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are the cafes good places to settle in and work at for a few hours? is reading/literature fairly big in the culture? how does the education level compare to other places?
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There are many quite a few cafes with wifi available. You can sit in cafes with just a coffee for hours and it's okay. Here is a map with some of the hotspots listed:
http://www.icer2006.com/paginas/pdf/32456.pdf
People are well versed in literature here, as well as politics and world issues. I find people in BsAs to actually be better informed than many "educated" people in the States.
As metetron said before, the education level here is quite high since public education through college is free. When I tell people I meet here that even public colleges in the U.S. cost thousands of dollars per semester they are astonished.