Days Forty-two through Forty-Six

This was undoubtedly a work-centric week.

Monday

Monday evening I ended up going to CICO, el Centro de Intelligencia contra el Crimen Organizado - Center for Intelligence against Organized Crime - which is exactly what it sounds like: a police and criminal database center which helps police to track down organized crime. I came with my officemate/supervisor Eric and a couple of DEA guys, and questions in hand we hopped in Rick's (one of the DEA guys) car and headed over in about a 5 minute drive from the Embassy. Rick ended up parking up on the curb as we made our very ceremonious entrance just as it started to rain (which, compared to the drought for my entire first month here, I was grateful for). The police guards welcomed us inside and we all four squeezed in about a 3'x3' elevator, less than comfortably. The CICO building was nice but not overly fancy, but we met up with our contacts in the conference room which was fairly fancy. One of our two contacts spoke very explicitly and clearly - the other, who was likely from Andalucía (the southern region of Spain) spoke with an accent best summarized as "yeah, I'm going to drop the last third of my words. I dare you to follow what I'm saying," and I had a hard time following through on that dare. Nevertheless we got some very valuable information on the drug situation in Spain which I will be more than happy to direct you to when my finished report becomes freely available on the US government website next Spring.

Tuesday

Another early night home and early night to bed.

Wednesday

Over to Abbey and Zahra's to cook dinner and hang out, but of course have to leave at a reasonable hour because it's a weekday. I cooked spaghetti-stuff in the kitchen while they kept yelling at me to hurry up.

Thursday

Thursday there was a "brown bag lunch" which means everyone gets their own lunch and then brings it to a meeting. This one was on foreign service and life in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, collectively referred to as API. The crux of the discussion was over how API service is completely different from any other aspect of the foreign service and the embassies there are completely different from any other embassies in the world. Service there was described as borderline Peace Corps - working out in "Provincial reconstruction teams" working with locals in, basically, rebuilding their country - putting in infrastructure or agriculture improvements, teaching, etc. But then there's the other type of position there where you're in the giant war rooms with the generals, meeting the heads of the Iraqi army on a daily basis, and helping make decisions that are going to affect the fate of an entire country for generations to come.

Either option sounds alluring to me. Probably deceptively so.

After work, Matt, a member of the management section at the embassy but also one of the people talking at the Brown Bag luncheon, invited some of the interns out for a drink and only Dylan and I decided to come. We headed to a nearby Irish pub (they're strangely everywhere here, and strangely all populated by actual Irish bartenders) and got a few beers, and at one point we were joined at the bar by a woman who happened to be from Nebraska, who sold her bar in Omaha to travel around the world and write a book about whiskey. She was also very drunk (having been drinking from her own flask in addition to her beer) and spilled half her drink all over Matt's suit. Lucky Matt.

After Matt left Dylan and I talked for a while, he being probably the last intern I wasn't well acquainted with. Pretty decent guy.

Friday

The embassy Halloween party was Friday night, and it was actually quite nice. Lacking really any costume whatsoever, I made some last-minute Macguyver moves: I made an origami gun and covered it with the gold foil wrapper from a candy bar, and took a regular black tie and somehow managed to tie it into a bow tie (don't ask, but it was impressive). Slicking my hair over, with suit, white shirt, bow tie and golden gun, I was a last minute James Bond.

Unfortunately the Marine bar didn't serve vodka martinis, nor did they even have martini glasses, and that upset me a lot because I was banking on that being an integral part of my costume, but everything worked out and I just ended up walking around with a wine glass instead of a martini glass.

It was a karaoke party, and I was roped into singing with the rest of the political section and I actually did a decent job with the US Embassy Political Section's choice, "Back in the USSR". Ah the irony!