i'm convinced i've been plucked out of south america and dropped in the middle of europe again. buenos aires has a completely different vibe than santiago. it feels much more cosmopolitan and the architecture is more sophisticated. yesterday, i arrived and met up with wei-shuien, a friend who's also down here for COP 10. we saw the casa rosada (famous for evita's balcony speech), where the madres de la plaza de mayo were demonstrating. the plaza was plastered with photos of the disappeared from the military regime. yesterday was also the day of the immaculate conception, so processions were led out of the metropolitan cathedral and bouquets of jasmine were being sold on the streets. after a trip through an antique subway (the station had chandeliers and the subway cars had wooden chairs. wood!!) for a visit to the congreso national, wei-shuien and i retired to a restaurant where i waxed poetic over an exquisite steak (best $4 i ever spent) and got plastered on a bottle of argentinian malbec. i don't remember much after that.

i'm actually writing right now from inside the UNFCC building, after having just attended a session of the delegates on vulnerability and adaption to climate change. it was pretty mindblowing. i sat next to the delegation from saudi arabia. it sent me back to those days at model UN when all of us high school kids huddled around placards in hotel rooms pretending to know what we were doing. except this time, there were translating devices, video screens and cameramen everywhere, and...it was real. i never would have thought back then that i was ever actually going to attend a UN conference of the parties personally. but there you go. you never can tell. ok, i should go because i'm sure someone needs this computer to save the world or something. more later...