LozColbert, wanna thank you for all the provided info in this topic. Really great that you help out and can't wait to be joining dinner club when i'm moving to BsAs!

same as every other country

more specifically how much for a bushel of ripe bannanas?

Fail.

Firstly, the drug situation in almost every country differs.

Secondly, the question asked is incredibly valid as recent news reports are giving the impression drugs have been basically de facto decriminalised in Buenos Aires:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/lat...thout_penalty/

Wow, drug policy differs from country to country? Really? I never knew that!

but for all intents and purposes, its like any western country, you can get anything if you know Bhe right people, and its sold on the underground market. Getting caught will probably lead you to a court case, none the less.

I should put in a disclaimer that when i said any other country, i seclude the USA, Saudi arabia, Thailand, UAE, or any other country with draconian drug laws. But to me, the whole drug scene feels the same as every other country, which is why I said its the same, we can cite articles all we want, but the whole system is very similar to everywhere else.

Well... the situation is changing quite dramatically. Being local and doing drugs since 1995 I really can tell the difference, this government is very soft regarding drugs and the supreme court is looking forward to allow possession for personal use.

You should be doing something stupid in order to get caught (8 years ago it was somewhat normal to be randomly frisked by the police, nowadays such a thing would be really strange). If somehow you got caught, the most likely scenario is that the cop will ask for a bribe, or will except you to ask for it. Sometimes they need to caught someone, in order to justify their job, in which case you will end up in jail for between 4 and 12hs, and then depending on which judge takes your case, they could take you to the court or just absolve you (the later happened to me in 1999 with an oz of weed).

My GF used to work at some bar in Reconquista street, she told me that there was a guy selling cocaine almost every night, she also told me that undercover cops where looking who bought from him in order to caught them and take their money. Of course the seller had a deal with the cops (or maybe he is a cop himself).

On the other hand in Brasil for example the situation is very different, and getting caught is a lot more likely, and the punishment is generally more severe. Same thing in Uruguay. In Bolivia 50% of "narcotic cops" are just thieves with fake Id's. Laws may be similar, but we don't live in a word of laws, specially in South America.

Anyone interested in giving USD for Pokerstars money? If so, please send me a PM.

Hey I am in for dinner tonight (and possibly my friend). I moved here a little over a week ago. Look forward to meeting you guys. I guess I will just look for the large group of foreigners?

It shouldn't be terribly hard to find us, yeah. I'd show up at 9:10 or 9:15 and see who is around.

I'd note that I didn't make reservations for this week as I'm not sure who's around right now, but I don't think we'll have a problem on a Tues night.

Ok, I thought I'd get the dinner club announcement out a little early this week.

Tuesday, 9pm. El Baqueano, at Chile 495, cross street Bolivar. That's in San Telmo.

Looks good. Also looks like you might need a reservation, so this is me RSVPing.

just wanna say BsAs was alot of fun and everyone i met was really nice. i really liked the city.

holla
-tommy

hey im travelling to buenos aires and want to bring my 30"+pc, anyone has any experience with it? easiest way to do/how does argentinian douane react on this (since electronics are so expensive) etc. im flying with british airlines. will give them a call soon, but if you guys have some advice ild appreciate it...

We've talked about this throughout the threads....

Ok, so like I've traveled through about 50-60 different countries in the world. Nowhere have I had THIS much trouble accessing my funds. Banks give me US$100 / day (lol - wtf) - huge restaurants don't take credit cards (lol - wtf) - I give 50 peso note for a 15 peso cab fare and the taxi driver looks like me like I'm ******ed (lol - wtf).

a) What the **** is wrong with this country? (financial situation wise)

b) Is there anyone who needs / wants to give me a HEAP of peso and I'll ship you FTP / Cake / Moneybookers / AP / Eurolinx in front of your eyes prior to the changeover?

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Like, I'm pretty Zen, but when a manager of a major restaurant is giving me **** because he doesn't take VISA / Mastercard / Amex and wants cash only, and I say "Hey buddy, I live in the 21st century, don't give me attitude, I'm flashing 4 credit cards in front of your eyes and you're accusing me of ripping you off because you can't take CC's, that's your problem, not mine" - then he gives me attitude about it, tells ME not to be rude (after he's accused me of trying to rip him off when I handed him 4 credit cards which he can't accept cause he's a cash-only business) - this **** tilts me a little.

I'm pretty Zen, but he didn't want to push it much further imo. I don't like being insulted because he wants to run a cash-only tax-avoidance business (which I respect w/e), just don't insult customers who make the MASSIVE assumption that one of their 4 credit cards will work at your massive restaurant.

So I'm going down there on the 4th of Feb and I'm just bringing tons of cash with me. However I'm also getting a citigold account which waives foreign transaction fees and wire fees.

I literally haven't used cash for anything in over a year, so that'll be an adjustment.

It's so ridiculous because until a few days ago I had a HSBC Premier (worldwide VIP) bank account in like 6 currencies, but they closed them all down the other day.

So now I'm stuck here with banks that close at 3pm (pretty close to when I wake up) and ATM's that give me $100/day (srsly? I'm not trying to be pimp but I need like 5k a week to live) and massive restaurants and stores that don't take VISA / Mastercard. Srsly?

I been here two days and my early impressions is that this country is a ridiculous joke. I hope I'm wrong but wtf - I mean, lol - if someone hands you 4 different credit cards to pay for their bill and you insult them for not having cash, you have a ****ing problem with ****ing commerce and you hate money imo. That, and you're ******ed.

Yoyo,

Out of curiosity: which restaurant?

And also,

Define "pretty".

I forget the name - one of the ones just down the road from me in Las Canitas.

I'm Zen until people start being unreasonable and/or being insulting when I'm trying to give them money.

And when the manager is trying the old "well if you don't come back with cash, I'll take it out of the waitress's salary" - that tilts me because:
a) I handed him 4 credit cards so it's not exactly my problem
b) I promised him I would return with the cash the next day
c) The bill was like $8 lol
d) He was being insulting and rude despite my endless politeness
e) If I was planning to scam him, threatening to take it out of the waitress's salary is just ******ed, because if I was trying to get out of an $8 bill (lol), taking it out of the waitress's salary just makes him a raging tosser imo and I told him exactly that.

----

I'll go down there tomorrow and pay the bill - then give the waitress 500 peso and then tell the little ****** manager what I think of him and his unprofessionalism. And I don't think I'm being unreasonable based on his ridiculous attitude and insulting behaviour as I tried to pay my bills with multiple credit cards.

I see your multiple points, and I'm not at all surprised you encountered an ass of a manager down here in BA. You'll find others and probably will be treated badly at times, pretty much like anywhere else in the world.

That being said, I think there's an overtone of prepotence -mostly monetary- in the way you present your point of view and that a) is mutually exclusive with being "zen" and b) will certainly get you less candid responses from locals, as we tend to have poor-class complexes and usually dislike arrogant foreigners.

I'm local and poker is like 90% of my income, so I'm having the same us$100 limit at ATM's. It REALLY sucks, and I find no logical explanation to it rather than this government being extremely paranoid about foreign accounts (i.e. Argentine citizens shipping money overseas, which we do a lot).

The credit card situation is pretty standard, most places will take your CC's but some don't. You should look if there is a VISA sign at the front door, and if you don't see any you should ask the waiter if they take CC's (which they probably don't). It's very likely that the restaurant manager was a complete idiot but unfortunately it was your fault, you didn't know how things work here and made a wrong assumption. BTW if they don't take VISA they most likely don't work with credit cards, and AMEX it's pretty rare here.


And in response to your question, a lot is wrong financial situation wise with this country, and money is an issue as we are always about to face bankruptcy. Government confiscating retirement accounts it's an example of this, they did this like two months ago, so I think some ppl suffered more than you from the financial mess we experience here.

No, they give us$100 per withdraw, so you can make five withdraws in a day. You have to pay a lot more in fees, but that's nothing for you I guess ( I really hate to pay them).

5K a week in BsAs... so you spend in two weeks the same amount of money most ppl makes in a year here? (most ppl makes less than that BTW).
You should be more than fine with less than 1K a week here, unless you are getting really flamboyant about your spending.

I spent a year in Manhattan, so I'm fully aware of the differences, but I think you came here with the wrong mindset, and it's amazing that you still have this kind of mindset after traveling to fifty different countries.

This is the first country in the world I've visited where I can't take out around $1000 per transaction via ATM.

It's also the first country in the world I've visited where someone gives me attitude when I politely hand them multiple credit cards to pay for my restaurant bill.

It's also the first country in the world I've visited where I spent 3 hrs entering and leaving multiple large stores that sell Nokia phones trying to buy a Nokia charger and returned home without a Nokia charger.

There are some issues here that are pretty unique and lol - sure, I can jump through hoops and get around them. It's just that I almost certainly will not and they can and almost certainly will wave goodbye to my small contribution to their economy.

Yoyo, I'm pretty sure we've talked, but I can't remember who you are, so don't take this personally.

First, you clearly haven't read these threads. Half of what we talk about is what a pain it is to get cash here. It's a common discussion topic in this thread and the old one. Furthermore, the point has been made on this thread several times: don't move to Buenos Aires if you think you're moving to the United States, only cheaper.

Second, it seems to me that you moved here and expected everything to be exactly the same as your home country. It's not. Argentina isn't as rich as the US or Europe, why would you expect that everything would be the same? The culture is different -- for example, people here are going to be much quicker to assume that you are trying to scam them.

Third, the fault was clearly yours. There are places in the US or Europe that don't take credit cards; the responsibility to check that a restaurant takes a credit card is completely your own. I think you should feel lucky they didn't call the police on you or something like that. Why would you be so thoroughly annoyed when the fault is clearly yours? Even if they didn't treat you very well...

Maybe it's because I've been here for almost a year, but I read your post and was a little offended. I guess Argentina is starting to feel like my adopted country or something. Considering that the Argentines who rarely post on this thread are posting in response to you as well, I'm guessing that they feel a little annoyed as well.

River, I'm guessing you don't have an AmEx card? I only have an AmEx card here, and while there are some places that don't take AmEx, I'd say 90-95% of the nice restaurants take AmEx. Heck, even some corner coffeeshops and corner ice cream stores take AmEx...at least if you stay in the foreigner-friendly areas of Belgrano, Palermo, Recoleta, Puerto Madero, San Telmo, etc