Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Today was one of the most uneventful day of my time in Buenos Aires. The school didn’t have any after school activities and I had to finish my transit visa application for the US.
Even though it was the third day of Spanish class, it felt like I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s probably because having 3-hour lessons at a go isn’t very healthy but time does fly when we’re in class.
After class, I popped into one of the supposed “All-You-Can-Eat” places. It turned out to be a Chinese place and sold food by weight.
I picked some of the lighter food: chicken parts with less bones, squid and fried rice. This whole plastic bowl of food was for A$22 (~S$5.50).
It’s not that cheap when compared to Chinese food back home. But here in Argentina where a cheap steak meal would set you back A$45, it’s kind of a miracle that you can find something filling at this price.
The side dishes were quite alright and were quite authentic Chinese cooking. However, the fried rice was a little on the tough side. Maybe Argentinians are more used to not fully cooked rice.
After lunch, I continued filling in the online form for my US visa. There were pages and pages of spaces to fill in. My page kept logging itself out, claiming I had not saved the form for 20 minutes. I had to clear my cache before everything went back to normal.
After I had done the online form, there was still payment of my US$160 visa fee. It was either a choice of paying by cash at the branches of two different banks or paying by credit card.
The only catch for the credit card payment was that it required a 20% charge on top of the transaction due to some rule set by the Argentinian government.
So that makes paying by cash the only option for me. By the time I was done, it was past 3:30pm. I hurriedly packed my things, hoping that I could find one of the Rapigogo branches and pay my fee fast.
Off to pay my visa fee
I set the bank on my Google Map and went off to find it. I assumed that it would be a large bank but it turned out to be something that was smaller than a post office.
At that time, I didn’t have the A$880+ on me. I was terrified of being robbed so I didn’t want to withdraw money before I know where the bank was.
Unfortunately, all the ATMs I went to that were near the Rapigogo branch couldn’t give me the money I want. I decided that I would make the payment tomorrow.
On my way back, I got a few groceries from Carrefour, including two cans of cheap corn in cream. The can turned out to be a hell lot more cream than corn.
Dinner was still brocolli soup but with a can of terrible corn. I also learned the hard way that I should not wash pasta before cooking it. (I assumed it was like rice and need a good rinse.)
YQtravelling 