When walking...

Well, I did promise the post, so even though the university Internet turned very sluggish this afternoon, your BA correspondent is in the locutorio next door to her house in order to fulfill that promise. Besides, Silvina is cleaning and Emi is visiting with Ale. How am I supposed to study?

Speaking of studying, I realized today that there are only three midterms next week, one the week following, and then we just wait for the finals in early November.

The university is only a brisk fifteen-minute walk from our house, but fifteen minutes is nine blocks and plenty of time to see interesting things in Buenos Aires. By the way, whether you are out walking or in a colectivo, remember to keep track of both the name and number of the street. There are so many streets in Buenos Aires and the major ones are so long that they are numbered in hundreds, advancing a hundred with each block. So going from Cabildo 600 to Cabildo 5200 is 46 blocks... a good walk of perhaps an hour, depending on your rate and how many red lights you hit.

In France - at least, in Dijon - it is sometimes possible to walk by eye and not by the light. Don't try that too much here. Drivers are much less thoughtful and will bear down on you honking all the way. Of course, if you happen to be on the right side of the street you can often make it across before the traffic from the other side arrives, especially if you are crossing a street adjoining a larger one where the colectivos and some taxis and a few bold drivers keep heading through the first 15 seconds of red light, considered no man's land.

Streets that are tranquil in the afternoon are a little too tranquil when you are heading home from a class that finishes at 9 p.m., so if alone try to follow busier streets, even if it costs you a few blocks. If you walk with someone and don't like whistles try to make sure that someone isn't a girl who doesn't mind wearing a skirt that you wouldn't.

Despite afternoon and evening classes, if for some reason you leave on an empty stomach, there are plenty of little stands where someone is roasting peanuts and packaging popcorn and candy to sell... averaging about one a block on the major streets. There are also plenty of people hovering around subway exits and newspaper stands waiting to shove flyers and business cards in front of you. May as well take them, you'll feel generous and you'll probably pick up some with a blank back, which will save you from buying post-it notes.

As in France, there are plenty of dogs, and dogs leave gifts. Somehow Buenos Aires seems more dangerous in this aspect than in France. The best time to go walking is around 7 or 7:30 a.m., when the sidewalks have just been hosed off. You will often see dogwalkers with a group of dogs, anywhere from between four and twenty (well, okay, I've never counted...). This is a job invented during the economic crisis of 2002 and it sticks around. However, it sounds like some dogwalkers occasionally beat the dogs and take long smoke breaks in the park.

Consider it a great triumph when you are returning home one night and realize where you are not by street names or numbers but by recognizing the man at the newspaper stand one block from where you turn off. This means you're getting quite comfortable in Buenos Aires... at least in your little part of it.