Driving and parking in Buenos Aries

My apologies for going on and on about the driving but I can't help myself. When Jess and I traveled we were too cheap to take taxis so this trip is kind of novel for me. We took the cab ride from hell today. Picture Park Street... got it? Now picture three (not two) lanes of traffic weaving their way thru it at 70km per hour. Now throw in some motor cycles and scooters weaving there way thru that chaos... And just to get the complete picture, we will add people on bicycles. Few of the two wheelers are wearing helmets and the ones who are wearing them are only doing so because they need something to glue their cell phones to. And then there are the guys who have their dogs sitting on the front of their motorcycle with them! Now that you have a mental image of that, watch out for the guy backing out of the Poole Althouse parking lot.... everybody swerves to the left, but nobody reduces their speed. I will say one thing for the drivers here... they are in tune with what is going on around them. They are like air traffic controllers.

The parking is the coolest thing. Even tho there is a lot of green space in this city, every other inch is used. There is not a spot big enough to squeeze a dime into. Needless to say, parking cars can be a challenge. Because there is no space on the street, there are parking garages everywhere. You drive your car just inside the garage, get out, give your keys to the attendant and leave. A jack is then mechanically moved under your car and it acts as an elevator and a forklift. Each car is moved into a block so that the rear view mirrors are touching. Not enough space to open the door if you had to. The cars look like Lego blocks stacked on top of one another. A tower of cars!