These foreigners are so dreadfully uncouth

Thu, 6:15pm. I just ordered a tea with milk. I explicitly said "with a little milk" and the guy repeated it back to me. I have just been served with a cup of what looks like frothy milk with a teabag string emerging from it. IF I WANT A TEA LATTE I WILL ASK FOR ONE. It's just like the one tea I ordered in Chile. Maybe there is a drop or two of water in there somewhere.

Oh no, as the froth gradually subsides I see actual tea underneath the surface. So maybe it will be drinkable if the froth doesn't outlast the heat.

I should have ordered it with lemon, I don't see how they could muck that up.

The hotel let me leave my bags, and (as per their web site, I was prepared to ask about this if it wasn't offered) they gave me a 10% discount for not paying by credit card. So all in all quite a nice place, if not super cheap even with the discount. Very definitely a hotel despite having "Hostal" in the name (and, as I noted on my return last night, on an enormous sign sticking out into the street). (Hostal Santa Fe de la Veracruz, for the record.)

Got up about 2pm and left the hotel about 3pm, which was a bit wasteful but also quite pleasant as I didn't really have any major 'must do' plans today. Big problem with leaving at that time is most cafe/restaurant places are shut, so I had to go back to the OK and cheap but nothing special place I ate yesterday. After that I went back to the hotel and surfed a bit, since I only had 1.5h til check out and I figured I'd wander a bit after if I could leave the bags. My wandering may not extend past this cafe (La Citi? It's on the corner with La Rioja anyway) in the pedestrianised bit of San Martin but that's enough. I may have a second meal here by way of fortifying myself for the bus trip, I don't know.

Booked up at the only hostel on hostelworld.com for Fri/Sat night while back at the hotel before checking out. I booked for a dormitory, I figure it's about seven quid a night, no big deal, so if I change my mind I just won't even turn up. At least this way I don't have to be dithering around finding somewhere when I get to Posadas on Friday morning.

7:35. Just had a milanesa de pollo and chips, a bit stuffed but there you go. Got round to downloading a mixed bag of books last night and am reading Angel Brazil's "The Manor House School" (passable and undemanding) and came across this:

"I fear the lessons suffered sometimes while they indulged in day-dreams, for it was hard to recall such mundane matters as the capital of Mexico, or the date of Magna Charta, when their thoughts were far away..."

Not the best example possible. I mean, could there be an easier capital to remember than Mexico City?

8:10pm. The service here is terrible. It takes me forever to get attention attention. I just ordered a litre of Quilmes for the second time in about 15 minutes (and I know the second guy understood me, as either in horror or confirmation he repeated back "a litre?") and they've just brought me a tiny glass of draught. I am stone cold sober so I really don't see any need for subtly refusing to serve me with a whole litre. I mean, I AM SO FUCKING INVISIBLE TO THE WAITERS HERE it will take me longer to get served again than to drink the fucking thing.

I am really hacked off all of a sudden. It has just come over me. There is fuck all I can do. You know, fuck it, it's childish but I am just paying up and leaving this shitty little beer, even though I'm going to have to pay for it.

8:20pm. Still trying to be allowed to ask for the bill. I waved at a waiter twice and he acknowledged but just won't come over. Fuck knows how long it will take to produce the bill once I ask, then I have to get attention to get change, then I have to get the change back. At this rate I won't get a beer anywhere before I have to go pick my bags up. Man, this fucking sucks. I WANT TO GIVE YOU MONEY EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE USELESS. LET ME GIVE YOU WHAT I OWE YOU SO I CAN GO SOMEWHERE BETTER.

8:40pm. Walked miles over to Kusturica. Sat in garden on own (can see Orion BTW). Just ordered a litre of Quilmes. I don't have time to sit and enjoy it now and am no longer in the mood but it's a childish point of honour.

I cannot believe how this anger has come over me. I am stone cold sober and was feeling moderately chilled til the second beer order got through and was misrepresented.

I gave it a minute or two and then went into the place to pay at the counter. Some guy added it up on a calculator, I didn't get a printed bill, so no doubt I was massively overcharged. It came to 53 and a bit, the guy muttered something about coins but I said it didn't matter (it wasn't clear to me) . He was fumbling in his pocket as I left but I said it was OK and walked out. So I paid 55. I wasn't going to leave a tip at all but I couldn't bring myself to wait for and accept the change.

I feel so impotent. I was so tempted to be a bit snide with some staff member, but I don't think I ever would even in English and it's hopeless for me to attempt it in Spanish. I should have said something when they brought me the tiny beer but I was oddly cowed by the waiter and until I suddenly got hacked off I presumably assumed it was just my bad Spanish, as I usually do if an order is screwed up. Given the guy repeated back to me, plus my previous order being ignored, I don't think that was the case. The general difficulty in getting a waiter to come over the whole time I was there was bugging me slightly all the time but not much, it was only when this beer thing happened that the situation crystallised, I guess my anger solution became supersaturated. :-)

Well, anyway, let me 'enjoy' my litre of beer, which I need to neck in about 30 minutes, anyway.

Oh, I did leave that small beer untouched in childish pique, so when I say 'stone cold sober' I mean it. And just rambling, if they really didn't want to serve me a litre (though it may just have been incompetence that screwed the order up), TELL ME. (They didn't, as the guy didn't say anything I didn't understand once he took the second order.) Don't try and quietly palm off an alternative.

Slightly calming down now tho the fact I am rushed is not conducive. This reminds me of getting ripped off in Puno. I think I was sober then too. (I only harp on that as this kind of sudden rage usually occurs to me in the UK when I get fucked around by closing times and the like, e.g. that memorable occasion in Ealing. But clearly it's not inherently alcohol-induced.)

9pm. Just paid here so I can leg it when I want. I may not finish the litre, I only bought it on dumb principle. ARS8 here a litre, I gave the waitress 15 (and she was nice enough to clarify with me it was only 8 too when I handed the money over) partly as an indirect fuck you to the other place and partly as an indirect apology lest my hurry and suppressed anger have led me to be a touch brusque without intending it.

I know this is all as childish as hell, but at least I do know it, so I get the better of my fallen nature by acknowledging it.