Buenos Aires recap

Buenos Aires translates to 'good air' and, after the choking smog of Santiago, indeed it was rather like a breath of fresh air. The old cliché of it being "the Paris of South America" is true. It is a city that has managed to fuse European and Latin American elements into a big, cultured, savvy metropolis. I loved every minute of it and hope that I find another $80 round-trip airfare so I can return.

Thanks to the economic crisis of December 2001, when the country went through something like 4 presidents in a month, Argentina is a bargain for people with hard currencies. Everything was at least half as expensive here as it is in Chile. On Saturday night we met up with my friend Daniel from Georgetown, who is studying in BA this semester. He took us out to Plaza Serrano, which is the center of nightlife in the city. It was easy to pretend we were rich as we sat in chic lounges sipping cocktails which would have cost $10 or more in America, but only ran us $3 in Argentina.

While we sat sipping our drinks, we compared Santiago to Buenos Aires. I was afraid before the trip began that I would begin to have second thoughts about my choice to study in Santiago once I saw Buenos Aires. Here are a few of the conclusions that we arrived at:

1) Everything is cheaper in Argentina. Chile is about as expensive as America. (1 point Argentina)
2) Buenos Aires had a blue sky. In Santiago sometimes you can't even see the Andes because of the air pollution, despite the fact that they are right on the edge of the city. (1 point Argentina)
3) The people in Buenos Aires were better-looking than in Santiago (and there were fewer mullets - apparently someone hasn't informed most of South America that the '80s are over) (1 point Argentina)
4) There was a café culture in Buenos Aires, which meant coffee! (2 points Argentina, just because I feel so caffeine-deprived)
5) Los porteños (the term for people who live in Buenos Aires) seemed less friendly than people in Santiago. (1 point Chile)
6) Daniel said that in Argentine culture, one makes friends as a child and keeps those friends for life. Therefore, it is harder for a stranger to make friends with people as an adult. We decided that it seems fairly easy to make at least superficial Chilean friends. (1 point Chile)
7) Buenos Aires has a lot of fine arts. Chile is a desert when it comes to appreciating theatre, dance, art, etc. (1 point Argentina) However, Santiago does have an awesome jazz music club. (1 point Chile)
8) The people studying abroad in BA seem to always be partying. There are also ten times more Americans in the city than in Santiago. (1 point Chile)
9) BA has allowed something as god-awful tacky as "Tierra Santa" to be built. (Read about it later - 1 point Chile)
10) BA had a lot of mosquitoes. Santiago's dry air prevents mosquito swarms. (1 point Chile)
11) The tango beats the cueca (Chile's national dance) any day. (1 point Argentina)

So, in the end, we enjoyed Buenos Aires very much but also recognized the good things about Santiago.