I don’t understand operating hours in Argentina at all. Businesses seem to open and close at random times throughout the day. I’m convinced that the supermarket next to my first hostel in Buenos Aires was somehow toying with me and closed up shop every time they could sense I wanted to buy food. Here were my passes by in a single day:

I also got a week pass for the gym, figuring I’d go all 4 days I’m staying in the Palermo neighborhood, but then on Thursday and Friday, the gym was closed for the holidays. I went in on Saturday, fully prepared to get in a (likely futile) debate with them to convince them to give me back my money since they didn’t tell me they’d be closed, but it turned out they actually were open, just from 4pm to 9pm. There wasn’t a schedule posted, but I feel like Argentinians magically know schedules somehow. One of the few schedules I’ve seen was when I tried to go to my favorite sandwich for lunch on Sunday, but found a schedule posted saying they’re only open from 7:30pm until 10:30pm. Who picks these hours?

The craziest schedule to adjust to are the bars and clubs. The bars don’t start filling up until around 2 AM and people don’t seem to go to clubs until around 4 AM. The weird part is that starting at midnight, there are tons of people walking around the bar areas; they’re just not in the bars. I have no idea where they’re coming from or going to, but I can confirm that it’s not the bars because they’re totally empty until 2.