Tanto Tiempo

The most common question that I am asked is how my life is different living in Argentina.  The answer is difficult to put into words because, in many ways, living in any big city would be similar to living in Buenos Aires.  The traffic is crazy, you need defensively cross the street, stores are smaller and people seem to be everywhere.  Aside from the language, I have to say that the biggest difference in my everyday life is the unpredictability of everything.  Daily tasks seem to inexplicably take longer.  For the longest time, I had a hard time thinking of specific examples of this...but the opportunity has once again presented itself, and I had my camera phone ready to document the experience.

Mission:  Purchase a food processor.  

We had a great food processor that was a wedding present, but unfortunately, the 220v power supply fried the motor.  Since Gretchen will soon be diving into the world of solid food, I was hoping to replace this appliance with something purchased locally to avoid the power supply issue in the future.  So I packed up the baby, and we walked to Carrefour, a local grocery store that has an appliance section.  Here is what we found:

Yep, good old Carrefour (on Vicente Lopez y Rodriguez Peña, for those in the area) is closed for the month of August.  No sign, no warning, just boarded up. 

No worries, we'll just stop by a couple of dress shops that we passed on the walk here, I am looking for a dress for a friend's wedding at the end of the month, so that will at least make the trip worth while.  

First dress shop:

Second dress shop:

Never mind that it was 2:45pm so at least one of the shops should have been open - but the greater point being, really?!  You're just closed in the middle of the day?  These little lamented signs that you stick up with tape when you decide to leave are for real?  You may even notice in the window of shop 2 that the hours are printed on the glass.  They read:  Mon - Fri 10am - 8pm, Sat, Sun & holidays 10am - 7pm.  I guess the closed for and hour in the middle of the day part was too much to include. 

So we went home, changed the most impressive blow out diaper I have ever seen, gave Gretchen a bath and then headed out to another Carrefour location that has an even larger electronics section.

The second Carrefour had approximately 15 different models of juicers, but only 1 food processor, the box of which had so much dust on it I would guess it had been there for no less than 2 years.  And it was bigger than our microwave.  And it was US$200.  I walked upstairs to the electronics store located above the Carrefour only to find that they also carried this same model of food processor, more or less in the same condition, but this time it was US$250. 

Since we were already bundled up (remember it's still winter down here), we headed over to Starbucks, where I knew exactly what I was getting into.  On our way home I stopped and picked up some cough drops for my and Jon's multi-week long colds. 

Gretchen and I had been home for 10 minutes or so when Daddy got home from work. 

"So, what did you do today?" he asks. 

"I got a coffee and some Halls."

Mission:  FAILED