Random Thoughts and Observations from Buenos Aires
December 19th, 2006
Sorry that it took so long, but here are some random thoughts and observations from the trip. For those that keep asking me about pictures, I haven’t had the time to setup gallery again on my site, but you can check out pictures at Marilee’s site, here, here, and here.
Eating
Dinner usually starts between 9 and 10. A formal dinner can take up to three hours. No one is in a rush. If you are in a restaurant, the wait staff doesn’t come by your table unless you catch their eye. They just leave you alone until you need something. Which is really great. You never feel rushed.
The portions also seem smaller. One of the days that we were shopping, we stopped at sort of a ‘fast food’ place. I say ‘fast food’ because it was a similar setup to a ‘fast food’ joint in the states, but they served things like Chicken Panini sandwiches and instead of fries, it came with a small salad. If you ordered a combo, the drink that came with it was of a size small from when I was little, probably 8 to 12 ounces.
Every single beverage that we had minus coffee, the soda at the ‘fast food’ place, and the chop (draft) beer, came in a bottle. We never had a glass of water at restaurants, it always came in a bottle.
Personal Space
Portenos have less personal space than what we are used to here in the states. They are close talkers and even closer dancers. Tango is usually danced in a close embrace, sometimes called a three minute hug, which I was expecting. But I was not expecting that in a discoteque. I was annoyed at first aat the drum and bass club when people kept bumping into me. Then I realized that it was just a personal space issue, and that they were not bumping into me, they were just dancing. Once I figured that out it didn’t bother me as much, and I just “invaded” other’s personal space as well.
Driving
We didn’t drive while we where there, but it looked like it would be a ton of fun. First of all there aren’t any large cars. They are all relatively small to the cars we see here in states. In fact the first time I drove my car when I got back I immediately thought to my self how nice it would be to drive in a smaller car. They drive like complete maniacs, but a controlled chaos sort of way. They really don’t pay attention to the lanes painted on the ground. Wherever there is space for their car to fit into, they take it. Which means a lot of tail gating. I felt like I was being driven around in a go cart race whenever we took a taxi.
Speaking of taxis, they never used their headlights at night. They only used them to flash other cars when they approached an intersection that they were not planning on stopping at. According to one of the taxi drivers that we asked, they don’t use them because they are blinding. In retrospect they really don’t need them because all of the streets are lit up with street lights.
Another interesting thing that happened to us, not once, but twice while taking a taxi was that they had problems with their breaks. The first time, the driver kept jumping out the car at red lights, with tools in hand, and kept fiddling under the hood. Marilee and I just kept looking at each other wondering what the hell was going on. The driver informed us that the brakes were not working right. He got us to where we wanted to go at a discount because he kept stopping. The second time the driver just pulled over and told us that he couldn’t take us any further because his brakes were not working well.
Taxis are pretty important part of the transportation system in Buenos Aries. I would estimate that close to, if not over fifty percent of the automobiles on the roads there are taxis.
Most motorcyclist don’t wear helmets on their heads. Some of them do, but it seemed liked most of them wore their helmets on their elbow. Which after seeing how crazy everyone drives, it seems crazy not to wear a helmet on their heads. With that being said, we only saw two motor cycle accidents. I would expect it to be a lot higher. However one of the accidents that we saw was fatal.
There are a lot of street performers in Buenos Aires. When I say street performers I literally mean street performers. At a lot of red lights there are people performing in between cars. Most of them are jugglers, but in Santiago Marilee saw a fire dancer. I wish I had seen that.
Sidewalks
Sidewalks are interesting in Buenos Aires because they don’t appear to be maintained by the city. It looks like each building is responsible for maintaining their own sidewalks, and some are more responsible than others. On one block you can go from some really nice marled sidewalk, to concrete tiled sidewalk, to a cracked and potholed full sidewalk, to a packed dirt sidewalk.
The other hazard on sidewalks is dog shit. People don’t seem to pick up after their dogs. There are also a lot of stray dogs running around.
I loved Buenos Aires. One week was way too short of a time to spend there. I can see myself living there for a little way. It was such a fun city. I plan on going back and investigating Argentina more.
