Normally you would have seen a short summary of my latest activities and location here and then a full blog post about Florida and Phoenix. However, the first weekend in Buenos Aires (BsAs) got off to a wrong start so instead i will cover that here and come back to the US in the next post.
The last blog post was already posted from BsAs, actually from a cafe next to the apartment of my couchsurfhost Nerina. So far everything had gone fine: the flight was uneventful, customs and security were a breeze compared to domestic US flights and the cab ride to the center was a little expensive but much easier than riding a bus and the consecutive hassle to find Nerina's flat would have been. I arrived in the morning while Nerina had a full working day to go, we had agreed that I could drop my backpack at the doorman, which worked fine. I walked around the block to get my bearings (she lives near the famous Recoleta graveyard) and soon found a cafe that could serve as my office for the day (no Starbucks anymore).
What I did was first of all reply to the responses from language schools (haggle a bit, and get some info on group sizes and compositions). With the #1 school in my mind it was easier to rate and find apartments nearby. Just as in Madrid you have agencies which offer excellent furnished apartments aimed at holiday makers, expats or language students. These however typically offer overpriced services and apartments where you live alone. I wanted roommates and preferably of my age instead of nosy or awkward families/seniors (the language schools offer overpriced homestays). What you need to do to find an affordable place in Argentina is use the website http://www.compartodepto.com/. This site list houses in a lot of a Argentinian cities but i couldn't find Buenos Aires... Weird! After some trial and error it became clear that it was listed as 'Capital Federal' instead of BsAs and i could start to look for a nice place.
After signing up and completing your search profile you start getting a lot of messages from property owners quickly... People really need the money here. A lot of the offers are irrelevant or just completely lame apartments. I reduced all of it to a shortlist of places i wanted to visit on Saturday. Afterwards i made a selection of my US pictures and wrote the previous blog post. By the time i was done it was nearly 19:00 so I moved to the neighbors and waited for Nerena.
We quickly got acquainted and headed into town with Analia, a friend of Nerina. We explored a very busy cultural center nearby: nice. Good atmosphere, live music, photo exhibitions of the Beatles and rolling stones and a free artistic haircut (for the people brave enough).
The next day meant first of all sleeping until late... Nerina had had a long week of work and I was really tired from the overnight flight. After brunch we went apartment hunting together with another one of Nerina's friends. We had planned on getting the free city bikes, but after copying our passports it became appartent that these have to be returned before 1800 on saturdays and that they can't be used on Sundays.. The last visit was planned at 19:00 so that wouldn't work... the bus then... off to San Telmo, according to the guidebooks a neighborhood typically BsAs and a little gritty. This soon became apparent... Graffiti, dog shit, ruins and badly maintained streets and sidewalks. First stop: Nicolas, a photographer in the process of restoring a building, with a high ceiling loft up for rent. This looked interesting from the pictures but during the visit it became clear that there was still a lot to do, the most poignant point being the lack of heating... When the dog also started pissing on the carpet of 'my' room I had seen enough...
The other two houses were actually very nice: an upper floor shared apartment right in the heart of San Telmo. Complete with a balcony overlooking the street where the Sunday market is held, a nice living room with beamer roof terrace and an international mix of people in the house. The other house was on the ground floor and also very beautiful: nice furniture, cosy atmosphere and Argentinian roommates. However, the balcony, roommates and roof terrace of Defensa had already made up my mind: this is my place for the next month:
The last blog post was already posted from BsAs, actually from a cafe next to the apartment of my couchsurfhost Nerina. So far everything had gone fine: the flight was uneventful, customs and security were a breeze compared to domestic US flights and the cab ride to the center was a little expensive but much easier than riding a bus and the consecutive hassle to find Nerina's flat would have been. I arrived in the morning while Nerina had a full working day to go, we had agreed that I could drop my backpack at the doorman, which worked fine. I walked around the block to get my bearings (she lives near the famous Recoleta graveyard) and soon found a cafe that could serve as my office for the day (no Starbucks anymore).
What I did was first of all reply to the responses from language schools (haggle a bit, and get some info on group sizes and compositions). With the #1 school in my mind it was easier to rate and find apartments nearby. Just as in Madrid you have agencies which offer excellent furnished apartments aimed at holiday makers, expats or language students. These however typically offer overpriced services and apartments where you live alone. I wanted roommates and preferably of my age instead of nosy or awkward families/seniors (the language schools offer overpriced homestays). What you need to do to find an affordable place in Argentina is use the website http://www.compartodepto.com/. This site list houses in a lot of a Argentinian cities but i couldn't find Buenos Aires... Weird! After some trial and error it became clear that it was listed as 'Capital Federal' instead of BsAs and i could start to look for a nice place.
After signing up and completing your search profile you start getting a lot of messages from property owners quickly... People really need the money here. A lot of the offers are irrelevant or just completely lame apartments. I reduced all of it to a shortlist of places i wanted to visit on Saturday. Afterwards i made a selection of my US pictures and wrote the previous blog post. By the time i was done it was nearly 19:00 so I moved to the neighbors and waited for Nerena.
We quickly got acquainted and headed into town with Analia, a friend of Nerina. We explored a very busy cultural center nearby: nice. Good atmosphere, live music, photo exhibitions of the Beatles and rolling stones and a free artistic haircut (for the people brave enough).
The next day meant first of all sleeping until late... Nerina had had a long week of work and I was really tired from the overnight flight. After brunch we went apartment hunting together with another one of Nerina's friends. We had planned on getting the free city bikes, but after copying our passports it became appartent that these have to be returned before 1800 on saturdays and that they can't be used on Sundays.. The last visit was planned at 19:00 so that wouldn't work... the bus then... off to San Telmo, according to the guidebooks a neighborhood typically BsAs and a little gritty. This soon became apparent... Graffiti, dog shit, ruins and badly maintained streets and sidewalks. First stop: Nicolas, a photographer in the process of restoring a building, with a high ceiling loft up for rent. This looked interesting from the pictures but during the visit it became clear that there was still a lot to do, the most poignant point being the lack of heating... When the dog also started pissing on the carpet of 'my' room I had seen enough...
The other two houses were actually very nice: an upper floor shared apartment right in the heart of San Telmo. Complete with a balcony overlooking the street where the Sunday market is held, a nice living room with beamer roof terrace and an international mix of people in the house. The other house was on the ground floor and also very beautiful: nice furniture, cosy atmosphere and Argentinian roommates. However, the balcony, roommates and roof terrace of Defensa had already made up my mind: this is my place for the next month:
The evening was spent with a celebratory dinner and the next day once again consisted of sleeping in late. Nerina wanted to see the Roland Garos final, so I did some Spanish studying and nerding in between. By the time it was halfway into the afternoon it was time to move into my new place. This however did not exactly go as planned....
After we had gotten off the bus and had walked some 100m ( me with backpack and rucksack, Nerina carrying my camelbak ) I felt something like birdshit on my head... I got my handkerchief to clean it off, but two old women behind us started making noise as if something really bad had happened and offered tissues, it also stunk really badly so when I let Nerina check what was wrong with my backpack and she also reacted excitedly I removed it and put it against the wall on the side of the street.
From top to bottom it was covered with lines of grey goo. Definitely not bird shit, as it looked like someone had shot a load from a curry flask at me. I had read about this type of robbery and was looking around me who could've done this, except that the street was empty except for the old ladies... Of course i kept an eye on my belongings at all times, while cleaning my bag and putting my rucksack besides it. One of the women kept plucking at my jacket to also clean it and take it off, which I did after a few seconds although i didn't trust her. I kept it away from her, with my stuff in my hands and all the time checking my bags from the corner of my eyes. The jacket wasn't really dirty so i quickly put it back on. All of a sudden the ladies were gone, they had taken a cab. When i checked my bags immediately noticed something was wrong: my rucksack was gone and had been replaced by another black bag.... You can imagine what i was thinking and feeling at that moment... My laptop was in that bag....and my toiletries bag, some cloths, ipod, chargers etc....and all the time i knew it was happening.... Grrrr
So, whenever this happens to you: old ladies can be thieves too, and keeping your eyes on your bags is not enough... So just do as adviced, keep walking... Or kick the old ladies in the teeth if you want to risk getting stabbed or worse....
It happened quite close to my new home, so we made our way there to get cleaned up and drop my stuff, sharing our story with my roommates... Who of course could name friends who had had the same thing happen. We had to keep moving though, i needed to get some money changed and nerina had to get to a physiotherapy session.
Getting money changed is one of BsAs' peculiarities: the government has decoupled the peso from the dollar and has artificially fixed the value due to continuous inflation. However this means that the value is not really correct and that has people who had seen their savings devaluate distrust the peso: they rather deal in euro's or dollars. The government however blocks Argentinians from buying foreign currency, which has led to a large black market in them. The official exchange rate is about 8 pesos for a US dollar, while if you change them on the street you'll get at least 11 pesos ( the so called blue rate).
There's one thing you shouldnt do here and that is get money from an ATM at the official rate. Luckily i read about this beforehand so i brought 1000 USD in cash. We found an arbolito (litterally: small tree), which is what the guys dispensing the green notes are called, and i exchanged my first 100 dollar to have some pesos in hand to do shopping etc. I wouldve also liked to buy a subte card (for the bus and metro) but after trying three stores and only then finding a charger machine which nerina needed we have up so that she would at least make it to the physiotherapist. I got back to my home and already bought as many toiletries on the way back because i needed a shower to get the stink off me.
This post should now turn into an upbeat story about the rest of the week, which was really, really nice, but because it is so long already it will have to be in a separate post. Be assured that by now I'm having a good time and that I've already almost forgotten about the robbery.
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