today we traded the calm of mar del plata for the chaos of buenos aires. having your own car has it’s obvious benefits. but there are some equally obvious downsides. for instance, this afternoon we spent several hours trying to find a good hostel/hotel with parking. we finally found one where it’s supposedly safe to park outside all day/night…but the hotel kinda sucks, so tomorrow we’ll move to another place…or, worst case, i pay $10-20/day to keep the car in a garage.

so far, i don’t really care for buenos aires. it’s big, chaotic, terrible traffic and the people so far have been pretty cold. i think there attitude comes from paranoia. for example…today, we arrived at a hostel as a girl was leaving (her family owns the place). we told her we were looking for lodging…so she called up to her mother…then closed the door, left and told us the mother would contact us via the speaker at the door. why not just have us go upstairs and talk face-to-face? or, at another hostel, the first thing the receptionist asked us was how we got in…not ‘how are you?’ or ‘how can i help you?’…but ‘how did you get into this building?’ (answer: the door was left open).