Thursday, October 04, 2007

Boludo

I had an amusing trip on the Subway in Buenos Aires the other night, it sort of sums up Argentina/the locals quite nicely IMO.

It's about 10.45pm and the subte shuts down at around this time. The station is almost empty, and myself and an older guy (maybe 45yr) enter at around the same time. We discuss whether we've missed the last train or not, and conclude there's probably one left. He spots I'm foreign straight away, guesses at British (most usually guess American), and starts to speak a little English. We give up on this when we realize my Spanish is better than his English.

He asks me if I have my documents with me, I haven't. He rolls his eyes and tells me how important it is to carry ID here, if the cops ask me and I don't have a copy "anything could happen" he says. He then pulls out his wallet and shows my his ID, he works for immigration at Ezeiza International Airport.

Next the funny bit: he pulls out two immigration stamps, tells me I'm "Boludo" (a friendlier version of asshole/idiot) for not having my passport....and that he'd have stamped it there and then for another 90 days!!! Classic.

Anyway, the train comes, we spend the next 20mins chatting about all sorts of shit until he gets to his stop, shakes my hand and leaves.

I just can't imagine this sort of thing happening in the Western world.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Anything could happen'-wow,and I thought the NYPD,LAPD and the Metropolitan police were bad.Be afraid,be very afraid...LOL.

TrUlster said...

Classic Argentina - I love it!

Perpetual_Traveller said...

LOL, yeah. He'd have done it for free too. I do love Argy people.....most of the time.