Dear Argentina

For the good and the bad, Argentina has things that are different from what we know in the States, or anywhere else for that matter.  Being a foreigner, this seems to be a topic of at least half the conversations.  At work I have a rather eclectic mix of co workers from all over the world-France, South Africa, fellow Americans, Finnish and a few Argentines.  Its always interesting to see their views on things and compare our ideas of “normal.”  The other day I was introduced to a game called “Dear Argentina.”  Dear Argentina basically goes like this:

Dear Argentina,

Oh, actually I was planning on wearing that coat again next season…

Sincerely,

Lindsey

We’ve found that clothes here are not always never made at the best quality standards.  I don’t think I have one thing that still has all its buttons, loops, stitching, etc. that it originally came with. 

My coworker had:

Dear Argentina,

Ketchup does not belong in bags. 

Sincerely, William

It’s funny that he mentioned that, and was frustrated with it because it’s not something that even crosses my mind anymore.  It is, however, funny-nearly all the condiments here are in bags.  This includes mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, barbeque sauce…

One that I think about nearly every day while walking around is:

Dear Argentina,

Way to go with the marketing tactics, love the empty jug on the car!

You see, it’s very interesting the way people go about selling their car here.  With so many cars on the street it’s often hard to know which ones are for sale and which ones are not.  The general public has devised a scheme to identify “for sale cars” really easily-just put an empty jug on the top of the car!  If you are in the market for a car simply look for jugs on cars.  There are two ways you’ll be able to get in touch with the owner after you have seen the prospective car you are after.  Sometimes a really crafty owner will have cut a hole out of the jug and put little scraps of paper in it with their contact information; it’s kind of like the pieces of paper where you rip off the number at the bottom--but cooler.  The other way would be from the eco friendly owner, who doesn’t want to waste scraps of paper-he just puts his phone number on the window of the car and hopes for calls.  Either way it's a nice way to advertise the car and draw attention