The Subways, etc.

So the subways here (Subte) are weird. Someone's always selling something or putting on a performance and asking for money. Last night, there was a dog beneath my seat (stray dogs are everywhere). When we reached the last stop, I thought the dog was in for trouble... but he new the drill. He got off with everyone else, calm as can be. I mentioned this to Marta, the leader of Grupo de Ingles, and she said the dog is a regular. He rides the D-line from one end to the other, gets off, walks around to the other side, and gets back on.

This morning, I was getting on the Subte and trying to step out of the way. As my sisters will tell you, I tend to bump my head when I travel. So I did, and it hurt a little. I shared a sympathetic smile with a stranger on the bus. I thought of him as my subway friend. He was pretty well dressed, probably a business man.

I rode past a few stops, facing this guy.

So then when it was time to get off, I felt a pressure on my waist. I looked down, and my camera holster was unzipped and empty. I looked over and my subway friend had betrayed me: he was holding my camera!

[Now Nina or Devin will tell you that I have a bit of a temper, which only flares up in situations where it's kind of a bad idea. Like when traffic cops yell at me. It's not something I control very well.]

My immediate reaction was to yell (in English) "Give me back my camera, motherfucker!" The passengers all look over, and I'm thinking I might be getting into a fight on the subway in South America - not a good idea, not something I want to do. But the guy's holding my $200+ brand new camera, with all my pictures on it, and I've just called him on it before even thinking.

So then I grab back the camera. He doesn't really fight it, he just hands it back. He looks me right in the eye - and here's the part that really gets me: he shrugs. After all, what was I going to do? I didn't want to fight him, there were no police in sight, and the camera was back in my hands. It was so weird - how respectable he looked, how brazen his attempt was, how unrepentantly he shrugged...

One part that I omitted before is that everyone last night had a story about being robbed or someone attempting to rob them. For this reason, I'd buried my wallet in an inner pocket in my bag already, and put my camera in front where I could feel and see it. It's now buried deep in my bag when I travel, too.

So my heart was pounding for almost the next half hour. I met up with Alex and Tiana at the Cementario del something. It's wear Evita is buried. I took a picture, cause I guess that's what you do, but I don't really know much about her. I just know she looked like Madonna and sang a lot. That's a joke.

After that, we walked around and saw a male model posing near this huge building with columns in front. Then there was this giant flower sculpture, and Tiana took a picture of me and Alex in front of it. After that, they found a vegetarian restaurant nearby in their Lonely Planet book.

Good call.

We ate so much food. It was all vegetarian, and we shared a bottle of organic Malbec wine which was delicious. Altogether, with lots of food, wine, bottled water, and coffe, it was 124 pesos. That's less than $40 for the three of us.