A beauty consultant

Today my walk took some unexpected, funny turns. 

I have been passively looking for a perfume for a while now and so when I walked by someone handing out samples of a perfume, naturally I stopped to smell.  My stop ended up being much more than a smell of perfume; I got whisked away into a back room where I got the spiel of all the perfumes they had as well as hair creams and body creams and anything else you can imagine. 

After "trying" about 6 different perfumes on my arms I was feeling a little nauseated and decided it was time to leave.  The sales clerk had other thoughts.  On the way out the door we took a little detour and she took me into a room where there was a woman at a desk.  The woman stood up bright eyed, kissed me and asked me how I was-and called me her heaven. 

The two women proceeded to enlighten me on the benefits of selling perfume door to door in my neighborhood and how easily I could make as much as $2,000 pesos minimum a month.  That's what some people make with 8 hours of work they said!  I got a full detail of graphs, charts and how this is the best deal around.  Believe it or not, their perfumes were made right here in Buenos Aires in a factory and mimic the leading perfumes on the market for just a fraction of the cost.  (In the states we call that a knock-off). 

I patiently listened to their sales pitch and at the end was going to take their catalog to "think it over."   However, the catalog cost 3 pesos, which i didn't really want to spend.  Somehow I explained to them I wasn't quite the salesperson they were looking for and made it on my way. 

So, technically speaking I got a job offer?

I continued on my walk and made it to Chinatown!  The Chinatown here is very small-only about two blocks long, but it was interesting.  There were maybe 10-12 shops full of Chinese trinkets and clothes.  There was a grocery store as well that was fairly interesting.  They not only had Chinese imports, they had US and Mexican imports.  It was the first time I had seen Skittles and Sour Straws alongside Tabasco and enchilada sauce in Buenos Aires.

Store fronts in Chinatown

Chinatown is located in a neighborhood called Belgrano.  Belgrano is notorious for being a nicer part of town where people go to have families.  It was substantially nicer than I expected so I took a picture of a street.  While this may not come as a shock to anyone else-the streets there (including the sidewalks) are immaculately clean.  This cleanliness may only occur in this area of town, it was refreshing. 

Clean and residential street in Belgrano