A Funny Thing Happened on the way from the Museum...

Amy and I just got back from visiting the Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Arts. After a few hours of seeing all the “fine art”, we needed a pick me up and headed for a nearby coffee house. As we were enjoying our snack we realized we had spent most of our daily budget at the Museum. No problem, we thought, we'll pay with a VISA. “No accepta VISA” was the answer we received from our waiter. Oh Oh we only had 20 Argentine pesos ($5 US dollars) left over. That might cover it, but it might not. Amy dug deep in her purse and came up with some coins for another 1.25 pesos. It's going to be close.

Would they let us leave and come back to pay? Would one of us have to hoof it back to the apartment to get the rest of the money we owed them? Could we leave them something of value to guarantee our return? Would we want to leave something of value? Or....wash dishes?

“Tenemos una problema” would be the start of our explanation to the waiter, Amy decided. She's our language 'expert'.  For another 20 plus agonizing minutes we formulated our strategy and determined what to say, in spanish, to our non English speaking waiter. We would let them know that we are embarrassed, hand over everything peso we have and ask if we can return tomorrow to pay the rest of the bill.

The moment had arrived when we had to ask for la cuenta. Our palms were sweaty. The waiter looked at our table, counted out what we owed him and said......Vientiuno pesos por favor. We started cracking up with relief. 21 pesos! Our efforts and worry were not needed after all. The waiter, I am sure, was a bit baffled with the crazy Norteamericanos who were giggling over the amount.  Amy and I high-fived and left the coffee house laughing with a whopping .25 pesos (a US nickel) to spare! Man that coffee was good.