They only drive slow when you´re late

So this morning was an adventure! To say the least...

It began with me waking up nice and early, 8am. After showering, getting ready, and eating breakfast, I headed out of the house around 9am. The reason for this being that I had an appointment at an office downtown at 10am to get my criminal report for my visa. Leaving an hour early was a bit unnecessary, but I wanted to make sure I wasn´t late. The easiest (and basically only) way I know to get there is by the subte (subway), so that´s what I took. Well, after waiting an unusually long amount of time for it to arrive in the station, I got on. It slowly began to creep forward and then I quickly became acquanted with the man next to me as it slammed on it´s brakes. After a few more times of stop-and-go, we began to move forward at a horribly slow rate. With the time it took to get to the next station I could have walked there. At this rate, I was telling myself, it was a very good thing that I had decided to leave early. However, I soon realized that I just may not have left early enough because an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying that our train was broken down and that we all had to exit the train. Great! Many of the Argentines felt the same way that I did, this fact given away by their grumbling and shouting. I was torn between waiting for the next train, which I didn´t actually know was coming for sure, figuring out a bus route, or taking a taxi. I contemplated for a few minutes and then decided that finding a bus would take too long, so I opted for a taxi.

As I exited the subte stop I had no idea where I was and, of course, as I looked for a taxi that was free, I couldn´t find one. This only happens when you have 10 minutes to get to your destination. Eventually I did find one, and gave him the address. After confirming on my map where exactly I was, I realized that there was NO way that I would make it to my destination on time. We were quite far from the street I needed to go and seemed to be hitting every single red light on the way. Not to mention my taxi driver decided to drive oh-so cautiously...something that my mother will be happy to hear, but was driving me quite mad! I knew I would be lucky to get there by 10:30. I tried to be calm about it, seeing as there was absolutely nothing that I could do. The thing that worried me was that I would be late for my appointment and would get yelled at or have to reschedule. I was paying a lot of money for this taxi and I did not want to have to make the journey again! Luckily we arrived just as the money meter reached as high as I could afford (I didn´t have that much money in my wallet!). As I walked in I was trying my hardest to think about how to explain the situation in Spanish, knowing that I was about 40 minutes late. As I walked up to the window, to my chagrin, he never even looked at the time I was supposed to be there! On top of that, all he did was print off a paper and hand it to me. It was no appointment at all! So two minutes later I walked out of the office with a piece of paper and an empty wallet. Luckily I was able to take the subte home...but man! What a morning.