Argentinian Buses
Friday, 2. May 2008, 16:54:09
I would like to tell you about the bus rides I've done here in Argentina. First of all I have to say that they have the best buses I've ever seen (long distance coaches that is). You can choose from three different seats. Semi cama, cama and 1st class. I usually take cama, wich is equivalent to business class on the air planes. Yo have a foot rest, the sets are big and you can lean the seat 45% backwords.
You usually get served dinner, breakfast and snack, depending on the company. Some companies stop on their own restaurants for a while, and you get dinner, beer, whine and dessert. On some coaches you get served by an bus attendant(!) I have friends who dreams about beeing flight attendants, I wonder if it's the same way with the bus attendants.. "When I grow up I'll be a bus attendant. Then I get to travel a lot and see the country".
Anyway, you sit there on the bus eating your lamb chops, mashed potatoes and sipping wine. When your done it's time for bingo. You can win a bottle of wine. I'ts brilliant. I got to learn all the numbers in spanish, and its fun and exiting. More exiting than the movies they put on afterwords. Or at least the buses I've been on. They've put on three Ben Stiller movies, some of them were dubbed in spanish, one Schwarzenegger movie, Universal Soldiers with Van Damme, an 80's music compilation with Boy George and Cindy Lauper to name a few. And now on my last bus journey from Córdoba to Buenos Aires they managed to put on a really bad german movie, dubbed in english with spanish subtitles and tradisional Argentinian folk music on the radio in the background. I watched it for a while, then i put on my Ipod and started reading my book.
The buses are usually on scedule and the system is working very well. One system that isn't working as well is the post office. I went with Susanne to the post office in Córdoba, she was sending home some stuff. It didn't help that we both speak very poor spanish, but anyway.. We asked the guy in the information desk where we could send parcels to Europe, he told us to ask the people in the other information desk. They told us where to go and we went to pick a number and started waiting. Our number was 908, the number on the screen showed 889, not to bad. Most of the people were picking up parcels, so this shouldn't be a problem. Then we saw some people in the same waiting room with other kinds of numbers. Hmm.. after a while we figured out that we had picked a number to get in a line to get a new number.. OK wel just have to do that. When it came to our number we went over to the guy with the other numbers and he asked us what our purpose was and Susanne said she was sending some stuff to sweeden. OK, he wayed it, and gave us a new number. There was two blind persons sitting behind one of the desks. One was sleeping (it was not siesta yet) and the other one was wrapping peoples parcels. It took her about 20 minutes to do one single parcel. A bit slow, but she was the best damn wrapper I've ever seen.
After about 2 hours it was finally Susanes turn to speak to the guy in scharge of the forms you had to fill out when sending a package. So he gave us a form and told us to fill it out and go to the blind lady to get the stuff wrapped. After waiting for her to finish two other parcels, she wrapped Susanne's stuff and we could finally go back to the first guy to fill out another form, and way the stuff again.
It turned out to be almost as expencive to send it as the price of the stuff she sent.
Whoohh. that is what i call making a short story long. Most of you probably didn't read all of it anyway. But thats allright.
Im down to my last three days in argentina now. I've spent two months here now, and I'm starting to understand the spanish now. I can understand a conversation, but I still can't speak it. If I stayed a few more months I would probably be able to make a conversation. Some other time I guess..
Thats it for now
Keep it real
RonnyRamone
You usually get served dinner, breakfast and snack, depending on the company. Some companies stop on their own restaurants for a while, and you get dinner, beer, whine and dessert. On some coaches you get served by an bus attendant(!) I have friends who dreams about beeing flight attendants, I wonder if it's the same way with the bus attendants.. "When I grow up I'll be a bus attendant. Then I get to travel a lot and see the country".
Anyway, you sit there on the bus eating your lamb chops, mashed potatoes and sipping wine. When your done it's time for bingo. You can win a bottle of wine. I'ts brilliant. I got to learn all the numbers in spanish, and its fun and exiting. More exiting than the movies they put on afterwords. Or at least the buses I've been on. They've put on three Ben Stiller movies, some of them were dubbed in spanish, one Schwarzenegger movie, Universal Soldiers with Van Damme, an 80's music compilation with Boy George and Cindy Lauper to name a few. And now on my last bus journey from Córdoba to Buenos Aires they managed to put on a really bad german movie, dubbed in english with spanish subtitles and tradisional Argentinian folk music on the radio in the background. I watched it for a while, then i put on my Ipod and started reading my book.
The buses are usually on scedule and the system is working very well. One system that isn't working as well is the post office. I went with Susanne to the post office in Córdoba, she was sending home some stuff. It didn't help that we both speak very poor spanish, but anyway.. We asked the guy in the information desk where we could send parcels to Europe, he told us to ask the people in the other information desk. They told us where to go and we went to pick a number and started waiting. Our number was 908, the number on the screen showed 889, not to bad. Most of the people were picking up parcels, so this shouldn't be a problem. Then we saw some people in the same waiting room with other kinds of numbers. Hmm.. after a while we figured out that we had picked a number to get in a line to get a new number.. OK wel just have to do that. When it came to our number we went over to the guy with the other numbers and he asked us what our purpose was and Susanne said she was sending some stuff to sweeden. OK, he wayed it, and gave us a new number. There was two blind persons sitting behind one of the desks. One was sleeping (it was not siesta yet) and the other one was wrapping peoples parcels. It took her about 20 minutes to do one single parcel. A bit slow, but she was the best damn wrapper I've ever seen.
After about 2 hours it was finally Susanes turn to speak to the guy in scharge of the forms you had to fill out when sending a package. So he gave us a form and told us to fill it out and go to the blind lady to get the stuff wrapped. After waiting for her to finish two other parcels, she wrapped Susanne's stuff and we could finally go back to the first guy to fill out another form, and way the stuff again.
It turned out to be almost as expencive to send it as the price of the stuff she sent.
Whoohh. that is what i call making a short story long. Most of you probably didn't read all of it anyway. But thats allright.
Im down to my last three days in argentina now. I've spent two months here now, and I'm starting to understand the spanish now. I can understand a conversation, but I still can't speak it. If I stayed a few more months I would probably be able to make a conversation. Some other time I guess..
Thats it for now
Keep it real
RonnyRamone
By solid copper, # 3. May 2008, 08:33:52
By ronnyramone, # 5. May 2008, 13:19:53