Buenos Aires

Today, my father had his 75th birthday. For me, it was the day I'd fly to South America for the very first time. When I returned from Southeast Asia in 1996, I wanted to take my next trip to South America, but it turns out the costs were prohibitive at the time (The itinerary would have cost about $50,000, due primarily to high internal air fares.) I opted for a 1999 trip to Africa, which I certainly do not regret, but I do wish I had come here earlier, and this trip would give me more opportunities to see this continent.

Because of the World Cup, I asked my friend Alan, who was taking me to the airport, if he minded taking me at 6:30AM for a 10AM flight, and he did not mind. So, after getting all my luggage checked in, I went to the Crown Club lounge (Delta Airlines executive lounge) and watched the United States look pitifully inept against Ghana. We needed to win, and we needed Italy to win, for us to advance to the second round. Italy did their part. We did not.

I flew from San Francisco to Atlanta in business class, and it was OK. The food service was so-so, with things like ruffles for a snack, but at least the lunch service was not a mystery meat. The movie was apparently Firewall, and I probably made as much sense of it without the headphones; I was enjoying music on my iPod. One of my classmates, Tim Gehlmann, was on my flight, so we killed some time in Atlanta waiting for our connection. I found out that Brazil and Australia advanced.

We left the lounge to see if we could get a bite to eat before the flight, but the restaurant was packed. Our flight was delayed for 40 minutes, but it looked like we still wouldn't have had time, so we went to the gate, and picked up a hot dog along the way. We ran into Jim Kendall and his wife and brother-in-law, and were later joined by Dedric Watson and Jake Tjalma. It was good to see them.

We eventually boarded out flight and left two hours late. Tim and I had had the time for a meal, after all, and for me, I was so tired that as the plane left the runway, I just put my seat back and fell asleep.

Delta's business class is not one I would recommend, internationally. The seat is barely wider than a coach seat! On a 767, coach is 2-3-2 seating with business class as 2-2-2 with a slightly wider aisle. The pitch is good, but the seat has less recline. Overall, the domestic business class seat was more comfortable! I don't know about the food because I slept.

Alas, I did not sleep well, though. I woke repeatedly through the night, and with the person next to me being so close, I was quite uncomfortable. Worse, I have to fly these turkeys back at the end of the trip.

We landed late in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Going through immigration was fairly easy, but the bags took a while to come off the belt, and the customs authorities wanted papers proving my ownership of the lenses and photographic equipment. This included questions, like, "How much does this cost?" which generated an astonished look when I quoted book value for a 400mm f/2.8 lens from Nikon. I pointed out a lot of the stickers on the cases reflected the same as the visas in my passport, and they let me through. (Note to self: When my passport expires in 2008, I'll need some other means of proving I own my photo gear.)

I grabbed 500 pesos from an ATM, as did Tim, and we shared a car to the Hilton. We went past Casa Rosetta, their presidential residence, and past a lot of painted cows. My room is pretty high up, overlooking the main square and the canal.

Turns out some other classmates had already arrived, so I joined a couple for the Spain v Saudi Arabia match. Between games, I did some shopping up on Florida Street. I bought myself some nice leather goods, and I bought some gifts. At one shop, where I probably spent too much, the saleswoman gave me a kiss when I left. I think I could enjoy living here.

Back at the hotel, some of us watched France scrimp their way past Togo, and then a group of ten of us went to dinner. My class has 65 people, of whom 6 are women and the rest are men. Our dinner party was much closer to parity, with six men and four women. We went to a local restaurant, and obviously had beef, since it is the national dish. We ordered a sampler platter of appetizers that included cheeses, and an empanada. The beef came in two servings the first was a rib cut, with about 600 grams of meat. It was slow cooked on a spit. The second was a lomo cut. The closest equivalent would be tenderloin, and it was cooked rare. It was delicious. It was probably 750 grams of meat. Suffice to say no one, not even me, could finish their cuts. The dinner table conversation was also interesting, and lively.

After dinner, I made it back to the hotel, where I got to my room at 1AM and fell asleep at 2AM.

The previous occupant left the television alarm set for 8:30AM, and it woke me. I went downstairs for breakfast, which was a standard buffet. After that, I met up with more classmates. At noon, we watched Germany beat Sweden quite handily. There was a Lufthansa crew watching the match at the hotel, a long with a lot of Germans. They had a lot to celebrate as Germany scored two goals in the first 12 minutes, and then shut the game down, as they cruised to the quarterfinals.

It was to be a big sports day, since after the match, several of us went looking for Loco Para Footbol, a sports bar here in Buenos Aires dedicated to football. It was sold out, but they recommended another location, Cha Tango, where we could watch. Tickets were only 75 pesos, and we didn't know any better, so we went.

The next match was Mexico against Argentina. Tim Escamilla came with us to support Mexico. Cha Tango was a huge ballroom with a movie theater sized screen for the match. We had unlimited beer, sodas, and snacks. At 4PM, local time, the match kicked off, and early in the match Mexico scored first. Tim was the only person there to stand and yell, the rest of the cavernous ballroom was silent. I mentioned to Dedric, who was sitting next to me, that if Argentina doesn't win, we may need to form a schiltron or Tim may not get out alive.

Argentina scored soon thereafter, to restore order in the world... for a few moments.

The match continued, with some interesting play, but no one scored. Halftime was 1-1, and fulltime was 1-1. Since we were in the knockout phase of the World Cup, that meant extra time, and potentially penalty kicks to decide who would advance. In the extra time, it finally looked like Argentina was paying attention, as they scored a goal in the 98th minute, and held on to win, 2-1. We all received free bottles of Champaign, and some people stayed for dinner. Six of us had to get back to the hotel, though, since we had tickets for Los Pumas hosting the All Blacks!

We barely made it back to the hotel where we met the driver waiting for us. Several people ran off to do some errands, and the end result was we had the minivan, already with some other people in it, waiting for 20 minutes while we got our act together. Ah, the privileges of working with the best and brightest, they never end! Two more classmates joined us for the rugby. Anyway, the hotel arranged a tour for us. We went to Velez football stadium, where the rugby friendly would be held. There was a misting rain falling, and our seats were in the open.

The match started with a haka, a traditional Maori war dance. The All Blacks are among the best rugby players in the world, and Los Pumas have recently been playing well. The match was well fought, New Zealand scored first, with a penalty, then scored a try to make it 8-3. Argentina then went on a run to take a 16-8 lead, and New Zealand cut it to one at halftime, 16-15.

The second half was dominated by the All Blacks. The weather made it a defensive battle. New Zealand was leading 25-19 down the stretch, and in the last minute held off a fierce effort by Argentina to score. The crowd was upset, but, by and large, sportsmanlike. I was wearing my All Blacks shirt, and one boy tried to provoke me, but since I don't speak Spanish, I have no idea what he was saying.

We got a ride back, and went for dinner at midnight, to Las Lilas. This is a first class steakhouse in Buenos Aires; it is walking distance from the hotel on Puerto Madera. The hotel is on an old canal, that was renovated in recent years. The cranes are still there, but as part of the scenery. The dock buildings have been converted, and the local laws require they be preserved.

I ordered steak, plus we had a mixed appetizer. The empanadas are very good. The steak, lomo, was excellent. I had it very rare. I also had some French fries provençal, which are fries with garlic. Yum. With another pound of meat in my stomach, I went to bed.

I slept late, and barely woke in time for the football at noon. I did check my email in the morning, and considered the city tour. Unfortunately, the weather was quite stormy, rain and winds, so I opted against the city tour and joined a few other people to watch England play Ecuador. Beckham scored on a free kick, and lucky, lucky England held off a fierce challenge from Ecuador to hold on to win.

I took a nap, and woke in time for Netherlands against Portugal. This was the ugliest match so far in this World Cup. Sixteen cautions and four players sent off reduced this match to a farce. Even worse, lucky, lucky England get to play a Portuguese team with two players suspended.

Dinner was the GEMBA welcome dinner. Or, to put it another way, fun time is over. We had the orientation meeting, where they revealed the first extended education session will be in Venice next summer (I hope I can go!) and talked about graduation. I was nominated for the yearbook committee, but since I want to change jobs, I don't know how much time that will require, so I declined. Then, I was nominated again, and again, and again... I declined, each time. While I am very flattered, I just can't commit. Of course, I'll share any photographs desired.

Dinner was at Senor Tango. We had steak, of course, but this cut was not as good as the first two. The main purpose of Senor Tango is the tango show, not the dinner. The show started with some native music, and then switched to tango. The women's costumes were, um, leggy, and I can understand how my friend Huck enjoys the dance. It didn't do so much for me. Dermot, who is Irish, commented that it was similar to Irish folk dancing, except one is allowed to touch the girl. At one point, two dancers came into the audience to look for a dancer to join them, and Jose danced with the two girls. He doesn't want his wife to see the lipstick pictures!

The dance that bothered me the most was one where the six women started dancing together, then a man came to join the dance, and there was some simulated slapping of the woman. From my perspective, the implications were obvious, and offensive. The dance implied that it was OK for men to abuse women, and that a woman can't be happy without a man.

Others were offended by the costume the women wore, which was closer to lingerie than a dress. That didn't bother me.

While the show was interesting, I felt it went on too long. It was two hours, and the finale was Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Don't Cry for me, Argentina." That was a bit forced.

We took the busses back, and I went to bed.

The first day of class! This term, we have three courses: Cost Accounting, Strategy, and Operations. In each class, we dove in to the material. Cost Accounting and Operations are closely tied; so there is a bit of cross-referencing. Strategy is taught with the Socratic Method, so we've got to be up to date on the readings!

More details about classes later.

The schedule is different here. Argentina is a very late night country; going to dinner at 9PM is early. Consequently, the classes start later and end later. Each day has three class sessions, the first is from 10AM-12:15PM, the second runs from 1:45-4PM, and the last from 4:30-6:45PM. Lunch is between the first and second sessions.

On Monday, lunch was the Italy against Australia match. Several of us went to the bar to watch the match over lunch. I had a hamburger delivered, others left at halftime. Australia played a good match, but the official awarded Italy a penalty in injury time, that was swiftly converted, for a 1-0 win. It was tight making it to the next class! (Later in the day, when we were in class, Ukraine beat Switzerland, 0-0, 3-0 on penalty kicks.)

Dinner that night was a team meeting. Since some of my teammates are already tired of steak, they voted to go for Italian. I had calamari rings and some pasta with mushrooms (fettuccine Don Ciccio.) I was unimpressed, and my Italian teammate was similarly unimpressed. But the team did meet, and we discussed our issues.

I did get to sleep that night.

I woke fairly early, which is a good thing, since I had to read the case study for strategy. Fortunately, the lecturer didn't call on me, but I managed to be prepared.

Over lunch, we watched Brazil take on Ghana. That was a crushing victory for Brazil, and Ronaldo became the all-time leading scorer in World Cups.

In the Operations class, we learned how to make paper hats. This was an attempt to introduce us to bottleneck theory; it is something I didn't need a demonstration to understand. Cash accounting at the end of the day was difficult.

After class, we had a meeting lunch with some students at the local business school. I signed up for the entrepreneur table; four of us were joined by three Argentinos, and we went to a local Italian restaurant. I had a grilled sea food appetizer, and penne with red pesto and "mini" meat balls. The meat balls were about 3 cm in diameter; this is not what I'd call "mini." It was a bit better than the day before. The discussion really didn't focus on entrepreneurial activities, but on what the two programs were like, what it is like living in Buenos Aires, and, of course, football.

After dinner, the three locals had to go home, and the four of us went out for a drink. There was a bar near the hotel, so we went there. I had coca cola light while everyone else had beer. The popcorn there was the saltiest I have ever had. I went back to the hotel at 1AM, with a classmate, and the other two continued for more drinks. (All names were withheld to protect the guilty, and David.) (Ooops.)

Not a good night's sleep; I was fairly tired through most of the day. Once again, strategy was the first class of the day, so I read the case study in the morning. I was called upon, but addressed as "Larry." Anyway, I had my input ready, and contributed. Learning with this method does force you to be prepared.

Between classes, there was no football! The second round is over, so we have two days off. I went to the buffet, and was not impressed, as I found very little I would want to eat.

The afternoon classes went slowly; the operations class was concentrating on bottlenecks, and it has been basic arithmetic.

After class, Randall and I went to purchase some more goodies. I needed a gift for my sister, plus some goodies for myself. I won't say what I bought for others, but I opted for a calf's skin "car" jacket. It is medium length, custom-tailored, and very soft. The jacket was delivered to my hotel Friday evening.

Since it was Randall's birthday, I joined him, and several others, for a birthday dinner. This one was at an Italian restaurant. I am tired of Italian food! I had risotto Milanese with beef ragout. We had a mixed appetizer. The risotto was pretty good, but the appetizers were only OK. The pizza was very good, though.

After dinner, I read my email, which was copious, and I then went to bed.

I woke to more reading. We started with cost accounting, and discussed real costs and allocating costs. The lunch today was actually quite good, with a roast baby pig and skirt steak. It was a sunny day, so I opted to go take photographs of cows.

Cows?

The "Four Wing" Building	The "Four Wing" Building
The "Four Wing" Building	A Dock Crane
Dock Cranes	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
A Girl	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
The Footbridge	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
A Sign	Dock Cranes
Artists	Bird?
Casa Rosada	Casa Rosada
The "Four Wing" Building	Casa Rosada
Casa Rosada	A Statue
Ministry of Communications	BA Traffic
The Admiral	A Globe
Cows!	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
Cows!	Another Girl
Cows!	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
A Sick Cow	The footbridge
Cows!	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
Bart Van Praag

Click on any image to see a larger picture

Apparently, it is a charity fund raising effort, where people purchase and paint cows. The best cow was one jumping through a window, but it was replaced. A lot are routine cows, painted and displayed along the Puerto Madero canal.

Unfortunately, my lens seems to have a speck on it, and I need to clean it. We'll see if I get it done properly, or if there is a flaw with the image capture. I also found a few interesting Argentinos to photograph, and found the landing pad for President Kirchner's helicopter. It has been buzzing in and out while we are here; I've seen the copter several times.

In Strategy, we discussed how corporations handle strategic planning. I seem to remember meeting a former AT&T Director of Strategic Planning in Bangkok earlier this year, so I may be able to use him as a resource. In Operations, we moved on to queuing theory, which reminded me of my basic operating system theory courses back as an undergraduate.

It is nearing the end of the week, and the end of our time in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, a combination of bad scheduling meant that I had room service for dinner, it was unremarkable. Classes would be early the next day, so I went to bed early.

The day's schedule was easier because at noon, Argentina would play Germany in the World Cup quarterfinal. Since we had twelve classes already, we were burning out a bit. The first class was strategy; it went quickly. I seem to remember making a contribution to the discussion, adding that waterproof packaging for laundry soap would be a win in the rain forest.

Class let out for the match. The first half was marked by a hard fought, but clean effort by both teams that ended 0-0. We had our quick lunch, but missed Argentina's goal by seconds. Midway through the half Argentina's keeper was injured, so Argentina replaced several players to play a strongly defensive game for the last twenty minutes. This failed; Germany equalized. After ninety minutes, it was 1-1, so we had thirty minutes of extra time. That remained scoreless, so the match had to be decided by penalty kicks.

The Germans are machines on kicks. They made all four, their keeper saved two by Argentina, and Argentina lost.

For us, this was a disaster. Instead of a fun city celebrating a win, Buenos Aires became a morgue. We'd see this later when we went out to dinner.

But now, we had class again. This class was operations, more on queuing theory and the psychology of waiting. They talked about the different types of frustration while waiting in line, but none covered my pet peeve: People who can't count change. There has been many a time when I've been tempted to give some idiot a dollar so they just leave the transaction, instead they fiddle for minutes trying to figure out the exact change. Anyway...

After the class, we had three speakers from la Nacion, one of the newspapers in Buenos Aires. The talk went on a little too long, had the detailed examination of financial data been cut back, it would have been better; they could instead have talked about issues of publishing in Argentina. I guess they did have to cover the effects of the 2002 devaluation on business. Unfortunately, the room was hot, and my calf cramped. I wanted to yell. I didn't, of course.

After the speaker, I had booked a half-hour Argentine massage, which is similar to a standard massage, but includes heated stones. Besides rubbing the sore muscles (My shoulders still hurt from Delta's narrow business class seats) with their hands, they place hot stones on the muscles to warm them up, and then gently rub the hot stone on the score muscles. It felt real good.

Then, it was Max Maxey's birthday, so we went to El Mirasol for dinner. This was a very good steak house. I had a carne empanada and fried squash for an appetizer, and a bifsteak lomo a la poirvre negro (filet mignon in black peppercorn sauce.) The meat was rare, and was delicious. Or, at least the 400 grams of beef I was able to eat (of about 500 grams served) were delicious. Perfectly cooked, and perhaps the most flavorful beef I've ever had. The Texans should send their ranchers down to Argentina to learn how to raise cattle to taste good.

I had to pack, so I headed back to the hotel at 11:30PM. Others went out dancing. I packed, and went to sleep.

I bought too much here in Buenos Aires. My body-bag is now at 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and I fear Delta will ask for excess luggage. My camera is still 24 kilos (53 pounds.)

In the morning, I took a walk and took a few more pictures.

Sunrise in Buenos Aires	Sunrise in Buenos Aires
Sunrise in Buenos Aires	The Dock Cranes
Hilton Lobby	The Canal
Cows!	Chalk-browed Mockingbird
Chalk-browed Mockingbird	The Footbridge
The "four wing" Building	An Abandoned Storage Facility
The Footbridge	The Footbridge
The Canal	The Canal
An Old Ship	The Statue
A Crane	Cows!
Cows!	Cows!
The Park	Casa Rosada
Cows!	Cows!
Cows!	The Port
The Footbridge	Warehouses
The Hilton Lobby

Click on any image to see a larger picture

No cows!

Apparently, the cow parade ended at the end of June, and a lot of cows have been removed. The morning light on the old buildings was definitely nice, and the canals were beautiful. When I checked out of the hotel, I had about 1400 pesos in charges. That's a lot of diet coke. I got a car to the airport with yet another classmate, Jeff. I had no problems checking in, but he had to pay excess.

I was able to watch England draw Portugal in the Condor lounge. (It is a different condor from the California condor.) Unfortunately, last call for the flight was right after the end of extra time, so I didn't get to watch the penalties. Instead, I got to sit on a bus waiting for someone to finish their shopping.

Aerolineas Argentinas condor class was just a couple rows of coach curtained off, with a little side table in the middle seat. Since the flight was full, that meant I didn't have anyone sitting next to me, so I guess that was OK. Lunch was a beef kebab that was pretty good.

Fly to Rio!