Those of you who know me, know that I love Buenos Aires very much. I think this city has a vibe that I have not found anywhere else in the world. For those of you who do not know me, please understand that sometimes this is an outlet for me just to vent my frustrations. This will be one of those posts.

1) On Thursday evening, Chico, myself, and a friend tried to go to a Nuevo Chicago futbol game. Unfortunately, we arrived a bit late and the box office was already closed. We walked around the neighborhood though and had a nice afternoon. However, Chico and I had dinner plans in San Telmo and we wanted to leave before the fans let out. We hailed a cab and gave the driver directions. When we were about 5 minutes from home, the driver pulled over into a gas station and apologized and said it would be only a minute. I glanced at the meter since this has happened to us once before. It read $15.94. We exited the cab (Radio Taxi) until the driver informed us it was safe to get back in. The meter was now at 17.56. Maybe we should have said something right then, but we didn't. A few minutes later, we were in front of our door and Chico asked the driver how much the fare was. He pointed to the meter. Chico reminded him that he had the meter running while he filled the car up with gas. The driver argued that, no the meter reading was exactly the same when we left the station as when he pulled in. It is most definitely not the 2 pesos that I am upset about. it is the whole principle! He would have gotten a bigger tip than 2 pesos if he was just honest!

2) This article below sums up what we were all experiencing last week. Who's bright idea is it to only allow 100 pesos to be taken out of ATMS at a time with a 300 pesos a day limit? This not only makes it impossible to take out enough for rent purposes, but also results in outrageous fees!

Buenos Aires Herald (2/23/07)

ATM glitch restricts tourists' withdrawals.
According to numerous reports received by the Herald, tourists, mainly of British origin, were only allowed to withdraw 100 pesos at a time from any automated teller machine, or ATM.With tourists charged a considerable fee at home for every withdrawal abroad, the phone calls received at the Herald were less than happy.Sources at Banelco, Argentina's electronic funds transfer company, told the Herald that the glitch arose because a ruling by Plus had been misinterpreted by local officials and that this had resulted in the capped withdrawals yesterday."The glitch is being worked on and the system should allow tourists to make up to three withdrawals a day of up to 300 pesos each," the source said. A similar confirmation was received by the Visa card company, whose spokeswoman, Carolina Samudio, said that the system will return to normal by today.