Chipotle!

Today I found a restaurant that's a Chipotle clone. It's called California Burrito Co., and it's very similar to the Chipotle chain in the US. Even the interior is vaguely reminiscent of the original. It's in a turisty part of the city (Lavalle a block and a half from Florida, for those who know Buenos Aires), and the menu is in Spanish and English. The cost is about US$4 for a burrito and a drink, so it's a cheaper that Chipotle at home. The burrito was good, but maybe slightly smaller and (surprisingly for Argentina) it had less meat than in the US. Still, in a country where Mexican food barely exists, this was a nice change of pace. I'm sure that I'll be back.

There was a twenty-something guy dressed like a grunge kid who walked around like he owned the place -- and maybe he did. I think he was American. His Spanish was decent, but he had a slight accent. He was sitting at the table next to mine talking business with an Argentine while I was eating.

I've had a cold since Monday, but at least it's pretty light. Hopefully it will be gone in a couple of days.

I expect to move into my new apartment late next week. My plan is to live there for the rest of the time I am here. The one I'm currently in doesn't have any cockroaches -- yay! Let's hope that's true of the next one as well.

Uruguay

It´s been a while, hasn´t it? I´m finding that with going out every night (or almost every night) I have to really make an effort to find the time to write something here.

I´m writing this from Uruguay. I had to make a trip here in order to renew my tourist visa, which is only valid for 3 months. Yes, that means I´ve been here for 3 months now. Unfortunately, it's been raining all day, so I can't really enjoy the trip by taking a walk or something. At least I'm warm and dry in a cyber cafe.

I moved to a new apartment in early June, located about 25 blocks from the old one. It´s small but has a separate bedroom and is very bright. I´ll be staying here for a month, and then moving to what I hope will be my apartment for the rest of the time I am here. The new apartment is a little more centrally-located and is quite a bit cheaper. I found it through someone I met here, which is part of the reason it is cheaper: it´s more expensive to rent through an apartment agency than from an individual.

World Cup fever is in full swing here. Argentina has advanced past the first round (unlike the US) as expected, so they play later today.

I´m back working at my computer job in the suburbs on the city. It´s going pretty well so far. It´s a small company with 4 or 5 employees, but my boss is trying to expand things.

La Cana

Tonight I went to an interesting informal chat about police corruption here in Argentina. The speaker is a civil-rights lawyer that works for a non-profit agency.

It turns out that there is corruption at all level, both by individual officers and what she called "institutional corruption". The biggest problem is what we would call "racial profiling", but it takes place on a larger scale here. Basically, Argentina police have right to detain anyone for 10-24 hours (depending on the province) to check their identity and their police record. Hundreds of thousands of these identity checks are made every year, and nearly all of them are indians or mestizos (half-indian, half-european). If you're short, dark and dress shabbily you're much more likely to be detained by the police.

It's routine that you are taken to the police station without being told why. Once you're there, they decide whether it's a short-term detention, an arrest or whether they'll charge you with a crime. Various torture methods are common, often used to force someone into a confession for something they didn't do.

The speaker also told us about cases of "gatillo fácil" ("easy trigger"). The organization that she works for has handled 1959 cases of killings by police in the past 20 years, more than 400 in the last 3 years. Bribes and forced "contributions" to the policeman's fund are also common.

The good news for me is that this sort of thing basically never happens to foreigners with European features.

The speaker spoke to us in Spanish most of time, and her son translated to English. Both of them spoke good English. I really only went to have a chance to practice some Spanish, but it turned out to be a really interesting evening.