La Embajada

Friday morning, Stacey and I woke up early to explore. Universidad de Buenos Aires, commonly known here as la UBA, is in Ciudad Universitaria (College Town), a barrio of Buenos Aires. The route to this area of town, close to the airport, always cracks us up because there is really only one bus we can there: the 160. The stop for the 160 is literally just a small posterboard taped to a tree, and the bus just about never comes. Fifteen minutes is the shortest amount of time we have waited. So we were happy to get on the bus and successfully arrive to UBA.

The campus is composed of three pavilions, each specializing in different majors or parts of the university. In Argentina, a lot of the universities are just called "Facultad de (insert subject here)," and are just what they say they are. The Law School: Facultad de Derecho, Medicine School: Facultad de Medicina, Engineering School: Facultad de Ingeniera. It's that simple. No names, no other options, you choose what you want to go into and go to that school, and if you don't know or don't want that specialized of an education, you can go to UCA (Universidad Católica Argentina), UBA (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Austral or a few more. UBA is the biggest public university in Argentina, and the campus is HUGE.

We walked into the class buildings at Pavilion 2, where the school of design and architecture is. The classrooms of UBA are very much set up like a warehouse, with huge classrooms like this.

UBA Classroom

Outside the buildings, there were a ton of vendors selling programs like Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign and Photoshop), Dreamweaver and Microsoft Office for only 100 pesos, $25 USD! Part of me was tempted to buy one just to see if it would work, but I held back. After seeing the building, we went to the edge of campus which has a great view of Río de la Plata, the widest river in the world. There was a beautiful view of the city where we could see buildings on both sides of Buenos Aires!

The river view from the side of UBA,

with the two buildings in the back

and a park in front

Loving the beautiful view

After our exploration, we looked up that we had to take the 37 bus to get to our appointment at the US Embassy. We got in line, and once again, it had been at least 15 minutes and there was no bus. The line was pretty big, and we weren't too worried since 1. we were at the front and 2. it was the beginning of the bus route. I asked the person in line behind us if the bus came often, and he said he didn't know because it was his first time taking it. We small-talked for more than a little bit because the bus still wasn't there, and learned that this man was named Oscar and he was at UBA for work and taking the bus route to buy a new cell phone. He tried to find just about every similarity we had to force conversation. We learned that his Mom lives in Recoleta, told him a lot about journalism, everywhere we've traveled, etc. After saludos and kisses on the cheek, he sat next to us on the bus, helped us find where we needed to get off and gave us his phone number. Argentines we have met do this a lot, and although it is a friendly thing, we don't really know what to expect. Are we supposed to call you and get coffee? Who knows. But it's nice that such friendly people exist I suppose.

The US Embassy to Argentina/La Embajada de Los Estados Unidos

The bus got off here, and although it looks like the embassy, it's actually the Ambassador's Mansion! There was plenty of security out front but it was cool to see the US flag and such a beautiful house for her. We found the embassy four blocks away, but wanted some choripan and pomelo for a quick lunch before our briefing. Finding a quick kiosk with this is like looking for a Starbucks in the US: incredibly easy, so sure enough, we downed our $2 choripan (chorizo *sausage* on a piece of bread).

Ambassador's mansion

The US Embassy to Argentina

This is the best picture I could get of the Embassy, because it's actually illegal to photograph an embassy. I got away with it in Uruguay, but the security guard watched Elizabeth delete her photo there. I figured Argentina wouldn't know because it was so big, but as I took the photo from across the street a voice came on a loudspeaker and a man's arm waving his hands in a negative manner told me to stop. Freaky, right? We got there a little early and were told to come back in half an hour, so Stacey and I found a nice cafe where we bought tiramisu and a dulce de leche brownie as an afternoon snack. Plus, always nice to find a bathroom somewhere where they provide the toilet paper, which nice cafes like this one did.

We got in line at the embassy and learned that the group at our briefing was a business travel group from University of North Texas, right by Stacey's hometown! What a small world. The Embassy itself was huge, and compared to the one in Montevideo, the briefing was ginormous. We were in a room with an auditorium and about 40 other people, as compared to 14 people in a tiny area.

We were surprised to hear that the first part of the presentation was a visit and discussion with Vilma Martinez, the ambassador!!!! She asked what our impressions were of Argentina, and we got to meet and talk with her a little bit. Stacey brought up the film industry after going to the awards show, and I talked about the recent elections and campaign differences. Well-representing the Missouri School of Journalism!

Two junior foreign service officers gave the presentation, much of which we were familiar with from Uruguay. What was great about it though was that they localized the presentation to the embassy's role in Buenos Aires, rather than describing how awesome their jobs are. As always, the key role of an embassy is to protect the interest and safety of American citizens visiting or residing abroad. In addition to Argentina specifics, both officers shared a lot of interesting facts with us. Here's some of the non-Argentina specific things I learned!

• Europe and Canada are on VISA waiver because of their strong, vibrant economies, and their citizens vacationing to the United States allows a boost of our economy as these people return to their countries. A visa itself only allows you to the "port of entry," not into the country itself. Argentina used to be on visa waiver until its economic downfall.
• 1,000 Argentines visit the US Embassy each day to apply for a visa each day. At one of the embassies in Juarez, Mexico across the border from El Paso, Texas, 3,500 people apply each day. In Argentina, you are told two minutes after your interview whether you have been accepted and if so, receive the visa delivered to your home within 4 business days.
• Cuba, North Korea and Iran are the only three countries without an embassy right now.
• The officers talked a lot about persona non grata (PNG) in respect to diplomatic immunity. This means that if one person is evacuated from a country, it's on an equal basis and someone else is evacuated in the other.
• Brazil makes you apply for a visa to visit for reciprocity purposes. What appalled me was the US Embassy's reaction to this. They literally said that it was"unfortunate" that this happens but in the nature of diplomacy models to be reciprocal. This exhibited a lot of American arrogance, which didn't give me a good impression of the officers.

In a follow-up presentation from the US Commercial Service, we learned a lot about Argentina and its market, which I'll discuss in a future post. Essentially, from the lessons about visas and being a foreign service officer, one thing the Embassy always proposes is that all Americans working abroad are representing the United States, and should not immerse themselves into the culture of another country. That's why officers are repositioned every two years--to keep you from getting too comfortable. It contributes to part of the reason they are always speaking down to you, because they want a positive and respected role in international relations. It was interesting to observe this in Argentina as well as Uruguay, and definitely noted in Buenos Aires on a bigger scale. I'm glad Stacey and I got this appointment and definitely learned a lot!

Teatro Colón

Teatro Colón is a theater and opera house in Buenos Aires, which is ranked as one of the five best venues in the world. Friday night, we went and bought tickets there to see an opera by Giuseppe Verdi called Simon Boccanegra, which is performed in Italian and first opened here in Buenos Aires in the early 1900s. The performance had Spanish subtitles that we easily understood, and it was also cool to hear the connection between Spanish and Italian. There were three acts and an intermission, and the main woman's voice was phenomenal.

The two women sitting next to me befriended us; one was from Colombia (the country) and the other was an older woman who sees operas in Buenos Aires a lot. They gave us recommendations of what to do and their contact information. The Colombian woman spoke the most beautiful Spanish I have ever heard--very clear, smooth and easy to understand. She teaches economics in Colombia and chooses a country to travel in its entirety every summer; so far she has gone to Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, the US and hopes to go to Europe next. How cool! Here are some pictures from the theater.

Teatro Colón

Stacey, Jordin and I in the lobby

The inside of the theater!

Look at all those levels!

The stage from our seats

Photography is not allowed during the show,

but I couldn't resist. No one took my camera away.

Here, you can see the stage setup and the orchestra below!

After Teatro Colón, we wanted to get dinner (note: it's midnight) at a parrilla (grill) that we drive past on the way to school everyday. We didn't know the name, but got in a taxi and told the driver we wanted to go to the cool restaurant by the Sheraton hotel with all of the flags outside. And he knew what we were talking about! It ended up being called Las Nazarenas, and we ordered some great white wine and steaks. Yum!