Thoughts about Argentina - or rather Buenos Aires

• THANK GOD FOOD IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN IN CHILE. I even found good sourdough bread bakery! I've been so much happier since I've had access to decent food.
• I liked Argentinians. Most people I met were very friendly, more so than in Chile.
• Meat is of very good quality indeed. I had this reaaaaally good steak sandwich on one of my walks around... it was layers and layers of the stuff and it was SO TASTY.
• They're obsessed with dulce de leche. Almost every dessert has dulce de leche in it. You go to an ice cream shop and there's six different flavors of dulce de leche ice cream.
• Buenos Aires is full of dog shit. It's absolutely crazy, it's like a disgusting mine field!
• In many places you can't pay by card or only VISA is accepted. It was very annoying since I have MasterCard and ATMs have a 4000 pesos limit and charge $10 for every withdrawal...  Often times price paid by card will be 20-30% more than cash price which is crazy. I've been told this is because they want to keep it off the books and so avoid paying tax for it. So I guess if you pay with card the 20% extra is for the tax they'll pay on it!
• It was a great time to visit in terms of currency exchange, in the last two years peso had devalued massively against the dollar and the pound sterling. Felt like a boss compared to Chile, everything seemed rather cheap in comparison. This is obviously not great news for Argentinians. Salaries don't keep up with the inflation and the cost of utilities has sky rocketed.
• Party starts at around 1am. On a Tuesday. And Wednesday and Thursday...
• They're terrifying drivers. Drivers never stop for pedestrians, not sure why they even have pedestrian crossings since they seems to have no effect whatsoever on drivers' behavior. They don't keep to their lines and often drive in the middle between the lane markings. I was thinking the only country I'd seen where they drive even crazier is Italy. And then it clicked - of course they drive like the Italians! There was a big wave of Italian immigration into Argentina in the 19th and 20th century and it definitely shows. There's a lot of pasta and pizza around, the Argentinian accent has an Italian melody to it, they use a lot of hand gestures... And they drive like locos!
• Lots of beautiful buildings, many built to resemble Parisian architecture. Palaces build as homes for the rich families in 19th and 20th century when Argentina was earning a lot of money from exports do Europe. They wanted the poshest and the best quality products so they imported fancy lamp posts and ornate steel balcony balustrades from France.
• Many buskers on metro trains - and people clap for them! I always thought it must be sad for street musicians when they get no reasonre to their music so I thought this was very nice.
• Many streets were lined with leafy trees which both looked great and provided a week needed shade.