The Sidewalks of Buenos Aires

I feel as though I should preface this particular blog with a disclaimer. I recently had my wallet and phone pick pocketed while on public transit. This event has left me quite bitter with Buenos Aires. I am confident that this state of mind will leave soon and I will return to my former state of city admiration but for now you can enjoy reading about many of the things that drive me slightly bonkers on a daily basis.

1. Argentineans are always in a rush, yet never in a hurry.

For the last month and a half, I have been pushed and shoved onto and out of trains, buses and airplanes. People regularly cut in front of me in line without a second thought. It is a small wonder that I have not fallen on escalators as people knock me to the side as they clamor up to the top. You would think that this aggressive behavior might be indicative of people in a constant hurry, but, strangely, it is the exact opposite. I am regularly pushed out of the way as people rush to exit the train but then get stuck behind them on the street as they walk at a pace slower than 2mph. It is confusing, frustrating and downright annoying. Most times I feel as though I could sit faster then they walk.

2. Walk and ride at your own risk

Although life here generally moves in slow motion, when driving cars, people are suddenly in quite the hurry. Aggressive drivers make for a horrifying pedestrian and passenger experience. Pedestrians never have the right of way and when crossing the street you just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best. If there is a car nearby they literally speed up when you attempt to cross the street in front of them. I have never seen anything like it! The city seems to have decent traffic planning but when nobody obeys traffic laws (if there are any) it creates a royally dangerous cluster fuck. There are several nice parks to run in here in the city but all of them are at least a mile from my house. Running to the parks is a little bit like playing real life frogger. I have nicknamed one road “Calle de Muerte” or the road of death because I have had near death experiences on a few occasions now.

While riding the bus home from school earlier this week I was attempting to catch up on some reading when suddenly a little red car decided to try to cut off about four lanes of traffic on the highway. The car lost control and went spinning in front of our bus and crashed into the median. Just another day on the Expreso Pilar.

3. If something stinks, check your shoes

Crazy drivers are not the only hazard for pedestrians. You must also be constantly on the lookout for dog shit. Although there are some neighborhoods where people are conscientious and pick up after their dogs, most neighborhoods (including my own) are not so fortunate. As far as I know I have not stepped in any yet but I feel like it may just be a matter of time.

I have been very surprised by how many dogs there are in the city. It seems like everyone has a dog despite the fact that most everyone lives in tiny apartments. Among my favorite city sites are the dog walkers who walk 5-10 dogs at a time. I think they spend more time cleaning up poop than they actually do walking. One morning on the way to Spanish class we saw a very distressed dog walker, surrounded by five dogs. As we walked by we saw the reason for his stress as he struggled to scrape poop of the side of one of the dogs. We deducted that he had dropped the poop on the dog while trying to pick it up. It was a hilarious site and I only felt a little guilty as we laughed out loud at him as we walked away.

4. It is okay to throw your trash on the streets, but only after 7pm

In addition to the shit lined streets, at night they are also lined with garbage. There are no garbage bins here or weekly scheduled garbage man visits. Instead, people simply throw all of their trash on the street after 7pm and at some point, a street cleaner (on foot usually) will come by and pick up the trash. It makes the evening hours a rather disgusting experience. They also tend to leave bits and pieces behind so the streets are almost always full of little pieces of trash, wrappers and orange peels.

You would think that with the state of the streets the people would not be worried if you bring your trash down a few hours before 7pm, but in fact it makes them quite angry. We have some visitors staying with us right now and they took the trash down in the afternoon and were yelled at for bringing it out too early. Not wanting to take trash back into the apartment, they divided the three small bags among several public trashcans on the street. When they returned from running a couple of errands they found that someone had dug the trash bags out of the trash and left them on our doorstep. Unbelievable.

"Studying" abroad

1. It takes planes, trains and automobiles to get to school

Okay, so maybe not planes, but getting to school is quite the ordeal. We have to walk about a half mile to the subway station and take the subway to the last stop on the line where we catch a bus that takes us for a 1.5ish hour ride to our school in the nearby suburb of Pilar. Altogether the process takes about 2 hours each way. Catching the bus is probably the trickiest part, as we have to make reservations in advance. The first day I called in the morning and made the reservation in broken Spanish. Unfortunately I was not told (or did not understand) which corner we were supposed to wait on. We asked one of the kiosk vendors on the streeet and of course he told us the wrong corner. So, we missed the bus – a great way to start the first day. We had to take a taxi, which was not only expensive but also frustrating, as the driver did not have any idea where our school was. After getting directions from a nearby Sheraton we somehow managed to make it in time for our first class. Luckily, since then we have successfully caught the bus and I think we have figured out the process so we do not miss it again.

Due to all the long commute and of the drama involved I am quite thankful that during the first three weeks of school we have only had class on Mondays. This makes for a very long Monday but it certainly beats a 2-hour commute on a daily basis. The days of luxury are over however as we have classes three days a week starting next week. Yes, I realize I am spoiled, and I will die when I have to go back to UCLA. No need to mention it.

From the quotebook: “I only have class on Monday? I am going to be drunk EVERY night!”

2. This is not UCLA

Our classes have been easy (or more than easy if that is possible). Most of them only have a participation grade (no exams or assignments). The topics are mildly interesting but I would probably not be taking any of them at UCLA if given the choice. There were only four classes available in English and those are the classes I have to take. So, I am not learning a ton but it is interesting to talk about business in Argentina. While in my (not so) Advanced Finance class we were discussing the valuation of options using the Black Sholes formula, which requires a “risk-free rate.” One of the students brought up that in Argentina there is no risk free rate to speak of so the model is impractical. In a later class, it was discussed that Argentineans do not invest money in Argentina because the risk associated with living here is enough. It seems that although the economy in Argentina is slowly recovering from the crash in the early 2000’s, they still have a long, long way to go.

3. Sometimes $1 is better than $100

The struggling economy is evident (and freaking annoying) almost every time I spend money. Anytime you purchase anything, vendors will ask if you have exact change or if you have smaller bills. The lack of change is a national crisis. When extracting money from the ATM you get 100 peso bills but breaking these bills is often like pulling teeth. The exchange rate is about 3.8 pesos per dollar so the $100 peso bill is just over $26 US yet nobody can make change for it – even reputable businesses. I purchased a soda at McDonalds on Sunday for about $6 pesos. I handed the woman a $50 peso bill and she told me that she could not make change. That is like buying a soda with a $10 bill and the cashier telling you they could not make change – ridiculous!

Coins are lacking more than anything and perhaps the most difficult coin (“moneda”) to come by is the 1 peso piece. People will often refuse to sell you items or round downward just to avoid giving you a $1 peso moneda as change. My roommate Nina and I have started a competition to see who can collect the most $1 peso monedas while we are here. After I win (which I will) I am thinking about posting them on ebay before I leave as a joke and also to see if anyone actually bids more than face value (I have a feeling that someone might)!

4. Early morning Spanish class often results in delirium

In my ample spare time I am attempting to improve my Spanish. The three of us non-Spanish speaking UCLA students have hired a private tutor and have been taking about 5 hours of class per week. Our teacher’s (“maestra’s”) name is Gladys (sans the Pips) and is incredibly patient with us. Most of our classes are early in the morning when my Spanish is probably at it’s worse and I am slightly delirious. We have a lot of laughs as we attempt to remember our Spanish vocabulary, often resulting in ridiculous Spanglish (e.g “el top”, “la chanderlaria” etc.). We are also learning new words, which we often find quite silly like “azafata” (stewardess) and “mesa ratona” (coffee table/exact translation = rat table, because it is small, like a rat, duh?).

Despite the silly moments, I do feel like we are steadily improving and learning some valuable vocabulary to survive in the city. Today we learned about giving directions in the city and right after class we used the skills we had just learned in the Taxi on the way home. I feel like I am understanding more and more – speaking is still very difficult for me but I hope that will come with time and practice.

From the quotebook: “Tomar es mi deporte” (To drink is my sport).