Evil Trees. Today the ongoing saga of the lack of coin change in the country hit a new low, or at least a new personal low. Until now I had been doing pretty well, dumping all of my spare change into an ashtry in my apartment and hoarding it for bus fare. But I ran out today and I needed to ride the bus to my spanish class in the afternoon. I knew there were a bunch of banks on Rivadavia along the several block walk to my bus stop, and took solace in the fact that I could always go to the bank as a case of last resort to exchange a 10 or 20 peso bill for change. My first stop was Bank Itau, which limited me to 2 pesos in change, just enough for the trip to and from class counting what was left in my pocket. I decided to hit a few other banks because I had a few minutes to spare. HSBC didn't have any tellers, and the lines in Banco Santander were too long, but there were only a few people waiting at Banco de la Provincia of Buenos Aires, so I got in line. After patiently waiting for several minutes I thought I overheard the teller tell a woman that he didn't have any coin change. Sure that couldn't be the case, I waited for the next person to go to the window. I thought I heard the same thing again, so when she turned to leave I asked her and she confirmed my worst case scenario ... even the banks don't have change. I'm not sure what to do. I will make a special trip to all the banks I can find in my neighborhood tomorrow morning, and failing that, I will buy lots of alfajores that cost $1.25 or $1.50 and relish my coin change. When you talk with Argentinians about this they think its ridiculous too. But their attitude seems to be that they somehow find away to get just enough change to get thru the day and to and from where they need to be, and sure it's an inconvenience and yet more evidence of how the government can be inept, but there are bigger things to worry and to complain about so why get heated-up about change. This is a photo of Parque Rivadavia near my bus stop. It rained today for the first time since I've been back from Salta (there's a bad drought here), so there weren't a lot of people in the park this evening. The trees in Buenos Aires can be beautiful. There are jacarandas with bright violet flowers and this tree with yellow flowers. But the best trees are the old, tall ones that line many of the neighborhood streets. In some places they are 6, 7 or 8 stories tall and the branches reach over the street from either side to create a giant green shady canopy along the whole block. The best I've seen is along Pedro Goyena near Emilio Mitre.

Apparently they are also evil and, according to an article in today's newspaper, in 2008 there were a record number of complaints against them for roots that crack sidewalks (that part is true, the sidewalks here are a disaster), branches that break electric poles or stoplights and ... my personal favorite ... 'invading houses'. According to the article, a 67 year old retiree has complained that a tree keeps rupturing the sidewalk outside his house and (it's roots) entering the toilet in his bathroom as well as breaking the floor in his front hall. His 78 year old psychologist neighbor confirmed his story, saying that she has lived in the neighborhood for almost 50 years, that the tree has been there at least that long, and that 4 years ago the roots got into her plumbing and broke her patio. 

This is a photo of the rotonda of the Palais de Glace, a small museum in Recoleta