No Carrier's Comments

Buenos Aires,the subway

I don't know what the fascination I have with trains, subways etc.. but something in me just wants to take pictures of these moving boxes on rails.
Today taking the subway to no place in particular I took the subway line A, which turns out to be the oldest subway here.
The trains looked as if they were the original trains back from 1900, complete with wood cars and benches, and leather strap handles. While taking these subways I was struck by the number of people trying to make a buck (peso ) from inside the train... Little boys and girls couldnt be older than 6 or 7 would walk up and down inside the cars handing out little hair bands, or toys, anything they could get their hands on, and lay it on everyone lap. Then a few minutes later they would walk by and pick up these things and every so often someone sure enough would buy one.. seems like the going rate for these little subway things is 2 peso's.. Much like NYC where its hard to take a subway without being offered batteries, here in BA, you are guilted into buying things from the very young. All in all the subway here is no better or worse than the 7 train in queens, excpect they seem a bit less crowded, and more frequent.
The city itself is somewhat of a letdown. Except for ave 9 de Julio which sort of looks like times square, with its blocks and blocks of tourist shopping all arround it the rest of the city, (at least what I can see via subway stops) appears to be a nothing all that special. Not really beautiful, old and new buildings, dog poop on every sidewalk, no real interesting architecture per se, but lots and lots of pizza and epmanada joints.
Tomorrow I am off to the large flee market which is only open on sundays, complete with street dancers.. we will see, if any of the hoopla over this area lives up to the hype.
more later.
Bob

posted by Bob Lee @ 12:12 PM