Line at Starbucks Alto Palermo that stretches out the door and curves around the block - I'm guessing an hour wait just to order. Also note that there are probably 20 other places to get good coffee within a 2 minute radius.If there is a line out the door, it must be for something amazing, right? Opening night for a huge summer blockbuster, a celebrity book signing, Black Friday sales - totally hellish sounding to me, but I get it... now how about standing in line for a half an hour for coffee, lunch at a "trendy" restaurant when there are a million other restaurants with no wait, bus when there is a subway station 4 blocks away... It seems to me that people factor in waiting-in-line-time as part of the activity time.
The anomaly of the Argentina Line, as I like to call it, continues to baffle me... it's as if people seek out the longest line and get in the back of it, thinking maybe someone will give them 100 pesos once they get to the front.My theory is that people are so accustomed to waiting in line from the lack of organization, they are used to things being difficult to obtain - so a mere 45 minutes is worth the wait. Some other examples of line waiting include:
- Renewing of tourist visa - camping overnight just so one can renew her tourist visa all due a two week closing of the immigration office due to rain
- Friday afternoon bank/ATM machine
- 7pm Rush hour at the grocery store - I'm not exactly sure what Pago Facil is, but I always get stuck behind an old woman trying to use it when the sign at the cash register clearly says they are unable to use it
- Anything government oriented
- Retrieving movie tickets even though tickets already bought online - no distinct lines between those with tickets, and those who are trying to purchase them.
Allie, I just found your blog and I liked it very much. Regarding your comments about people doing lines everywhere as if they liked it to do them, let me tell you that it is not an argentine tradition but a porteña tradition. I was raised away from Buenos Aires and I come to live here when I was 18 and it's been many years now and I still find it absurd that people do lines. If you make a line to get something that is supposed to give you pleasure (for example a coffee), then you are losing part of its pleasure by doing the line. I always try to avoid lines.
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