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.
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