Argentine Oddities

After writing these, I realized that these are mostly about the bathrooms here.....
1. On sinks and in showers, C stands for Caliente, not Cold. Learned that quickly
2. Can't put toilet paper down the toilet in most places, it has to go in the trash. And in most places there is only one communal roll of toilet paper by the sinks that everyone shares.
3. There are tiny little stairs all over, like in buildings, sidewalks, homes, where the ground level raises just enough to need one stair that is maybe 2 inches tall. I trip over these all the time, especially when they are in doorways.
4. The walls in my house are so thin and close to the house next to us that I can hear the people next to me opening their doors in the middle of the night. It sounds like someone is trying to get into my window.
5. There are two different kinds of electrical plugs here, which made it difficult when I first arrived because I only had one of the types, and the only plug available for that type was in the bathroom, which is a great place to charge my phone.
6. People here do not like to make change for a 100 peso bill, which is essentially equivalent to a $20 bill. It's very difficult to get change back, so the students in the group have converted to a reciprocity system where we just take turns buying each other drinks.
7. It is customary to pay to use some public bathrooms because some people's jobs are only to clean the bathrooms. Normally it's a donation type system. If this guaranteed a clean bathroom, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but I do have a problem justifying paying to use the bathroom when it doesn't even have toilet seats, toilet paper or soap, which is the most common situation.
8. Here, "Playa", which normally means beach, means parking lot. So it's really sad seeing a sign for the beach and being led to a parking lot.

Private beach? I wish!!

 9. Cars in the street literally do not slow down when people are walking. Even if the light is red they slow down at the very very last second, so I always feel like I'm going to get hit.
10. When watching Legally Blond with my family, I noticed that the dubbed Spanish was different than the Spanish subtitles.  I think that what they were saying was more slang, and what was written was more formal Spanish.
11. Universities here don't use textbooks. Instead, the students use photocopies of different texts and hand out a bound booklet of all the photocopied texts that we are going to use. Photocopies are actually very common here all over the city; there are businesses for copying all over the city. The photocopies are pretty bad quality so it's hard to read.
12. When one person honks here, everybody else in their cars immediately start to honk too, and it sounds like a song made of horns.
13. Tipping for services is not obligatory here. It is not expected to tip except when the service is absolutely outstanding. We are all poor college students here, so we've taken this to heart and haven't been tipping. Especially because a lot of restaurants refuse to split our tabs. However, a lot of servers haven't been shy about asking for a tip when they think they deserve one.
14. A lot of servers have brought us free drinks for our whole group. This weekend we received three bottles of champagne, tequila shots, and a liter of beer all free.  This could be because the server wants us to tip him, or just because they love Americans.
15. A lot of the sidewalks here are made of colored and patterned tiles instead of cement. I frequently see people out front sweeping off their tiles.

 16. I have yet to see carpet here.
17. A lot of dogs here wear clothing. Even the strays. This is my friend Megan with her host family's dog, Frida, who wears a blue hoodie every day. 

18. It is common for motorcyclists to ride on the sidewalks instead of in the streets. The come out of nowhere around the corners, and they are really annoying in the park when they ride on the dirt path and cause dust to fly everywhere.