Day 28: First impressions

Hard to blieve but the first 28 days are over...

The Chill House is run by Estéban and Antoine. Antoine is from France and came to Argentina to study business economics. It became clear to him that the aspekt of wearing a suit didn't appeal to him, crazy, right? Anyhow, he and Estéban rented a house and opened the Chill House. Back then, 13 years or so, it was a real hostel for low budget travellers and party people, just like the owners. Sometime later they had the money to buy a house. It was pretty old and it took them 2 years to do the renovations themselves. It's a house with a lot of charme and loads of love to detail. The bunk rooms turned into double bed rooms and the Chill House is allready half way towards a B&B. You could say that it grew together with its owners.

The Chill House currently fills up with an illustruous group who will celebrate a 50th birthday here next saturday!!! They all seem to know each other from Australia but are from all over the world. I'm really looking forward to the party.

Buenos Aires, I really haven't seen that much yet. I have the feeling that the many time changes are catching up with me. 5 times in 2 weeks the clock was turned 1 hour back... Maybe one big one would have been better?

Except for the main roads all others are one way streets. This makes crossing easier. Generally, pedestrians and cyclists have no rights here. So everybody is crossing the street as soon as he or she sees a chance and a gap big enough to have a chance for survival. You have to do it this way otherwise you might starve on a corner without a light.

Money is another topic. The Peso is not traded outside of Argentina. So you have to bring Dollars which are accepted in many places. Also, as foreigner you can only withdraw a limited amound from an ATM. I've managed to get 2000.- Pesos. When I tried 4000.- the ATM refused. Now you'd think: "Whaaaaat, he's running around with 2000.- Pesos in his pockets!!!" Well, the current exchange rate varies between 20-22 Pesos per Euro and the prises for food and clothing aren't really bargain either. T-Shirts go from 200.- in a supermarket to about 750.- for brand names like Salomon or Wrangler. A small but tasty lunch including a beverage and an espresso costs betwenn 150.- and 200.- Pesos. Only the subway is really cheap. With a debit card, the "Tarjeta de Sube" which you can recharge you can get anywhere for only 7.- Pesos!!! That right, this is not a typo. So if I think about it the prices depending on product are around 50% to 100% of German prices and so 2000.- Pesos are spent rather quickly. What makes it even more difficult is the fact that the Chill House doesn't accept any cards. So I've got the see how I can get the cash together. This means going to the bank every day to draw cash...

Maybe I should go to a counter and ask.... Ahahahahahah, okay, maybe after the first week of Spanish classes. Then again, surprisingly many people here in the city speak English. Wait, they have PayPal...

Here a fine example of a local art form, electro installations... You've got to zoom in...