at the southern tip, wine vineyards, hiking through the Amazon.  Each of these would require a separate accommodation and a few days to enjoy.  We opted for glaciers and loved it.  If you have the time spend three weeks there and see everything.

4.  People speak spanish but you are more likely to get broken english here than in Brazil.  Learn to say Habla English, por favor?  It will likely get you something.

5.  Buenos Aires is like any inner city, there are bad neighborhoods. Our tour guide was able to tell us what places to avoid.  But one thing we saw was a  mugging on the street in broad daylight.  The muggers were a well organized group of three or four men.  The woman they targeted was over 60 and wearing gold jewelry.  Don’t wear anything of value period.  And, carry your wallet or money and ID in your front pocket.  Carry purses and backpacks in such a way that you can see them and the are not easily accessible.

6.  Vegetarians will die here.  Argentina is home to some of the best beef in the world.  This is no exaggeration.  They know how to raise beef cattle and they know how to cook it so that what you eat is a memorable experience.  I can honestly say that of all the steak I’ve eaten in America, it was good but rarely memorable.  The beef in Argentina is like a religious experience, I can still imagine the flavor. A couple other foodie items are Mate’, a native tea drink and Cafe con Crema.  They serve espresso and coffee with a thick buttery sweet cream that I cannot find in America.

7.  Plan ahead.  Don’t do what we did.  We went to Patagonia for 2 days, maybe three, since we only planned to see glaciers then move on.  But we didn’t book a tour until we got there.  Well by the time we settled in on our first night we had about 10 minutes to run to a booking agent for a tour the next day.  Things need to be booked at least a day in advance and they fill up fast.  We almost lost out.

copyright 2014 David R Bergman

We went to Rio de Janeiro in 2011 for the 18th International Congress on Sound and Vibration.  I had an abstract accepted for this conference and my wife and I decided to make a vacation of it.

We didn’t venture away from Rio, but there’s a lot to see in Rio.

Here are my experiences and impressions.

1.  Weather was perfect, beach weather every day if you like that sort of thing.  I don’t, I’m not a beach person, but the scenery is beautiful.  Just look.

2.  The landscape is amazing.  I’ve been all over the world and so far the landscape of Rio is the most exotic I’ve ever seen.

3.  Damn expensive!  Don’t expect your US dollar to go far.  Unfortunately things are expensive.  Food was quite expensive and we found ourselves eating at small food shacks on the beach to save money.

4.  Some of the food at the food shacks is incredible.  If you want the best breakfast sandwich of your life this is where to get it.  On a bun or small loaf of bread you will get, the kitchen sink (I think that’s what they called it).  Imagine a fried egg, cheese, ham (pretty standard), several other types of fried cold cuts, hash browns or other fried potatoes and onion and pepper mix, lettuce, tomato, and other salad fixins, a chorizo, chicken breast, and basically one of everything the proprietor has on the grill.  This was a memorable eat.

5.  People don’t speak a lick of English so don’t try to push that on them.  At hotels and tourist sites employees will most likely speak English or be able to get someone who does.  But everywhere else, no way, you’re on your own.  Learn some Portuguese.

6.  There is a Brazilian food concept that is popular in America, the Brazilian steak house, more appropriately Meat house and all you can eat everything else.  Here for example we have Fogo de Chao.  They can be quite expensive but they are all you can eat establishments.  The most popular in Brazil is called Porcao (The Big Pig).  Skewers of every kind of meat imaginable are brought to your table and pieces dropped off, all night long.  There is a buffet with all sorts of salads and side dishes; rice, casseroles, chicken, cold cuts, fish (both cold and cooked) and Sushi.  That’s right sushi as a side order.  There is no food that I can think of that was not present.  And if you don’t see what you want you can still order it al la carte.

7.  The people and culture are exotic.  This is expressed in the last example.  Sushi at a steak house?  Yes that’s the Japanese influence.  Every group of people who have migrated there have brought something to the table and it has become integrated into the culture.  Everyone is Brazilian!  This is part of the attitude there that makes you feel at home.

8.  It is very religious, mostly Catholic.  Many of the most memorable tourist sites were old Catholic Churches.  They were beautiful inside and out.  But culturally the people of Brazil are outwardly religious.  Tour guides will ask you if you are Catholic or not.  This is not a private topic like it is in America so don’t be surprised if people ask.

9.  Unfortunately it can be dangerous in the wrong area.  I would not go on a walking tour of the Favelas and some of our tour guides had horror stories for us about being caught in cross-fire in their own apartments.  That can happen on a visit to Chicago if you’re not careful.  I would not be scared of vacationing in Rio, just careful.  Plan ahead, ask your hotel concierge what the best course of action is or what the best tour companies are.  Stay on the regular path.

10.  Jujitsu.  If you are a martial arts fan, especially Jujitsu then you are in a holy land when you visit Rio Brazil.  This is the birth place of Brazilian Jujitsu and the Gracie family.  While we were there an international MMA conference and competition was going on, fighters from all over the world were on the streets of Rio.

11.  Music.  Brazilians love great music and host an annual event called Rock in Rio.  The line ups are usually pretty impressive and if you like large out-door festival style concerts I’d plan a trip when Rock in Rio is on going.  It’s supposed to be one of the best festivals in the world.  Brazil is also the origin of Carlos Antonio Jobim, the father of what American’s call Brazilian Jazz or Bassa Nova.  So Brazil is the birth place of a lot of great things and they know it.

12.  There were many tours available and beautiful things to see, Sugarloaf Mountain (shown above), Corcovado, Military Museum, Forests and Waterfalls.

We are waiting for an opportunity to go back.

copyright 2014 David R Bergman

I moved to Southfield MI in August 1999 to start my first job right after finishing my PhD.  The position was Senior Lecturer of Physics at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield.  Southfield borders Detroit, you know that city with a reputation for 50$ detached single family homes.  I had never lived outside of the Chicago land area and had a lot of misconceptions about life in America that led to some very humorous anecdotes.

First off I found an apartment about a mile from the university, let’s say within a mile, on Civic Center Drive.  This road is parallel to the “mile” roads, 8 mile, 9 mile, etc and if memory serves me it was a half mile north of 10 mile.  So, it’s my first day of work and I walk outside and stand at the corner.  Why?  Because everyone knows that’s where the buses stop.  If you’re thinking that I should have known better because there was no bus sign then you’ve never lived in a real inner city.  Street signs are there for the pickin’.  They typically become garage and basement wall decorations, occasionally finding their way into a teenager’s bedroom.  So I stand there waiting impatiently.  They should be coming every 15 minutes right.  Finally I see some folks, mostly elderly, congregating on another corner so I walk on down figuring I got the wrong corner.  A small bus eventually comes but as I go to get on it the driver stops me and asks me if I’m going to the hospital.  No, I’m going to work, I say.  She responds this bus only picks up folks going to the hospital.  I inquire about other buses, she laughs “This is Detroit, you ain’t from around here honey, ain’t no buses”.  I walk to work, 1 mile.  Then home 1 mile.  For the next year I’m walking 2 miles a day 5 days a week, in all kinds of weather.  And that’s just the beginning.

My fist lesson, ain’t no buses anywhere around Detroit and the neighboring suburbs.  In between home and work there was one tiny strip mall with a convenient store, maybe attached to a gas station, I don’t remember.  The only food, Doritos, Slim Jims, Tiny Powdered Doughnuts.  Yum.  The suburbs around Detroit were built for driving, major roads are 1 mile apart and indicated by name, 11 mile, 12, mile, very creative.  Between each mile there are subdivisions with winding roads that turn and twist and after a few miles deposit you right where you started, like you just walked through some kind of portal into another dimension, spooky.  I finally found a Target, Barnes And Nobel, and a Farmer Jacks (their chain grocery store), each on a different “mile” road and each about a mile either East or West of my place.  There is no public transportation and the roads are not designed for pedestrian traffic!  That’s another story altogether.  So I eventually map out safe walking routes to all these places, 2.5 to 5 miles is the typical distance I walk to get to any of these places.  If I’m going to BnN that’s a day trip, I pack a backpack and plan to sit in the cafe and eat there.  But I gotta eat something other than Doritos on the evenings and weekends so every 2 to 4 weeks, on a weekend day, I hike to Farmer Jack with a large backpack.  I shop for a few weeks worth of food and hike back home with 20-50 lbs of food on my back.  Along the way I have to walk on the shoulder of a major road that goes over an expressway.  I become a local site, “That Guy That Walks on the Overpass”, you gotta see him.  I had people offering me rides (not a safe option anywhere but especially near Detroit) and once in winter in the middle of a snow storm someone stopped on the overpass to take a picture, you know, of “That Guy That Walks in the Overpass”.  Who does that?  After a year I got a body like an Olympic track and field star.  Skin on muscle and resting rate of 32bpm.  Blood pressure of 100/55.  31 inch waist, smaller than I was in high school.  Cholesterol of about, let me think, 300.  It turns out that the closest place to work to get food was a Wendy’s.  I loved Wendy’s and twice a day almost every day I’d get a triple bacon cheese burger, biggie fries (maybe two) and a biggie chocolate frosty, then Doritos and doughnuts for dinner.

Lesson number two, fit on the outside doesn’t equal fit on the inside, just like in the Lipitor commercials.  Well, I was young and after 3 months on a diet of fish, wild rice and steamed veggies my cholesterol was down to about 210.  It sounds bad but it wasn’t.  There are a lot of nice places in and around Detroit the problem is that they’re spread out so far from each other that you can’t enjoy them without a car.  I started to get into the habit of going to a car rental service that had a Rent a Wreck program on weekends, 10$ a day for three days.  Then I could start to enjoy things.  The second year I lived there I did get a hand me down car from my parents.  To accommodate the extreme distances the speed limits are quite high, the highest I’ve seen anywhere in America.  Adding on a reasonable buffer you could go close to 100mph on the major expressways.

So what was nice about Detroit and the surrounding areas?  A lot actually.  There are some real gems.  For those who like to shop the Somerset Collection in Troy is spectacular, like a small self-contained city, twin cities connected by an indoor overpass.  My wife and I went on the largest shopping spree of our lives there and we don’t even like shopping.  They had a J. Peterman store.  I thought they made that up for Seinfeld but it’s real.  On Woodward Ave in Berkley MI I found the Chinese Academy of Martial Arts.  I am a life long practitioner and student.  It’s a beautiful place offering Tai Chi and External Arts which were a mix of striking, grappling and throwing arts.  I was a student there for about 9 months.  There is a neighboring suburb called Royal Oak which is a little more like a city, with sidewalks with lots of shops and restaurants etc.  It was more walking friendly.

But by far the best place was Baker’s Keyboard Lounge.  This place is right on 8 mile road on the Detroit side.  It boasts of being the oldest Jazz club in America.  I have a few stories about this place.  On my first trip there I parked in the neighborhood, a few blocks away from the place, towards 7 mile.  It didn’t look too safe, row houses with bars on the windows and doors.  Some had the doors propped open, in the middle of winter, with lines of men standing around waiting to go in (at night).  You can use your imagination, I don’t think they were soup kitchens.  So I parked and walked to Baker’s.  They were having an open mic, and me without my guitar.  The food was excellent, southern home cooking.  For about 7$ at that time you could get three large deep-fried pork chops with 5 sides; sweet potato, collard greens, red beans and rice, etc.  They had a lot to choose from.  I listened to great music and met several musicians, exchanged contact info etc.  It was about 2am when I said I got to go.  One of my new friends asked if was parked in the lot, I wasn’t.  When I told them where I parked they proceeded to tell me my car might be gone or stripped.  They could have been pulling my leg but I don’t think so, they seemed genuinely concerned.  I got an escort to my car, big scary looking dude.  The car was there and everything was fine.  I went back several times and always used the lot.  On one trip to Baker’s it turns out that the entire woodwind and horn section of the Detroit Symphony was there for an open mic.  I got to hear an hour long version of C Jam Blues and every member of DS took a solo.  I can say it was great but the rhythm section was not enjoying it.  They got worked to the bone and never got any.  There were a few other great places, Cisco’s Blues Bar and Bird of Paradise in Ann Arbor.  I have a great story about Cisco’s but I’ll save that for another blog.  Last but not least there’s Windsor Canada.  Many folks working in the Detroit Metro area would cross the bridge and do lunch in Canada, I did a few time with people from LTU.

Another point is that people are very friendly in the Detroit suburbs.  I’m not used to strangers striking up a conversation.  I’m not saying I grew up in tough bad ass neighborhood but there was an edge to things, weirdos on the Clark St Bus (everyone on the North side knows about the freak show), street gangs, schizoids talking to walls, etc.  You typically didn’t walk up to a stranger and make small talk and officer friendly taught us never talk to strangers or get in a stranger’s car.  In my first week living in Southfield I was walking down CCD in the evening and came up to a middle-aged couple, 50 something in my opinion.  As we approached each other I noticed them looking at me, trying to make eye contact and smiling.  Am I in Pleasantville, I thought to myself.  The man looked at me and said “Hello, isn’t it a beautiful night outside?”  I looked around to see if there was someone behind me that he might be talking to.  I said “Do you know me?  I could be a mugger or something.”  He and his wife laughed and laughed and like the bus lady he said, “Son, you’re obviously not from around here, people are friendly here and talk to each other.  Have a nice evening.”  I guess I’m not very friendly, but I started softening up over the next few months.  My apartment was nice and the management very responsive.  I’m used to landlords cheating me out of things and having to fight to get new appliances, heat in the winter, faucets in the bathrooms etc.  Here if I put in work request things were fixed within an hour.  I could live with that.

All in all I have many fond memories of living there but I’m not into putting 200 miles a day on my car just to get to a couple of places.  What I had in MI I could walk to or get to by train in a big city.  There were a few other negatives about living near Detroit.  Drivers do not expect to see pedestrians, they NEVER look both ways when turning or yield right of way to pedestrians.  On one occasion I was lightly clipped by a car making a turn while I was running.  Every morning the news was shocking.  Five city blocks on fire in Detroit, 3rd month of no garbage pick up in Highland Park and Mayor’s office is a P.O. Box, Detroit declared a national emergency Clinton/Bush to send federal aid, Former police chief house raided and child porn ring unearthed.  These things happen everywhere but they seemed to happen 3 or 4 at a time, every day near Detroit.  A friend there once joked, “well, you’ve seen RoboCop, right?  That’s Detroit.”  The cost of living is very cheap and on a teacher’s salary I felt like I could have a good quality of life but at the end of the day I didn’t like everything being spread out, I don’t like cars and don’t really want to own one.  People there would drive to the end of the driveway to get their mail.  Too much.

One final anecdote to sum things up.  While I lived there my wife was doing a post doc in Ottawa Canada.  Every other weekend and on long vacations I would go up there.  I usually took a shuttle to the Detroit Metro airport (used to look like a slum but is very nice after the renovation).  On one such occasion my shuttle was late due to a major accident on an expressway.  I kept calling the company for status updates.  Eventually a man came to my door, apologizing profusely.  He picked up my bags and asked “When will David Bergman be here is he coming out?  Do you work for him?  I’m so excited to meet him and very sorry I’m late…”  He proceeded to tell me about the accident and how he drove up the expressway shoulder and through a fence to get here for David Bergman.  As we walked out of my front door and turned to the street I saw a van with about 6 people standing around with cameras.  Some flashed prematurely while others lowered their cameras and shouted “Where is he.  Where is David Bergman”.  I was freaking out a bit but I stood there and said “I’m David Bergman”.  They were quite deflated.  The man turned to me and said “You’re not the pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, are you a relative?”.  Nope, sorry to disappoint you.  That was my 15 minutes of accidental fame.

Last but not least, Ted Nugent is King there.  If you ever go there you’ll know precisely what I mean.

copyright 2014 David R Bergman

I lived in Columbia MD for about 3 years.  This is a very attractive Maryland city.  According to legend it was a completely planned city, and it shows.  Everything you could want or need is within a short drive from any point in the city and everything is accessible, e.g. driving is easy, traffic flow is usually light.

I lived right across from the big mall, Columbia Town Center, and across from the local public library and an apartment of the same name as the mall.  The rent was quite pricey but apartments were very clean, up to date, and the building was very safe.  The management was very responsive to requests from tenants.  So, if I had to live in Columbia again I would probably go to the same apartment complex.

You are pretty close to Baltimore and DC.  Distance wise they might be about the same but time wise Baltimore is definitely closer.  Outside of rush hour traffic you can get from Columbia to Baltimore in less than 30 minutes.  Columbia itself is pretty low key, a family city.  If you want excitement or night life you’re taking a trip to either Baltimore or DC.

Right near the area I lived there was, as I said, the mall, an outdoor concert venue, Merriweather Post Pavilion, many small lakes and forest preserves with hiking trails, many good restaurants (a lot of ethnic variety), Trader Joes, Whole Foods, etc.  It is a very peaceful place for the most part.