My first
visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina/Carlos Pueblo
There are
two reasons why I desire to visit Buenos Aires, Argentina, first
an
immigration story of an Italian woman working as a maid in that city
told by my
then 4th grade teacher after daily class; secondly a song called
Don’t cry
for me Argentina, a movie story of an Argentina first lady, Evita
Peron. That
maid immigrant story has been too old to be verified, yet the
song has
been very popular ever since the movie coming out. I have had a
piece of my
thought in Chinese language in my blog(1/26/2014.)
Argentina is
a difficulty of difficulties. Territory is 80 times bigger than Taiwan
, 10 times
larger than Texas and only has 41 million population yet is still
struggling with
all kinds of problem. I was on a city bus from Ezeiza Airport
to downtown
Buenos Aires, a Paraguayan architect was asking me if I was
disappointed
with the scenery of the old run down streets. It remind me my
old home
town Huwei, Taiwan some 50 years ago. Building is urgently
needed to
have a power wash, what we have seen the pretty European style
buildings
are in downtown area built some 150 years before when the nation
was top 7
economic around the globe. He said that European architects were
pulling in
to the city to build the most modern city of the world.
Due to my
first visit, I am not familiar with the national infrastructure, I must
give up my
three desired visits of the country, Iquaz falls, Mendoza vineyards/
Aconcaqua
peak, and Formosa province. I was from a place in Asia called Formosa,
that means
beautiful, Taiwan. I shall save the transportation cost to have another
visit of the
nation one more time.
At the
hostel, I run into a group of European youngster who are volunteers to help
the native
kids mathematics and some other school work. The term is three months
and after
that NGO program arranges them to tour South American nations. It has
been two
months so far hence the youngsters speak good Spanish at the time I meet
them.
I am always concerned
with the living cost of such a big metropolitan city, I therefore,
boil the tap
water instead of buying drinking water, making simple meat soup and
steak
instead of going to restaurant, drinking beer and eating tomato as daily fruit.
At the time
of my visit, there were two exchange rate for US dollar versus Argentina
peso; 1:9.5
official rate and 1:14.5 black market rate. I have had both and came down
with 1:13
overall.
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