It's raining in Buenos Aires (BA). Most people are sleeping in after the victorious game against Mexico yesterday. The streets are pretty empty and most stores are closed. It's Sunday and time to rest.
The pleasure of living in the center of one of the biggest cosmopolitan city in the world is that you don't need a car, everything is so accessible and you share your life with people from all walks of life. The latter is very important.
Once the England - Ecuador (1-0) game was over, we walked down to El Ateneo - the bookstore on Avenida Santa Fe - to grab some breakfast. At 2pm I might add (life here is lazy).
El Ateneo is one of the many, many bookstores in BA. I've no data that support this but my impression is that BA has the most bookstores per capita in the world. What makes El Ateneo special is that it's located in an old theater, with the coffee shop all the way in the back.
It's a heaven on earth for a bibliophile and polyglot. I can spend hours just browsing through the aisles, picking up books I've never seen and just forgetting about the world outside.
I was surprised by seeing a few of the books I've on my wishlist on Amazon.com (in English) being offered at a 25-50% discount in Spanish. That means that I can kill two birds with one stone at a rebate. These kind of arbitrary opportunities doesn't come around that often. Once the middle class knows more than one language and is indifferent to what language they use to consume knowledge this opportunity will disappear.
No comments:
Post a Comment