I've been thinking alot since I got here about how great the exchange rate is. Let me break it down for you. Cigarettes, about a dollar fifty a pack (all of these will be in American dollars) and lighters are thirty cents. In the mercado, a 40 oz. bottle of beer is a dollar and a bottle of wine is about three dollars. In the club it's something like $3 for beer and $5 for pitchers and mixed drinks. I bought a pair of jeans, and seriously, these are my new favorite jeans ever, for about &26. These pants would have been at least $50 in America and probably more like $120. I'm going back for the other colors tomorrow.

If you go out to dinner with a big group of people at a sit down restaurant, you end up paying about $20 for the whole thing, including drinks. You can dance all night if you want to, drinking $3 beers and smoking $0.08 cigarettes - then go eat breakfast for $5.

The cab ride from Recoleta to Palermo and/or downtown or wherever will not cost you more than 5 or 6 dollars.

Why am I writing all of this down? Well I was thinking about telling it all to the folks back home but I guess I'll hold off on that until I get back there. Meanwhile, back in Buenos Aires I am just plain elated. It's like a miracle! What am I going to do when I get back home and jeans cost $80 again?

You know it's funny, too, because if the price sounds high I'll still get mad. $100 pesos sounds like alot. But thats, what, like $33?

Somebody's getting some good presents when I get back.

Attention North America: come and see Buenos Aires before I spend all of my money and the exchange rate goes back up!