Today we spent inadvertently observing how San Salvador's rich live.  Our guide mentioned that many travelers to El Salvador are surprised by San Salvador's glitzy side and I'd have to say I'm one of them.  Yesterday we spent a short time transferring busses in Guatemala City--a capital that I'm sure has its bright spots, but one that seems to me like a small piece of hell.  When we originally arrived in San Salvador at the beginning of the trip, my vision of it was the same as many Central American capitals--polluted, full of traffic, industrial, dingy, dirty, and delapidated.  Escaping the city on that first day brought on my culture shock, while now, another part of that same city is creating a new shock.  We're staying along the Boulevard de los heroes, a street full of chain restaurants and one of San Salvador's nicest malls.  This morning we watched the Argentina vs. Germany World Cup game in the bar of one of San Salvadors ritziest hotels--the Real Intercontinental, where the bathroom is nicer than any hotel room we've stayed at so far.  The hotel is full of Salvadorian and international businessmen (not so many women), and the bar is packed with suits...or at least ties since it's so hot in here.  Smoke fills the air and men are sipping tequila and whiskey at 9:00am.  Later in the day, we went to the Museo de arte (MARTE) and stopped for lunch in the art museum restaurant.  Looking like our typical unkempt travel selves, we weren't quite prepared for the poshness of the restaurant, or of the other restaurant guests.  While the men watched the morning world cup game on the big projected screens in a bar, the women of leisure watched the afternoon game between conversations on the small muted restaurant tvs.  In the morning we saw a small slice of the wealthy male elite, while in the afternoon we saw their wives.  Well-dressed and put together, these women, accustomed to air conditioning and owners of SUVs, are the inspiration for telenovela characters.  Later in the evening we paid a visit to the local mall (are we in America?) and couldn't decide if the middle class is growing with its thirst for American-style consumerism, or if this is how those lucky few live.  When we left the mall to head back to the hotel for the night, we remembered that we're still in El Salvador when we saw a young boy juggling for money in the street.