Shopping

Hello everyone,

Naturally, there are small supermarkets here too, but Carrefour, Walmart, or Jumbo are huge. You almost get lost and can't find anything at first, but there's practically everything. The pictures above with the giant frying pan and the ones after are from Jumbo, which is in the Unicenter, a large shopping center nearby. It was supposed to open last week (October 19th), so we went there. But it wasn't, so we ended up going to the grocery store that blew our minds, as you can see above...

In the picture with the 'ferreteria', Karen, who cleans for us and helps us a bit around the house, bought a measuring tape and a garden shovel for us while I was waiting in the car... I was a bit suspicious about all of this, but she said it was a warehouse (she lived in the USA for 10 years and speaks good English).... and that's where you buy these things here... you can't go inside the stores except for the big supermarkets... you wait outside in a line and then say what you want. That's how it works in the vegetable store or the pharmacy too... the next picture shows what it looked like on the other side of the street, there are abandoned or old cars everywhere and the buses that drive around here are all falling apart, at least they look like it... besides, everyone drives however they want, usually pretty chaotic. When you're at a traffic light, little window cleaner kids come up to you, trying to earn some pocket money. There aren't many in our area, but on Uruguay Street, the road we have to take to get to Walmart and Western Union, because that's the only place we can get money, they're already there. You shouldn't walk there either...

The money situation is also quite something... we could open a bank account, but we can't withdraw or deposit anything, so it's not useful... That's why we always have to get our money paid out at Western Union, and for 300 euros, you currently get 47,000 peso, and then you only have paper in your handbag...

Until now, one of us always rode with Karen, who helps us around the house, in her car. Because even though we have a small car from a colleague (who is still in Germany) parked outside, we can't really use it because the documents weren't here until a few days ago. We have them now, but you also need an authorization to drive with someone else's car - you could have stolen it too... We obviously don't have that because you have to apply for it at some office... Like I said, why choose the easy way if you can make it complicated... That's why we drive with Karen.

Torben and Karen went to get money and go shopping again this week (October 6th), and I was already wondering where they were going... Then the tire had a hole. But Argentine girls know how to solve problems, so it was soon fixed, although not all the screws on the tire could be tightened :) So it was a somewhat adventurous ride back.