The note I wrote to myself to add to my blog includes the following items: Argentinian travel agencies, change of hotels, the Buenos Aires accent, walking in town, shopping in town, and "lost and found". Here goes:
I´ve spent the past 5 days choosing and working with travel agencies to plan my trips to Iguazu Falls, Brazil and then Pantagonia. How I wish I´d done all this in Paris or even the U.S.! It´s a great way to interact with local Argentinians, but I feel I could have been seeing the city much more and not spending my time in offices and on the Internet. Luckily, I´ll be coming back here for at least another 6 days. Re hotels, I changed from the hostel to a two-star hotel in a more convenient neighborhood (San Martin, near Avenida Cordoba), from where I can walk everywhere. Paul, the owner of the hostel, was very nice. He´s keeping my big suitcase for me for a nominal fee. The Buenos Aires accent is certainly different from the Spanish I learned in Spain and Mexico, and I sometimes have trouble understanding. Instead of "aqui" (a-key) they pronounce it a-che. Yo is pronounced "jo" and the double ll as in llama sounds like "jama". And they use"vos" instead of the "tu". Because of all this, the intonation even sounds different. Reminds me of Italian. As for walking, I´ve walked my feet off! It´s a walking town like Paris. People here talk in "blocks", too, ie. "the station is 12 blocks from here". As for shopping, I haven´t "indulged", but it looks fantastic. Summer sales are on and the prices are very reasonable because of the rate of exchange. There are C&A´s and Leader Price here, believe it or not, but no Starbucks. The Pacifico Galleries down the street from my hotel is a wonderful shopping center with elegant shops, a great food court downstairs, and beautiful murals on the ceiling. I spend a lot of time there at a Telefonic "locutorio"--a place where you can use Internet and also telephone for reasonable prices. The busiest shopping street is Florida Avenue, which is always packed and full of "street life". Finally, concerning"lost and found", I was very pleasantly surprised. Two days ago I left my sun hat in an Internet cafe. It was turned in, and I got it back the next day.Then yesterday, I left a blouse in a C&A bag on a bench at an ice cream parlor. Realizing this, I walked the 15 blocks back there, and was delighted to retrieve it from the cashier. And this morning, I dropped my coin purse in a shop and a saleswoman noticed and told me. You´re obviously thkinking I´m getting absent-minded, which I probably am, but isn´t it wonderful that people were honest enough to turn in all the things I lost?
Besides seeing my travel agent, I didn't do much today. However, I did spend two hours with a new friend. Ana is a young Peruvian woman whom I looked up through SIETAR, the professional intercultural association I belong to. We got on very well, and I hope to see her again when I come back to BA. She's lived in BA since 2004 and told me alot about the Argentinians. One thing I'd heard before: that a lot of other South Americans find the Argentinians "arrogant". But we both premised that the economic crisis in 2001 changed their attitudes a bit. In any case, I can't complain. They've been very nice and helpful to me. The staff at the hotel, for example, are absolutely charming.
My other outing of the day was this evening to a tango and musical performance at the Borges Cultural Center, which is only 3 blocks from my hotel. Rather than go to the San Telmo district and spend $60-$80 for a touristy "tango show", I discovered this place the other day. The show lasted only one hour, cost $10, and was excellent. As the dancers danced and the three-piece band played, scenes of Buenos Aires were projected on a screen behind them. I really enjoyed the show and was pleased to see that all the other people in the audience were Argentinians and not foreign tourists.
I'm off tomorrow for my 3-day trip to see Iguazu Falls. Then back to BA for a night, then on to Brazil (Rio, Salvadore de Bahia, Brazilia, Menaus and the Amazon). Really looking forward to everything!
posted by Hilary @ Saturday, February 10, 2007
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