Ten Things I Learned about Buenos Aires

1. Global warming has (mostly) stolen the winter.

2. There are no fat people.

3. “Sh” is the new “ll” and “y”.

4. It’s possible to be a vegetarian; it’s just not much fun. (This place is an Atkins dieter’s paradise.)

5. The cemeteries are amazing. Necropolises rule. (Here, literally.)

6. Their SoHo is better than New York’s or London’s.

7. PorteƱos speak faster than Italians and are proud of it.

8. Their ExposiciĆ³n Rural is just like the Royal Easter Show only with more chinchillas, llamas, and meat, meat, meat, and less lamingtons, akubras and show bags. Horses pretty.

9. Never eat oysters on a Monday. (Though I hear that one’s a universal.)

10. In the Plaza de Mayo even when the Madres de la Plaza Mayo (Mothers of the Disappeared) aren’t there it feels like they are.

Buenos Aires, 7 August 2004