The Tube

After my horrendous "I hate Buenos Aires" tube experience last week, I heard there was a different route I could be taking to and from work, and have been taking it ever since. 

It involves a 20-minute walk for 10 blocks all the way up Fitz Roy to Dorrego station, and then it's a really simple straight tube journey for another 20 minutes or so to Florida station, which is a 2-minute walk from my office. I don't get a seat until I'm almost home, but on the way into work at 6:45am I can get a seat maybe 3 or 4 days out of 5, which is better than nothing.

The other thing about walking to the tube at 6:45am is that everyone is still out from the night before, particularly on Friday mornings after a Thursday night out. There are beer bottles in the street and students spilling out onto the pavements from bars. It all makes me feel very old and boring...

Riding the tube here is a bit like being in 80s Britain. Every single office worker wears grey, black or brown clothing, often seemingly corduroy or similarly bland outfits, and the hair dos range from 80s perms to mullets. Whereas I thought the tube in London was an antisocial place, in Buenos Aires it's a bit like a mortuary. Everyone just sits still with their head down, ignoring everyone else. They don't read books. At all. They just sit there. Well, it's a long journey so I take a book with me every day, sometimes a magazine, always in English, and people stare. They seem to think it's really odd. It's quite uncomfortable, really. God forbid one day I read a tourist guide or something...

On the way home it's just a game of sardines, rocking from side to side and bashing into each other while trying to keep hold of the flexi-handle things. And trying to keep my bag safe from pick pockets.

And I thought the London Underground was bad... Honestly, I take it all back. 

Nob Hill - one of the residential buildings I pass on my new route to work. Looks pretty nice actually!