Today Mark and I went to Jumbo, which is like the Walmart of Buenos Aires (except without the huge discounts). We thought maybe we could find some cheap clothing for the Patagonia leg of our trip. Decided to grab a bite in one of their cafes before shopping. We noticed that about half of the lights were off in the store, and one of the cafes had a sign saying something along the lines of having a limited selection due to no electricity. Also noticed how hot it was in there. Like, really hot..and muggy. I probably would have just left, but we had already ordered, and needed to buy some stuff, so we stayed. UGH. I was just sitting there, feeling like I was going to faint, when some people in the store started clapping. Weird, kinda like at Chile's when it's someone's birthday. Except they were protesting the power outage that had cut the A/C. I don't think it worked, because the only cool place was in the frozen foods isle. We made our purchases in a hurry and got out of there.
After doing some research, it seems that these brownouts, temporary power outages in random barrios at random times, occur when there is an energy shortage in the city. Apparently this happens from time to time. The weather was nice today, cooler than it had been the past few days. Cloudy and humid from the storm last night (btw, the storms here are pretty crazy, similar to the tropical storms in Florida, very windy and rainy). Maybe they decided to cut the power while the temperatures were down. Who knows, but I'm sure this won't be the last time we experience the fun of temporary power outages in Buenos Aires :P
On a sidenote, Jumbo had some interesting stuff, like this pasta department.
P.S. Yesterday I saw a woman breastfeeding while walking on the subte platform. Like, full-on, boob out in the open, like it was nothing. Is that normal down here? :/
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