Lesson Three: No Hay Monedas

(photo courtesy of: Buenos Aires Photographer)

In this lesson, David begins by asking Jimena why she didn’t answer her phone the previous night. Now, we’re not sure if Jimena is fibbing when she says she didn’t receive the call (I know never to trust Argentine cell phones) but I felt David’s pain when he told her how he was unable to understand the phone number of his latest Latin lover. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in a club or bar and attempted to take down a number, and have gotten it completely lost in translation. David is quick to recover, though, and there is no doubt in my mind that he will go out and try it all over again.

We also learn about retornables, a concept that I failed to notice on my first trip to Buenos Aires. You pay an extra deposit on your beer, keep the bottle, and you get it back when you go to the same store and buy more beer. Fabulous! David did, however, pay way too much for his beer and did the unthinkable: convert it back into his currency.

Oh, David. You aren’t in your country anymore. Think in pesos, not in pounds! I’ve met lots of travelers that have stayed in BA for a long period of time, and their #1 regret was paying way too much at the beginning of their trip. As we see with David here, it is quite easy to pay too much in pesos when converting everything back to US dollars, Euros, pounds, etc.

If one is coming to BA for a short period of time and money is no object, whatever you do is up to you, I s’pose. I guess one sort of goes a little cost crazy when they are earning pesos (such as yours truly) and will do the unthinkable in order to save a peso and collect/hoard monedas.
Ah, monedas. When one comes to Buenos Aires, one will find that cambio is impossible to make. Try bringing a $100 AR note into just about anywhere, and you will get The Look. The What-on-earth-are-you-thinking-trying-to-change-a-$100-AR-note Look. And the monedas. Don’t even get me started.

No one has coins in Buenos Aires. Or, at least they want you to think that. Every single time I go out to buy something, there is a little back-and-forth played out:

Cashier: $13.25

Me: Tengo $15.

Cashier: 75 centavos tendrás?

Me: No, no tengo monedas.

Cashier: 25 centavos tendrás?

Me: No, no tengo monedas.

Cashier: Mmm, dos pesos?

Grr. I am currently holding up the line, pretending to rummage through my wallet. It’s pretty embarrassing, but if I am really strong, I will hold out. And I am, so I do.

Me: No, no tengo nada.

Cashier: (Eyeroll. She then proceeds to open her cash drawer full of monedas.)

That’s sort of what one finds here in Buenos Aires, and Jimena is very smart to teach David about this early on. It’ll save him tons of trouble when going to a kiosko or panaderia, or trying to take a colectivo or taxi. That’s definitely the beauty of Bueno, entonces... It’s teaching me tricks that I would have killed to know when I first got here.

You don’t learn this stuff in Rosetta Stone, that’s for damn sure.