When I when I arrived in Argentina and left Argentina two curious & humorous things happened.
When I landed in Argentina about 3 months ago in early October; I was picked up by a taxi; it was arranged by the people I was renting the apartment from. It was fairly smooth journey from the airport to the Barrio Cabalito. Just by the apartment building, one of the first things I see is a really fat & tall police office bent over the a car with the hood up. This guy had a really large girth around his waste. I don't think I have even seen such a large police officer anywhere. It looks a car has been abandoned at a T intersection; it was quite a old looking beater. Whoever was driving the car appears to have disappeared. You do some see some real clunkers in Argentina.
And then when I was leaving now in January, my friend Juan called a "remise" (private car) to go to the airport. Juan lived on the way so we were going to drop him off first. It was a Thursday night and there seems to be quite a few road-checks in the area and sure enough we get asked to stop. A police office was speaking with the driver and checking his ID. Then the officers says "Chicas" and makes a 'big kissing' sound and a woman appears with a breathalyser. Of course the driver was clean and we proceeded on our way after his breath was 'checked'. We were all quite amused by the way the officer called the technician over. This was about 3:30 in the morning now. I got to the airport sometime after 4 and checked in. And then my plane which was to scheduled to leave around 7 AM left about an hour late.
Earlier that night on January 10th, Juan and I went to Korean restaurant called "Bi Won"; it was quite a coincidence that Juan suggested we go there; I have been wanting to try Korean food with Argentine beef since I had been here and my last night in the country that is what we had. And this was one of the restaurants that I knew about. The food was very good and it was served with many vegetable side dishes. We were quite stuffed by the end of the meal. A guidebook did say the portions are quite generous and it is definitely true. The restaurant was located more towards the downtown area in Congreso I believe. The waiter Domingo was one of cheeriest the waiters I had encountered in the country; we chatted with him a bit or I should I say I listened as Juan & Domingo were communicating in Spanish.
We then went back to Palermo and went to a bar called "Mundo Bizzaro" and again this another one of the places I wanted to check out; a few weeks ago I was going to go the bar after reading about in a guidebook about Buenos Aires; I went to where the bar should have been and I could not find it there; I was hungry so I had some dinner at a restaurant near where the bar should have been and then later asked the waitress if she knew where "Mundo Bizzaro" was; it turns out the bar had moved to another location in the barrio - well at least it was not closed. My Buenos Aires Guidebook was a few years old and had the old address for the bar. So I did not make it to the bar the time. We had some vermouth there; a very adult drink as it is bitter; I think the names of the liquors were Pinreal and Cymar. And a few beers and some mineral water later we went back to the apartment in Palermo and listened to some "Lemon Jelly" and "Isobell Campbell and Mark Lanegan" and then it was time to call a taxi and for me to go to the airport.
And this how my stay in Argentina ended.