Today, I woke up at about 11:30 after having slept almost 14 hours. It's rare for me, but considering that I'd traveled for a day and a half straight without much in the way of sleep, it was needed. After starting the day with a late brunch, I mapped out a route to check out the sites of my 3 interviews on Monday. The first stop was a school for teaching English in the center of town. The interview with this company is on Tuesday, but the office was on the way to my other destinations so I decided to check it out first. On the way, I snapped what I thought was a cool pic of a mirror windowed office building opposite three different styles of apartments.On the way, I also took note of the prices of meat at the cheaper parillas, or grills. There has been a lot of hype about the increase in food prices in Argentina due to the 'paro del campo' or farmer protests over high export taxes. From my hasty survey of prices, it appears that the cost of meat has risen slightly, although increases in pesos clearly mean less to me than Argentinians. See below.
This is all in pesos. Bife de chorizo is more or less a high quality strip steak, I believe. 20 pesos is about 6.50 USD. Chorizo is sausage for approx 1.30 USD. And for a little under 3 dollars, you can get a 1/4 of a grilled chicken. At least at this particular parilla, the meat is still a bargain.
Speaking of meat, Burger King is working its way into the BA food world and to compete with McDonalds and capitalize on Argentinian's love for carne, they created the following. Eat your heart out five dollar footlong. Meet your daddy Big Mac. I'll stop there:)Yes, that's 4 all beef patties with ham on the top. How Portenos stay so skinny, I'll never understand.
As an aside, speaking of restaurants working their way into the BA food seen. Starbucks opened its first store in the Alto Palermo shopping center recently and there are still long lines out the door every day. The most shocking thing about this is that BA is a city of great coffee and cafes on every block. Now all of a sudden Starbucks opens up a shop and they beat every cafe in the city??? The lesson here is that Starbucks has a great BRAND. And it is cannoted with the U.S., pop culture (ie Sex and the City) and a slew of movies. Translation: Starbucks may have lost it's growth engine in the U.S., but the rest of the world might be plenty thirsty. I will be checking the price of SBUX stock tomorrow to see if it's still cheap. I recommend the same for all of my geeky stock buddies out there.
I anticipated seeing left over protesters/demonstrators at the Plaza de Mayo but saw only trash, trampled plants and foliage, and banners demanding veterans rights. Despite the talk of political tension, which there certainly is, granted, I saw nothing of the sort surrounding La Casa Rosada.
Toward dinner time, I took an amazing old school subway train back to my side of town and after hopping off, practically ran a good mile or two to try to get to the laundry mat near where I'm staying to pick up my clothes in time for my interviews tomorrow. No such luck. The laundry mat closed at 5 and I was there at 6. Luckily, they open up 2 hours before my first interview tomorrow so I won't have to rush out to buy pants and a shirt at Alto Palermo Mall (Which for my stock trading friends is traded on the NYC stock exchange and appears to be doing quite well-the Starbucks is located on the 1st floor).
Before my next trip, I grabbed a loaf of fresh bread at my favorite bakery, Tutti Pan (Which more or less means all different kinds of bread). I'm a fan of pan del campo, it's an italian style peasant loaf that costs me about 60 cents straight from the oven. And yes Ron (my former boss, friend, and owner of Great Harvest Bakery in Columbus Ohio) I will take pictures of the bakery for you:)
The evening ended with a long walk to my first interview location of tomorrow morning, a swanky apartment building on the border of the Recoleta and Barrio Norte neighborhoods, next to the British Embassy. On the walk, I passed by my old Spanish language school and was flooded by memories, good and not so good of my last long-term trip to Buenos Aires. It made me reflect that I feel wiser this time around, still excited but a little less wide-eyed and a little more grounded. The city still feels charming and adventurous, but the reality of actually having to live instead of merely vacation here is quickly settling in....
2 comments:
Pat, it is too bad you don't drink coffee or you could apply for a job at Starbucks, too. And hey, I think investors read your blog because the Starbuck stock dropped 5% today. What is a cheap price do you think? Two years ago it was at 40 and now it is down to 16.30!
Ed,
I think the jury is clearly still out on the restructuring plan for Starbucks, worker health-care, and its potential for international growth. Until investors are satisfied with these components, the stock price will stay low. However, I will say that I think Starbucks will overcome some if not all of these pressures in the coming years. Not tomorrow and you won't win the CNBC contest with it, but 5-10 years down the road, I think it could be the McDonalds of coffee.
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