"Why Argentina ?" a Buenos Aires Travel Page by rosie235

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Our reason for choosing to visit Argentina was to visit my husband's Aunts and cousins. I don't know what I had imagined it to be like but I must admit I was not really prepared for the reality. Don't get me wrong, I loved it there but I was not expecting it to be so incredibly different. The first thing that struck me was how poor and run down the suburb where the Aunt lived. They resided in La Tablada, about a 20 minute drive from B.A. The houses were not what I had imagined and the roads were not kept in good condition. From the outside the houses looked quite like run down ramshackles but once you were inside the house they were quite nice. I asked the aunt why they did not maintain the outside and was suprised to be told that this was so that any potential burglars would not bother to rob them. They would also be charged higher taxes if their home looked better so they chose to spend money on maintaining the inside and ignore the outside.
What I found however was a warm and welcoming community who made the best of life. There certainly are some very beautiful parts to B. A. as I was to discover. B. A. is so diverse. We came across the very, very poor and the very, very rich. Some place in the middle were our relations. Our Aunt had a small grocery store below her home. You can see the shutters in the photo. They lived quite comfortably as thay had a regular clientele and therefore made a reasonable living. The people in the local area seemed to to me to live day by day ,moment to moment. I was so used to doing the big grocery shop once a week and kept a fully stocked pantry and it seemed curious to me that people would decide what to have for lunch or dinner and shop for that meal only. I thought that was how everyone lived. That was until Our Uncle took us to "Jumbo" . I have never seen a supermarket that huge. There were something like 30 odd checkouts alone. It was huge, selling just about anything you could possibly want.

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The life style in Argentina was also so very different to life in Australia. It took me a while to get used to not eating dinner until 9 or 10 pm and staying out till 2 or 3 in the morning. Having an afternoon nap took some getting used to also. We took public transport everywhere and found the Subterranian train and buses were very efficient. Despite the Relatives warning us to be careful where we walked and not to take the train, we never had any problems and never once encountered any trouble. We felt very safe. I found that everyone went out of their way to assist in any way possible. I loved the Architecture and spend long days wandering the city just looking at all the old buildings.