Back from Buenos Aires

I just got back to Salto after a long week spent in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, the 3rd largest city in South America. I will spend a few posts telling you about my time in this wonderful place. It reminded me of a mixture between DC and NYC, (largely for its political and cultural significance), only with everything in Spanish. Ha ha.

This is a picture of the "Casa Rosada" or "Pink House" or more formally, the Casa de Gobierno where President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner works but does not live. It is situated right on the Edge of Plaza Mayor.


Buenos Aires also has an obelisk (which looks just like the Washington Monument if you ask me, but hey, who is?) located in the city center along Avenida Corrienties on which our $15 a night hostel was planted. The hostel, Rancho Urbano, was not bad at all, actually, quite nice as far as hostels go. Thank you hostelworld. I grew a bit attached to my free breakfast of medialunas (crossaints) and coffee. It just might have been nice if were farther up Corrientes so we didn't have to walk so far to get to the city center. There were also a few pretty little kitties running around that made me miss my last roommate's cats. Boooo.


The picture below is one of Puerto Madero, built up along the Rio de la Plata. It seemed to be located in a very nice area of the city where all the young working professionals go for lunch and relaxation.


Expect more posts to follow in the next few days about the City of Fair Winds.

Coca-Cola Light

In light of my post yesterday on Coca-Cola, I'd also like to point out another interesting tid-bit about the world's favorite brand. In countries outside of the US, they sell Coca-Cola Light which is yummy. I generally try to avoid the poison that is carbonated beverages, but Coca-Cola Light is actually tasty. And worth 0 calories.

However, Coca-Cola Light is different than Diet Coke because it is made with different types of sweeteners, the least of which is 30-50 times more sweet than sugar. According to Wikipedia: "Coca-Cola Light may be sweetened with a blend containing cyclamates, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium." If you are still confused, here is what Coke has to say about their different concoctions:

Coca-Cola Zero is sweetened with a blend of low-calorie sweeteners, while Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame. As for Coke/Coca-Cola light, in certain countries, the term "diet" is not used to describe low-calorie foods and beverages. In these countries, we offer Coke/Coca-Cola light. The sweetener blend used for Coke/Coca-Cola light is formulated for each country based on consumer preference.

Ha ha ha "consumer preference." Or in other words, cyclamates, which are used in Coca-Cola Light, were banned by the FDA in 1970. They don't market it the US, because they can't.

In South America however, bring on the Coca-Cola Light. Gurgle gurgle.

Coca-Cola

Let's begin our series of Ad-Wednesdays by talking about Coca-Cola, arguably THE largest and most successful brand in world. (Coca-Cola is consistantly ranked number one in terms of "brand power" by Interbrand every year. And after spending an entire semester researching Coca-Cola brand identity and globalization I would likely agree, although there are several other monster brands out there).



This photo is taken out of my window. Coca-Cola awning. Coca-Cola umbrellas. Coca-Cola chairs. Coca-Cola sign. Coca-Cola everything. This restaurant is considered "posh" here, where the cool cats come to dine, to see and be seen.

Coca-Cola is highly visible here. Coca-Cola has many large and prominent advertising spaces throughout the city. Just about every place that sells beverages, sells Coke.

What do people call "soda" or "pop" here? Coca. You want a glass of cola? Oh, you mean you want a Coca? It doesn't matter whether you will be getting Sprite, Pepsi, Pomelo, whatever, you will be ordering a coca. I think of this phenomenon similar to the "oh, I need a Kleenex" or "I have to Xerox this report" phenomenon in the US. When a brand name becomes a substitute for the actual product (respectively a tissue and paper copy from the examples above), that is when they have achieved far more success than any other competitor in their market-share.

Coca-Cola is big. Bigger than you can imagine.

Advertising Uruguayan Style

One of my major academic (and otherwise) interests is the rhetoric of advertising, so I thought it would be fun to comment on some of my observations of corporate marketing in Uruguay as it strikes me as unusual or even similar to the corporate advertising that is prominent in the United States.

My first post in this accord will be about Coca-Cola, but expect more interesting commentary in posts to follow throughout the year. I may even attempt to dedicate one day of every week to posting a web log on some aspect of advertising here, which will also help me parse out some ideas for my independent research project as well. Let's just say that every so often we will have an Ad-blog day.

Audio Admobiles

Arrrrrgh. The apartment we are renting is right off of the principle street of Salto, Calle Uruguay. While our location is ideal, it also comes with its drawbacks. Every morning, or afternoon, or evening, (really any time I happen to be in the apartment) there are these ridiculously annoying "Audio Admobiles" that run through the streets.

They are trucks that drive at a snail's pace through the streets with a radio BLASTING out advertisements. Never music, always an overindulgent male broadcaster's voice. They pass every 10-25 minutes throughout the day with no repose. I can't imagine why there are not some noise laws or zoning regulations againt these vehicles. People who live along Calle Uruguay must go crazy.

Semana Santa

I am off to Argentina! Our apartment was already rented out for this coming week because of Semana Santa (Holy Week) also known as Semana de Turismo (Tourism Week) so we have to vacate. We chose to go to Buenos Aires because a week there is certain not to disappoint. I am very excited.

In the meanwhile, enjoy some photos of pretty Uruguayan naturaleza.


I find the ones with bright flower blossoms my favorite. We were walking to the bus station one day and I made us stop to take a photo of the flower trees and we looked up to discover a whole family watching us from the window. Whoops. I didn't mean to be a creeper.


The flowers are just so pretty. There also seems to be more interesting plant life by the river than anywhere else in the city. As you can see by the orangish-red exotic-flower looking thing above. I've asked what some of the names of these plants are but I can never catch the answer.

Pharmacy

I've been feeling a bit under the weather. My head hurts. My throat feels like a few ninjas are down in there. Or perhaps a mini-forest is growing in my throat. I've been attempting to think of some good metaphors; it's harder than one might imagine. I probably caught some sort of infection from the kids at the primary school.

Anyway, my point is not to impress you with my fine metaphorical skills. It is to comment on a different health care system than the one I am used to. I stopped by the farmacia (pharmacy) and picked up some antibiotics. I like how you don't need a prescription to get most types of medicine in Uruguay. If I were in the States, I would have done nothing until I felt like I was really truly dying, because one, it's such a hassle to get an appointment at a doctor's office to go in there and wait all day long, and two, it would have cost me hefty co-pay to go to the doctor for a prescription I already knew I needed. The burden of care falls more heavily on the pharmacist here. Hopefully they are well-trained.

The medicine was also A LOT cheaper (about 70% cheaper) than than it would have been in the USA. Health care might not be as competitive (and there may be an increase of various risks with deregulated pharmacies), but I do think they know a thing or two about making health services more efficient and affordable for the public.

Now to see if this antibiotic was actually what I needed... I really can't afford to get sick this week.

Pesky Mosquitos

Argh. My legs are itchy. And arms. And wrists. And feet. And neck. And ankles.

I have a million mosquitos bites all over my body. It looks like I have some sort of pox. Every morning I check to see what kind of damage the mosquitos gave me the night before. I conservatively counted 19 bites on my left leg.


I probably should've closed my window, but it was too hot to do so. I probably should've stayed under the covers at night, but it was too hot to do so. Fortunately, it seems to be cooling off.

I could really do without the mosquitos.