Boliches are not Bowling Alleys in Buenos Aires

Who would have known... A "Boliche" in my world had always meant rolling a stone hard ball to some poor pins down the road. As I searched for apartments in Buenos Aires people kept on telling me about how there was a Boliche down the road. I said "that's great!" as if I had always been a bowling enthusiast. It happened a couple times and I thought maybe they think Americans love bowling. It wasn't until I had moved into my new apartment that one of my roommates invited me to a boliche. I thought "not again", turns out a boliche in this part of the world is a night club. And then... it all made sense.

What Bank Account to have while abroad

After much research on the internet I have settled on the Capital One Money Market Account. No only do you not get charged for withdrawing money, but you also get 1 mile for every 20 bucks you spend. Not bad! of course, you still have to pay the fee imposed by the bank where the ATM is. This is minimal compared to the 3% charged by most financial institutions for every withdrawal or purchase. Hope this tip helps since processing it all would have been easier from home rather than Argentina.

2 toned coins- awesome.

As a foreigner there is quite a bit going on all around you to absorb. To add to the confusion argentine currency has coins of the same value in two different tones: copper and silver. Maybe to add color to your change, maybe to add confusion.

The unexpected while acclamating list

-Shell Gas Station
-Bus driver fuels bus while passengers are on board
-If a soccer game is going on all clothing stores play it as a soundtrack to your shopping experience.
-All stores are organized by colors- you want something purple... you can find in the purple section purple pants, purpe shirts, purple sweaters, easy peasy!
-Disparity of price between taxi and bus from airport to Palermo. Bus 1.25 pesos vs. Taxi 180 pesos.
-Taxi driver smokes while passenger is on board, good times.

Equations in Chile

As I walked through the airport enthusiastically looking forward to having a day discovering Chile I came across a sign- a sign that read “reciprocity fees for the following citizens”. Needless to say among the flags on the sign was the American one. This was quite a downer on my first adventure, but I thought as I used the first bathroom I found- okay how much do I want to pay for 6 hours in Chile. I was quick to decide on $20 (a limit for most of my spending), but decided to settle on $40. After all, I was working on being less tight with my money. I quickly got in line to find out as much as I could about this reciprocity business since there was an important equation to consider: a ratio of hours vs. cost. I had normally in the past done equations in order to figure out whether a fee for an event with limited time was worth it. For example, if the cover to a club was $20 and there were only 2 hours left it wasn’t worth it; however, if there were four hours the price was cut in half to $5.00/hour thus meriting consideration. Today, I didn’t even need to do any math to know that I wasn’t going to get to visit Chile. When I asked how much the “reciprocity fee” would be she answered $131 when I exit and $30 upon return. Deep sigh… I was bummed. The word reciprocity kept on running through my head and I wondered if that’s how people felt when they came to visit the United States. All I wanted was to do a little discovering and even some spending… I would have to wait for a time when the equation made more sense. I walked through the airport to maybe do some shopping, but I saw a price and it was in thousands. The price was on a bag of magnets: 5,890… I think not. After almost 20 hours of travel the last thing I wanted to figure out were exchange rates – sorry Chile.