I present Hannah Araxí…

As a friend mentioned, this whole journey started while sitting out in the desert at Burning Man 2007 and realizing that I needed to make a change from my less-than-satisfied NYC life.  It lead me to Buenos Aires, through a number of ups and downs, and now to this – an amazing family and a more permanent stay in this country I once considered a “stop along the way.”

Welcome Hannah, and thanks for coming.

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The event is being held in Costanero Sur which is near the Ecological Reserve of Buenos Aires and should be a great place for an outdoor spring show.  Tickets are on sale now.

We’ve been covering a lot of upcoming concerts recently, but it’s mainly because there are some really good acts coming for the spring and summer concert season (Dave Matthews, Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, The Pixies, etc.)

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Tickets will be available from TicketPortal although the sale date has not yet been announced.

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I guess this is a pretty valuable wheel or someone just wanted it really, really badly.  Seriously though, this was a busy street and someone managed to jack up the car, steal the wheel, remove the jack and take off.  They did leave the lug nuts laying all over the street though so at least the guy can use his spare tire.

The topic of crime in Buenos Aires deserves its own post, which I hope to get to one day…

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They’re playing River Plate with special guest Demi Lovato (whoever that is) on November 4, 2010 and tickets go on sale August 12 at 10am, so go get in line now!

Ok, so actually I did this solely for the SEO value. Now when people Google the Jonas Brothers I’ll come up and get all that teen traffic to my blog! Jajaja…

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Check out this listing from yesterday:

One slightly used Kidney for sale – $130 (Arranged for Argentina)
Date: 2010-08-10, 8:13PM ART

Hello I am a retired U.S. Army soldier who served in the Vietnam War. I am in need of money so I can pay off my Mortgage and not be pushed to the street by the Bank. It would not be good for my wife or 2 young boys to live in the street. That is why I am selling one kidney for $130,000.00 United States Dollars. You pay the medical bills if you need the kidney and you pay me for the Kidney. Have your medical doctor contact me directly to make the arrangements.

While I’m pretty sure the sale of human organs would also be prohibited in Argentina as it is in the States, one can only hope this post is a joke.  I’m not sure what “Arranged for Argentina” means either.

Ok, back to looking for used appliances…

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I’ve long been looking for something like this, and had previously been using the Ticketek site as well as the Entradas Q! blog. The problem with these two sites were that they did not list every show.

FechaDeBandas has this covered.  While the site is not pretty, their list of concerts is extensive and searching is pretty easy. You can search by venue, genre, artist, etc.  Here’s some of the better known international acts coming to Argentina soon:

September 6 – Peter Frampton
September 13 - The Scorpions (heavy metal rules here)
October 3 – Bon Jovi
October 6 – The Pixies
October 7 - Regina Spektor
October 7 – Linkin Park
October 13 – Rage Against The Machine / Queens of the Stone Age
October 13 – Echo and the Bunnymen
October 14 - Dave Matthews Band
October 22 – Green Day
October 26 – Limp Bizkit
November 4 – Jonas Brothers (unfortunately, they are popular here too)
November 6 – Black Eyed Peas
November 7 – Europe
November 13 – Creamfields
November 14, 15 – Paul McCartney
November 18 – Smashing Pumpkins
November 19,20 – Hot Festival (Scissor Sisters, Massive Attack, Phoenix, Hot Chip, Mika, Thievery Corporation and more)
November 27 – Rammstein
November 28 – Twisted Sister

Rock on.

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Anyhow, that updated post is going to take a little more time to finish, but TechCrunch just recently posted an article about how to stream Netflix from outside of the US and I thought that was worth passing on. With this solution, you can stream Netflix movies outside of the States without having to keep a VPN connected all the time.  This should significantly improve performance.

As an added bonus, on Reddit there is a recent article about how to watch Hulu from outside of the US and without using a proxy server.  This hack involves a Firefox plugin and a little more technical know how, but it may work for you.

Now to get back to watching the season premier of Jersey Shore…

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Now, while this new tool will easily jailbreak your iPhone, it will not activate or unlock it.  Activation is required whenever you update the iOS of the phone.  If you’re not upgrading and already syncing with iTunes, you’re good to jailbreak.  If you need to upgrade your iOS, then you also need to re-activate using a SIM card from your approved carrier (AT&T in the US) or via the hacktivation method.

Unlocking your iPhone requires that you install the Ultrasn0w app from Cydia once you have jailbroken your phone.  Ultrasn0w does not currently work for the iPhone 4, but an update is expected soon. (If you first want to confirm that your iPhone can be jailbroken and unlocked, there is a great guide at jailbreakmatrix.com.)

My iPhone 3GS was still running iOS 3.1.3 since that was the only version that could be jailbroken and unlocked until tonight. Following are the steps I took to back up my iPhone, upgrade to iOS 4.0.1, activate it, jailbreak and then unlock it.

1. If your iPhone is already jailbroken, open Cydia and make sure that the SHSH files are backed up.  You should see a notice at the top of the Cydia main screen.  You may need these SHSH files if you ever need to downgrade to an earlier version of iOS.
2. Connect your iPhone to your computer. In iTunes, right-click on the iPhone icon and select “Backup.”
3. Once backed up, click on the “Update” button in iTunes to download and install the latest update from Apple. This will take awhile.
4. When this finishes downloading, choose to upgrade your device and wait for that process to finish.
5. When finished, your device will reboot into iTunes. You will need to have a valid SIM card installed in the iPhone or use the hacktivation method mentioned above to activate it now.
6. Once activated, make sure your iPhone is connected to the Internet via WiFi. Open up Safari and go to www.jailbreakme.com.  Follow the instructions on the screen there.
7. This process should complete in a few minutes and once it does, your iPhone is jailbroken.
8. Now, open up the Cydia app on you iPhone. When it opens, install any updates it asks you too.
9. In Cydia, search for and install the Ultrasn0w app.  Reboot when prompted.
10. Install your carrier’s SIM card.

That’s it.  After this step, you now have a jailbroken and unlocked iPhone and can use any mobile carrier you want. I now have my iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.0.1 on Movistar pre-paid and it’s working great.

The iPhone Hacks web site has some more detailed instructions if you’re interested. Oh yeah, the US Library of Congress has now made jailbreaking legal as well, though it will void your warranty.

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Most expats who live in Argentina are on tourist visas, which are only valid for 90 days.  The tourist visa may be renewed at Migraciones for an additional 90 days, after which time you must leave the country.  This has lead many to do the “expat shuffle” – taking the morning Buquebus ferry ride to Colonia, Uruguay and returning to Buenos Aires that evening. This technically fulfills the requirement of leaving the country and gets you another  90 day visa stamp. This practice has been “tolerated” by Argentine immigration, even though several people reported being questioned about the number of tourist stamps in their passport. Once again, one never knows when they might change their policies and disallow this.

Other expats simply overstay their tourist visa and pay the relatively small AR $300 penalty when leaving the country. There have never been any problems with doing this and re-entering the country at a later point. I personally know several people who were here for many years on an expired tourist visa.

For those who are looking to be here on a more permanent basis and would like to have a long-term legal visa and DNI (the Argentine equivalent of a social security and national ID card), there are few options: marry an Argentine, have a baby here, or get a visa.  Unfortunately, the visa options are limited – you cannot simply get one because you “want to live in Argentina.” The main types of visas are student visas, work visas, rentista visas, and investment visas. (Other types also exist, but these are the most common. Consult an Argentina immigration attorney for other options.)

Student visas only apply to students, work visas require your company to provide one for you, and investment visas require a minimum investment of AR $1,500,000 plus approval of the Argentine Ministerio de Industria for your project. That pretty much left the rentista visa as one of the few viable alternatives and now it has become more limited.  The new requirement to prove and bring AR $8000 per month in passive income into the country will leave many people scrambling for alternatives as it applies to both new and renewal visa applications. (Rentista visas are granted for 1 year at a time and must be renewed for 3 years before one can apply for permanent residency.)

So, does this affect you?  Let us know in the comments.

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