This is the view out of our window today. The bright pink blossoms actually started to come out late last week, but this tree has exploded into color. These trees seem to be all over the city.
How do we know they are all over the city? Some of the missionary couples here have decided that we want to know more about the city of Cordoba. The only problem is that we do not have a car, and taxis are expensive. It costs about U.S $6.50 to go into the city from where we live. So we have decided to tour by bus, but in a bit of an unconventional way. We take a bus line to the end of the line and back to see where it goes. The fare is 7 pesos, about U.S. $.55 to ride as far as the bus goes, or as far as you ride.
The first time we did this we ended up in the southern part of the city. We have been told that part of the city is less safe than where we live. It seems that there are more ner-do-wells there who are willing to relieve a person of his hard earned work credits. But we really didn't get into the really bad part of town.
We started a couple of weeks ago by taking a bus (#26) to a somewhat nearby mall to check it out. The mall is known as "Cordoba Shopping. Yes that is the real name of the place. It is fairly nearby, and we could probably walk there in about an hour.
DETOUR
This mall has some pretty big name stores, and is really a pretty nice place. I decided to go into Nike - the only one we have seen here - and see if they had shoes my size. After asking the sales lady if they had them, she looked at my feet and said "probably not. What size are they?" I told her 48.5, equivalent to US size 14. Nikes run small, but I have never had anyone tell me my feet were small. Her jaw dropped to the floor! I told her I had a son who wore size 50 and she nearly fainted.
Next I went into the Levis store. I noticed they had 501 jeans, so I asked if they had my size. The sales lady asked what size my jeans were, but of course my brain cramped and I couldn't remember. She was nice enough to check the leather tag on the back and then said that they indeed have my size. Well, I thought at least I could get Levis here in Argentina if I needed to. I asked her the price and she told me they cost U.S. $250. This time I nearly died.
I honestly don't know how people here live. They do not make that much money. You can hire a cleaning lady for around U.S. $3.00 per hour and they would be happy. Inflation is horrendous. We have seen prices increase about 15% just since we have been here. Fortunately, the dollar exchange rate more or less keeps up with this so we are not affected.
BACK TO THE BUS RIDE.
We got back on the #26 bus and rode through the center of town. It took us through the university campus. The University of Cordoba is a pretty large school. There are more than 125,000 students. Classes are free, and we may at some point take advantage of that. The bus continued along to the southern part of the city.
When we got to the end of the line, the bus driver turned around and asked us north Americans just exactly where we were going. He was somewhat amused when we told him that we just wanted to see where the bus went. He asked us to get off, and then showed us where we could catch the bus going back the other way.
We walked to the bus stop, but noticed that another bus line, the #71, stopped nearby. We recognized this line because we take it from near where we live to a large grocery store to shop. Now we know where it went too. We caught the next #71 and rode it home. It also went through the center of the city. It seems as though there is one street downtown where all buses pass. At least it took a different route back to our neighborhood.
This was pretty successful, so we decided to do it again last Monday. This time we took a #19. It went along almost the same route as the #26, but started in a different neighborhood. Again it went through the center of the city and to the University. This time it stopped just past the campus. Again we noticed that another bus line (#13) started here so we took it back into the city.
Four of us got off to attempt to receive money we had sent to ourselves from the U.S. The attempt failed and we had to return to our apartment and call Buenos Aires to get things straightened out. I think we will be successful in participating in a self induced payday today. At least that is the plan. I'll write more about how Argentina doesn't like to get our money in another addition.
Back to the temple today!
No comments:
Post a Comment