The Life of Brad: January 2016 - Started with a Bang! Surprise visitors, Bdays and Police chases

January always the month of restart which was prompted by fireworks exploding right beside us. Where do you go from there, well some surprise visitors from Calgary, some hosted Vegan dinners, throw in a few birthday parties and of course a roof top Police chase and you got a month to talk about. Also for those engineers out there I had a construction tour of a new high rise underway in Tigre.

My question is ... "Who's on top?"

WARNING - These NYE fireworks videos are Awesome!

Very cool video showing local firework displays around the city of Buenos Aires as the clock stuck midnight.

A little more intense when our neighbours across the street on the second floor decided to light up the sky. Only problem, we were on the 10 floor of our building which I guess is the explosion range for these particular fire works. WATCH IT!!!

The Cops take down our neighbours! I wish I had it all on video.

Side Story: About 8 months ago the abandoned / condemned building next to us became occupied by a few squatters. Last year I watched as the cops would gather in front of the building thinking about doing something, but they never did. Apparently there is law that you can't remove squatters which sounds ridiculous to me, but may be that's just how it works here. Needless to say nowadays the abandoned building is home to all sorts from Poor Families just trying to get by to Drug Dealers and Prostitutes. May be the government should have another look at that Squatting Law???

Video of the cops tidying up the suspected drug dealers.

Kinda dangerous; Jessy watched the
Cops stop the criminals by pulling
guns and saying "Stop or I will shoot"

Welcome Visitors: On that note, welcome to the neighbourhood friends from Canada; Marty and then later in the month Steph and Elisabeth.

Marty, a guy I worked with in 2011 and loosely knew, turned up in BA one day through a comedy of errors cancelling a flight to Venezuela after reading how dangerous it is these days and then not being allowed to enter Brasil as Canadians need a visa prior to entry. Sorry Marty, but I guess hanging out with us wasn't too bad either. Fun to hang out with you in the Southern Hemisphere.

Scrabble in Parque Palermo drinking mate

At La Colorada

Elisabeth and Stephan, newly weddings, had planned to visit BA and Uruguay, but we never did know for how long, etc. Fun to hang out with the second Anderson to visit me in BA (Tom being the first in Jan 2014). Anyhow, good to show you guys a little of my second home and Best of Luck with all the things in your future.

Look at the dishes at
Cafe San Juan

Cafe San Juan in San Telmo

Dinner reservations for opportunities to try potential plates at a soon to be Vegan Cafe - Costa Loba (soon, like 2 years soon if the chef goes for it).

First guest in 2016, Carolina and Gabby

The Chef

One of the Starter Spreads

Another day where I got to test the home made torillas
with delicious fillings.

Cooling technique for a tasty pie

Birthdays!
Sole caught up to me in years yet again and we celebrated that out at La Pelegrina with some family from as far as Calgary (her sister Gaby and Kevin and kids). Thanks for all the fun.

This is going to be good

Sole and Dad Jorge

Live band like my bday, sort of...

Kevin Morrissey in the house!

Good Team

And then Lina hosted a triple Birthday Party shaker for her, another friend of mine Patrick and some dude from her office who supplied the food, booze and the people.

Nothing like a little chugging to know it's your b-day!