Only a little more orientation

Slowly but surely settling in here.

Slowly, mainly because everything here is so chill and the days seem much longer and better spent (maybe because I spent the last two months not being exactly what you might call productive, but I made it here okay, so that's gotta count for something).

Surely, because it almost all has been too easy.  Almost :-)  I've got some initial slip up stories to share but first....

We went to one of the restaurants from the "best of" guidebook (thanks Anne!) called Don Julio with about 12 or so people... in the pouring rain.  First time I've seen anything less than a perfect high low 80's and sunny since I've been here, but no complaints from me, it was kinda cool.

Anyways, the restaurant was great.  We showed up and they said they only have space for 6 more outside (under a very large and practical metal awning, but we convinced/"charmed" our way into them carrying out a few more tables.  As always seems to be the case here, wine and good beer led the way for the next few hours.

A brief aside.  Eating dinner after 10 at the earliest is the best possible way to plan an eating schedule.  Have a good lunch at noon, work till 5, siesta until 8 or 9ish, goof off and get ready, walk to the restaurant at 10, eat till around midnight and then see where the night takes you.  And I find myself eating much better portions and not ending up hungry again and snacking before I go to sleep like what happens con frequencia when eating dinner around 7ish in the states (or you know, a periodic 4:30 dinner.)

But today... the first slip up.

I went to go pay for my coffee this morning, and the amazingly sweet old woman and husband that run the cafe next door were like, [in spanish] "Ooohh, we're so sorry but this money is fake/counterfeit.  Where did you get it?"

To which I replied, "The ATM at the central bank."  Which is totally true, and apparently not surprising to the locals.

Apparently you really need to know what the money here looks like, feels like, and all the security features are on the bills, because the number one crime here is counterfeiting.  

Normally what happens is that you will pay for something, and a cashier or a taxi driver will pay you in one of a variety of fake options.  Sometimes they will give you standard counterfeit prints.  Sometimes they will give you currency from the previous government, which is now worthless.  Almost always, the rip off comes from a transaction, so you're always supposed to check the watermark and the feel right off when you get money.  Also, this normally is only perpetrated on extranjeros because obviously locals would know their own currency.  

Here's where it gets interesting...  I got my money from an ATM inside of a bank.  And as that money hasn't left my wallet since yesterday when i got it, it had to have come from there.

A point that I should note: don't worry, this is only 2 bills out of all the ones I've gotten, amounting to $150 pesos, or about $43 dollars.  

So, today, when the husband and wife showed me how to figure out fake bills, and today at our security in BA seminar thing, where the two cops told me they were definitely fake, I went back to the bank I got them from.

I told them my story in spanish, they didn't believe me, telling me it's not true, it's not possible, that their money in their atm's is all guarded until the moment it is put in, and it all comes from the central bank, and what I was saying was totally impossible.  Then, when I insisted, they brought the manager who spoke english, who happened to be a 20 something girl, and she tried to argue with the men on my behalf, but, in the end, I got stuck with my fake pesos.

And another plot twist:  I was talking with my cab driver on the way back, and he said that this has been happening to more than just tourists.  Apparently locals (porteños) have been getting fake bills from atms periodically too.  You're supposed to check right when you get them to make sure they're all real.  Which I now know, but wish I'd know yesterday (at least everyone here with NYU now knows, yes, I know it's typical that it would COMPLETELY RANDOMLY happen to me first, but hey, at least it was just).  

Anyways, even this has been a long rant about this dumb money, it shouldn't be too hard to get rid of.  I can pay tonight at dinner when everyone throws their money in and no one would know for a while.  So not really a big deal.

Other than that fiasco, today (and yesterday) have been totally great.  Gunna take a little siesta now, and then see where tonight goes.  I might just stay relatively in tonight, try out the dorm food.  

~Sam

P.S. start getting excited for some skyping action, I think I might have time tonight to get some of that flying through the interweb.