I find it remarkable how often I know the name of a suburb, but need to find out the postcode.

Remarkable because posting letters is something I do only very, very rarely. And for what reason - other than posting letters - would I need to know the postcode of a suburb?

Nonetheless, I regularly find myself punching something like “albert park vic postcode” into Google, and for the most part fail to find the answer as easily as I’ve come to expect in this age of Google-is-better-than-doing-proper-research. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not alone, either.

So the solution? A few hours compiling postcode and suburb data, some PHP code, and I present the Australian Postcode Finder at WhatPostCode.com.au.

The nifty-est part is that you can start typing a suburb name - or postcode - in the search box and it will very rapidly give you a list of matching suburbs. So most of the time you won’t even have to hit enter or click the mouse. Fast? You bet.

You also get a map of the suburb, courtesy of Google. e.g. Glen Waverley’s postcode, or Rushcutters Bay in NSW

And that’s it - a simple solution to a simple problem.

Certainly one of our prime motivations for getting a “proper” place to live in over here was to get a sense of home within an entirely different culture/environment.

To varying degrees we’ve realised that aim, although I wouldn’t for a second try to suggest that an expat apartment in a nice neighborhood reflects much of real life in Buenos Aires.

What didn’t specifically occur to me is just how useful an experience it is to relax at home, when “home” is entirely different to what you’re accustomed to.

You simply can’t do it when you’re traveling in the regular sense.

Party hostels, cafes, beaches, museums, nice hotels, parks - there’s an endless list of distractions for the traveler. As much as we love visiting them, we can never truly feel relaxed in these essentially public places. No matter how fast the Wi-Fi.

Today’s “home” life involved collecting a vast assortment of cheeses, meats, wine, and preparing for our visitors tonight.

Sitting on the beanbag on the terrace chatting to family on Skype, listening to those hissing buses pass on the street.

Reading about Cristina Kirchner, set to romp in the presidency after votes are handed in tomorrow.

More than anything it was getting back after a couple of weeks exploring the icy terrain of Patagonia - having somewhere familiar to go, having a key, and a bed you’re used to.

No checking in, no currency exchanges, no hefting luggage up 3 flights of stairs. Truly decadent.

Though it still hasn’t given me sufficient motivation to blog all the adventures we stocked up on down south. In time, surely. But I hear there’s this mad waterfall 1200km north from here, so we’ll be a bit busy later this week ;-)

Chile has 214, 000 dogs, half of them are homeless. Chile doesn´t have a dog pound and no dogs are euthanased. Instead people or groups of people look after them. Everywhere you see bowls of water and sometimes little houses and blankets left out for them on the street.

The other day I found a cute dog sleeping in the morning sun under a cafe table, so I took a photo. The waitress came rushing out saying something in Spanish about “photo”. Seeing the dumbfounded expression on our faces she quickly switched to perfect English and asked us if we could email her the photo. She told us that she looks after this dog, feeding it, taking it to the vet and in her cute accent she said she “loves him”. Later that day when we came back for lunch we asked where the dog was and she told me that he was having a bath.

I guess this situation works well for people that can´t have a dog at home. It wouldn´t work for me as they would all come home with me.

As per the subject line… Very short because Im very lazy and cannot make this keyboard behave the way I expect it to.

Mendoza Bit more laid back than BsAs, great food around, we cooked up the greatest steaks ever. Really. Amazing park and some pretty swanky neighbourhoods. Crap cycling through the wine region.. seriously, who came up with that ridiculous idea? Bears no resemblance to the Yarra Valley at all.

The Andes Every bit as awesome as you´d expect. More amazing was that I still had EDGE data signal on my mobile for that facebook update I did at the top (2950m according to the GPS) Major dizzy head at the border crossing as we mucked around for an hour with customs.

Santiago. Nice. Lot like Melbourne. Rich people, lots of money around, hence stuff is quite expensive. Melbourne prices a lot of the time. Great parks, but lots of smog because its, well, surrounded by the Andes. Business-like culture, stuff happens much faster than in Argentina. Meat not as good, coffee better when its not instant.

Valparaiso Far too cute tourist town. Very nice, 24hrs was just about the perfect length of time for it. Felt like being inside an MC Escher drawing.

Pichilemu We´ve hopped on the backpacker bus today, and arrived in Pichilemu the surfing hotspot. Not so hot this time of year, but amazing coastline. And some “black” sand. Nice. Looking forward to meat & beer.

“So much better on holiday”

Several months back I was keen to get mobile data (internet) access on a prepaid mobile phone account - and discovered that this is essentially impossible in Australia.

In the UK in June I grabbed a prepaid Orange UK SIM from the supermarket, and GPRS / 3G data was enabled by default.

It continued to work when I got home to Australia.

Here in Argentina I grabbed a prepaid SIM (with a hostel address and my VIC drivers license number sufficing for the purchase identification).

Sure enough GPRS (& faster EDGE data) works out of the box, and the pricing is quite excellent too.

The ADSL we have at home here is 1024/256, for less than AU$15/mo. Economic differences make direct price comparisons difficult, but I do note that Internet access prices worldwide tend to reflect prices I’d expect in a fungible marketplace rather than the local cost structures that govern telco infrastructure. Any way you look at it, though, that’s cheap Internet.

Imagine the capital costs of providing ADSL over copper lines that have encircled this city for 100 years, traversing ancient, labyrinthine buildings, and it’s all the more impressive.

Of course, it could simply be a result of the same public policy that holds utility prices below their (rapidly rising) costs, resulting in power cuts that add plenty of ambiance to the parilla restaurants frequented by us foreigners. Which is unfortunate.

Argentine breakfast like all Argentine food is extremely tasty and extremely unhealthy.

This array of goodies are called “facturas”. You get a dozen for 7 pesos = $2.57 They give you a basket and tongs and you choose 12. Lots of fun but we are feeling a little ill right now.

We finally managed to find a tango class that was in English and open at the time that we attended.

There are 2 particularly spectacular cafes in Buenos Aires, Confiteria Ideal is the run down one. It looks perfect in the pictures but it is quite tattered. A beautiful example of crumbling grandeur. When asked why I wanted to come to Buenos Aires before I left Oz, I said that I was going for the “crumbling grandeur”. And so it is: www.confiteriaideal.com

So Jules and I were better than I expected to be but a long way from being proud of our footwork. There were dozens of whirling couples around us whilst we had lessons.

So I guess now it is time for tango shoe shopping :-)

So they have this lovely concept here of celebrating the first day of Spring. For some reason it is deemed to be on September 21st. I know this was a few days ago but Argentines are a “late” race and time has ceased to have meaning to Jules and I, so I am content to write about this after the fact.

Anyway the shop windows are still filled with colorful paper flowers and sweet smelling freesias are available on every street corner. On the actual day lots of men and boys were toting flowers. Maybe for their Mums?

Simone was performing at a festival at a warehouse called Konex. See pics here. It was dark by the time she performed so the photos are not great.

Happy Springtime to all of you.

xx Jess

Every website of every Argentine company I’ve had the displeasure of visiting has committed flagrant sins of flashturbation. Every single one is jam packed with useless flash adornments and disastrous navigation substitutions. It’s horrific. Feels like the web did in 2001.

In fact, to book our bus tickets (with full reclining bed and champagne) to Mendoza, it’ll actually be easier for me to go into the Terminal de Omnibus Retiro tomorrow morning and hurl poorly constructed Spanish at them than use their website which allegedly offers online booking.

Excited about the champagne, though ;-)

We’re pretty well settled now - and are starting to wear some tracks of familiarity into the nearby streets. It’s a strange feeling to be “walking home”, or “almost home” in another part of the world - one that I did develop toward the end of my stay in Bath this year. You know it - when you start to pull out your keys a certain distance from the front door, or you bump into someone you know. Tick that off the list of feelings we wanted to have here.

Anyway, with familiarity comes the desire to travel more - and particularly get out the city. We’ve largely decided the general details of our two major side trips now. First will be over-alp to Santiago Chile, and from there down to Chilean Lakes District then onto Patagonia via a ferry. Probably have to fly back to BsAs from down there. Looking to spend around 2 weeks on that one, though the large distances involved might extend it a bit.

(Check out the awesome ferry route in Google Earth with this link)

The other way point is Uruguay to chase some sand & surf in mid to late November. Again, we’re looking for about 2 weeks out of town, to take in Colonia, Montevideo, Punta de Este and Punta del Diablo. The latter looks to be the most amazing little fishing village right on the cusp of the travel & backpacker scene. Fingers crossed we can, for once, get in there “when it was still cool” ;-)

Uruguay is comparatively small, and very easy to get to from Buenos Aires - just a few hours on the ferry from the port over the Rio de la Plata.

It does feel awfully decadent to be spending hours - even days - researching nearby countries to visit.