Some questions for future consideration:

Why is 1980s (and earlier) American pop music playing everywhere? Bill Joel, Talking Heads and the Monkees from this morning, but everyday in cafes and restaurants we hear the usual hits from high school and college. Not that I'm complaining -- I'm rather stuck in the 1980s myself. But is it "taste"? Is it that radio stations and individuals were able to acquire those albums in the 1980s (or 1990s) and were unable to acquire much after the 2001 crash? Is it that those older albums are making their ay southward slowly?

Why is it that when I first walked out of the Subte on Av. Sante Fe I was quite overwhelmed -- with the noise and dirt and chaos -- and worried about the place we had decided to live for six months, but within a week, I considered it a new home? It isn't simply that I see the same scene and feel more manageable. The scene itself looks different. This is the transformation of space into place. Or one kind of place into another.

Why is it that plastic products are so expensive -- kitchen garbage cans, ziplock bags, etc.?

Why is Haagen-Daz so unbelievably expensive and yet so desired (such that it shows up in many of the grocery stores in the more expensive neighborhoods)?

Why is there "envios a domicilio" in a small store selling perfumes and shampoo?

Why don't we have a drain in the floor of the bathroom, so that when water spills out of the bath -- say, when children are splashing around-- it can just run back into the drain?

Why does it seem that all Bauhaus-inspired apartment buildings are designed by Jewish architects (or at least people with Eastern European Jewish-sounding names)? I can hazard a guess, but I still find it interesting. Parts of Palermo feel like a little -- no, not Dessau -- Tel Aviv.