Buenos Aires Part 2

Here are a few more thoughts on Buenos Aires from me, a temporary porteno:


Sweet tooth


The Argentinians certainly like sweet things. The supermarkets have long shelves of cookies and biscuits, there are lots of familiar chocolates (Cadburys and Ferrero Rocher seem particularly popular), luscious cake shops abound. There are also many ice cream shops with a variety of flavours to rival Baskin Robbins and Ben & Jerry. Dolce de Leche is a particular favourite---a sort of sweetened condensed milk toffee.


On the other hand there are puzzling omissions from the supermarket shelves--despite a pretty thorough and wide-ranging search I have been unable to find food bags (you know, zip-lock or baggies or whatever). Aluminum foil and clingfilm/saran wrap is also extremely hard to find and then not in containers with a cutting edge so you have to tear it or use scissors. Go figure!


Weather again


It is the height of summer here in Buenos Aires and the schools are on holiday. Many people escape the city at this time and with good reason--not only is it hot (around 29 and as high as 34 degrees celsius) but it is also very very humid. However there can also be violent thunderstorms (see last post for a picture of the flooding on my street after one such violent thunderstorm).


On the other hand it is nice to be back in a country far enough from the equator that it has a long dusk and twilight and does not get dark obscenely early as it does in the Caribbean where I have been over the past few months.---or, heaven forbid,England where it is dark by 3 pm at this time of year.


 And of course I should be respectful of the feelings of those of you who are freezing your toes off in Europe or North America right now.


Banks


There are an inordinate number of banks in Buenos Aires and branches on every corner. This seems rather ironic since it was in the financial crisis of 2001 that the banks collapsed and ruined thousands of Argentinians who lost all their money.Maybe they think there is safety in numbers?


Conservative dressers/explicit desire


On the whole the portenos dress conservatively--even young women tend to weart skirts and dresses rather than microshorts and boob tube top. However the same cannot be said of the young people's approach to shows of affection in public--park benches are draped with young couples in pretty explicit poses. A bit of an eye-opener for an old bird like  me.


Street names


These are very confusing because so many of the names are similar but refer to completely different streets in widely different parts of town---so Av de Mayo and 25 de Mayo and Autopista 25 de Mayo are all completely different, the first being a major historical street, the second being a short little street in the Microcentro (the city centre) and the third being a highway. Also Av. del Libertador and Libertad are in completely different places.There are half a dozen streets with the name "Alvear" in them somewhere. Street names are also repeated in  the suburbs so you need to find out not only the address but the district it is in. I guess it stems from the obsession with glorifying the generals and politicians  and high points of the city's (relatively short) history.

Buses

Public transport is something that Buenos Aires does very well indeed. There is an excellent network of buses--quite literally hundreds of routes. And they are ridiculously cheap--about 25 cents or 20 pence. But you have to know where you are going since you need to tell the driver your destination when you get in so that he can key in the correct fare which then shows up on the fare machine beside him where you pay and collect your ticket. And so I spend time practising saying my destination in Spanish so that I don't get some surly response if I say it wrongly.

Interesting fact: Buenos Aires buses whistle! They don't use horns but instead they have a whistling system. This is a rather good idea because it reduces traffic noise and at least you know whether you are about to be run over by a car or by a bus (jaywalking is a national pastime and I have joined in enthusiastically).

A big problem with the buses is that you must use coins for the fare (or a transit card which is nigh on impossible to obtain at the moment). Since everyone hoards their small change like gold so there is a constant worry that you may not have your busfare to get home.