Buenos Aires is a big, bustling, crazy busy city, which makes getting around something of an adventure — and that includes just crossing the street!

You see, while in North America we are used to seeing traffic lights at all four corners of a major intersection, that’s not necessarily the case here. The odd street has four, but most have two on diagonal corners and some only one on one corner! It took me a while to figure this out, but here’s how it works. If you are waiting to cross a street that doesn’t have a light, you have to look at the one at right angles to yours. If that one is green, then you should wait; if that one is red, you can go. You get pretty fast at calculating this after a few near misses!

The locals, of course, are so used to it that they can forecast the time when the lights will change by looking at the right angle one, and often start crossing seconds before the red has switched to green.

The other part of this adventure is the street signs. Again in North America, we are accustomed to seeing some sort of label on all the streets at all the corners, either on a pole like the one in the photograph or attached to the wall.

Not so in Buenos Aires.

There are many, many intersections here with nary a label at all! How do you know which street you are on, you ask? Well, you can ask someone, which I’ve often done if I’m in an unfamiliar area, or just walk to a street that has a sign and backtrack!

The buses are a whole other story — but I’ll keep that for another day!