It's the weekend. The weather has recovered from its record-breaking spring chill and I celebrated by going native.

That is, I went to a mall.

Malls have become the new town square for many of the world's cities, and Baires is no exception. I wanted to finger the goods and check out the vibe. I chose the solidly middle-class Abasto mall, an enormous converted train station. with 4 or 5 levels of shops, a playground, numerous fast-food places, and -- most remarkable -- a ferris wheel and other carnival rides. Disney had a space for little kids to sing karaoke tunes from "High School Musical." Stores rocked with "wanna-buy, wanna-buy" music.

Shopping in Baires pits my relatively conservative taste (probably news to some of you) against the Argentine love for things that are dramatic, revealing and precariously engineered. Grab an inviting garment off the rack and you will likely find that, instead of the simple black top you had thought, it plunges to the waist front and back and all of its parts are held together by tiny chains. Or perhaps it has a large cut-out exposing areas of your body you prefer to leave to the imagination. Or maybe it has a cat's cradle of straps which you must decipher before you even start to put it over your head. As a matter of principle, a piece of clothing that requires me to figure out how to get it on doesn't make the cut.

I lasted about 2 hours before bolting from the glossy surfaces of the mall into the decaying streets of the neighborhood, celebrated as the barrio where the great tango troubadour Carlos Gardel grew up. I came away with a pair of leggings and a tee shirt -- not one of those boxy things we wear in North America, but a tight, black off-the-shoulder affair. It's front is adorned with faintly shiny black stars.

As I say, I went native.