Dallas

Today’s post will be about my travel to Dallas on Sunday. Together with Pipo, Rochi, Santi and Pancho we rented a car and started early to take advantage of the day. 

After nearly 3 hours of driving, with some stops to recharge our thermo with hot water for the mate, we arrived in Dallas. We parked the car and started walking towards the main attraction: JFK memorial, at Dealey Plaza. The building from which JFK was shot has turned into a museum, which is really worth to visit. However, it was not until the end of the day that we went to the museum.

Dealey Plaza

Later, we tried to reach the top of the Reunion Tower (an observation deck with beautiful views of Dallas), but God knows how, we ended up in Hyatt hotel's terrace instead. We took a lot of pictures with an amazing view in the background and chatted with a guy from Florida who came to see a cheerleader competition in town.

Hyatt's roof top

Reunion Tower

We had a quick lunch at Pizza Hut and walked around the city, took pictures and bought some souvenirs.

Unluckily, because we run out of time, we did not manage to visit the aquarium nor the pioneer plaza, which has a lot of statues. However, we had a quick glance of the city and maybe in the future we can return to see what we did not.

At 6pm, we headed to the car to get back to Austin. However, there was a tiny detail: we did not remember where we left the car. There were approximately 20 parking lots in a 5 blocks ratio. After one long hour of looking for it we found it, all because I took a picture when we had arrived that showed a store which we could trace with google and find the parking spot.

After almost a 4 hour drive and an exhausting day, we returned to Austin having visited another city of the US.

Since this is my last post I would like to thank Fulbright, the US Embassy in Argentina and all the sponsors for this amazing program they made possible. Also, I want to thank Rachelle and Katie that took a lot of time to coordinate and arrange visits, tours, excursions, UT forms and lots of other things. It can’t be easy to do such planning with a group of 25 students (35 including the students from English for Science that joined us). Last but not least I want to thank the Fulbright students that came with me and made possible to have this wonderful experience. Even though they are from different parts of Argentina, I am looking forward to keep in touch and keep the friendship alive. I will not forget those great moments I had with them and all I have learnt from them.

To sum up, with this program I improved my English skills, had some interesting Economics classes, visited many major cities (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, New York), did lots of shopping and made long lasting friendships.

New York

In this post I will tell you about my experience in the free weekend of the 12-14. I went to the other side of the US: New York. We were four Fulbright students: Luli, Luchi, Gaston and I. Although I said it was a weekend, we stayed four days, until Tuesday.

We rented an apartment three blocks away from the Empire State Building, a really great place in the center of Manhattan. Because of the great location, we walked most of the time instead of taking the subway.

Although we went to a huge city for a few time, we did manage to visit most of the famous places, museums and landmarks. We went to the Guggenheim, Metropolitan and Natural Science museums, Central Park, United Nations, Grand Central Terminal, the public library, Wall Street, Friends House, a ferry to the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, Madison Square Garden, Little Italy, China Town, Dakota Building, Flat Iron, Times Square, Broadway, Ground Zero and other places. However, due to the snow and rain, we did not go to the top of the Rockefeller Center and Empire State Building because we could not see almost nothing. It was really cool to be walking in the streets and knowing that maybe there was filmed a movie or TV show.

New York Public Library

Chrysler Building

St. Patricks Cathedral

Times Square

Empire State Building

Grand Central Station

Empire State Building

New York Stock Exchange

The first big difference between Austin and New York was the weather. In Austin winter is cooler than in New York. One day it was -25°C thermal sensation!!! We did not travelled with the appropriate clothing, we had to improvise. The first day we suffered the cold, but the rest of our stay we used two pair of jeans, three pairs of socks, and six layers of clothes. We could not feel our hands and feet. Our faces were covered with scarfs and the cap, which we removed when taking pictures. It snowed all Monday, which was not very annoying, but it rained all Tuesday and we did not bring umbrellas.

Frozen Fountain

Another difference is how people treat you and how nice they are in Austin and in New York. Here in Austin people are more friendly, patient and respectful with foreigners. However in New York when you ask someone how to get to a certain place, which subway to take or another thing, they will answer quick and briefly. If you ask them again they will answer in a bad way. Maybe not all the people are like that, I do not like to make generalizations, but maybe only people in Manhattan are like that, because they are always tired and stressed.

New York did meet my expectations I already had. Living there is like being in a movie all the time. The buildings and streets are beautiful, you have shops everywhere, you have the famous yellow cabs, and the snow is the final touch. However, I though the Empire State Building and Chrysler would be taller. Also, I was expecting more people in the streets, crowded subway stations and lots of traffic. I guess that is because of the cold weather, and people decided to stay in their homes.

New York is a huge city which you do not get to know in only four days. I hope I can return to NYC in the future because it is a great place and also to go to the top of the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Center. Of course that if I return it will be in summer, I had enough cold for my entire life!!

PS: I included pictures for those who complaint about the lack of them in my previous post.

Should English be the international language?

Since I arrived to Austin, I have been attending ESL classes for almost 2 weeks and I could not help noticing that all the students were foreigners struggling to learn a language they did not choose. So I asked myself, why is English the international language? Should it be this way?

English may look easy to learn for speakers of languages derived from Latin, since some structures and vocabulary are similar. However, for Asian and African people, English has nothing to do with their native languages (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Afrikaans, Hindi), but they must learn it if they want to take part of our globalized world.

I did some research online about this situation and, except for Chinese, more people speak English than any other language. Most countries have English as their official or unofficial second language. More than 70% of the world’s mail is written in English, it is the primary language on the Internet. In international business it is used more than any other language, and it is the language of airplane pilots and air traffic controllers all over the world. Moreover, although French used to be the language of diplomacy, English has displaced it throughout the world.

There have been many attempts all over history to impose an auxiliary language from dominant societies over the centuries, such as Latin, Greek, Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. Some of the most recent attempts have been artificial, constructed international auxiliary languages (interlanguages) such as Ido, Interlingua and Esperanto.

As a curious person I am, I did this research a long time ago and I ended up in Esperanto’s Wikipedia page. As most of the people, I did not know what Esperanto was, only that it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world.

Esperanto was a project of universal language, interlanguage created by a Polish man, L. L. Zamenhof, in 1887. Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy-to-learn, politically neutral language that would transcend nationality and foster international understanding between people with different languages. Although it didn’t succeed into becoming the universal language for many reasons, it still caught my attention and decided to give it a try.

Surprisingly, it was the easiest language I have ever learnt. It has no verb conjugations and most of the vocabulary is created by adding prefixes and suffixes to another existent word. The Esperanto alphabet is based on the Latin script, it does not include the letters q, w, x, or y.

The 28-letter alphabet is:

a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z

Esperanto is seen by many of its speakers as an alternative or addition to the growing use of English throughout the world, offering a language that is easier to learn than English. Although Esperanto was not so popular when it was created, it is starting to gain some popularity over the internet and maybe will be the future interlanguage. There are Congresses of Esperanto all the years in a different city. In 2014, it was in Buenos Aires, to which I went.

The purpose of this post was to introduce Esperanto to those who didn’t know it and encourage them to look for more information online since this entry was short and brief. Also to imagine a scenario in which Esperanto is the universal auxiliary language, which makes easier to people all over the world to communicate without having to learn a language they do not find easy, as it happens with ESL students.

FUN FACTS

• 2000 hours studying German = 1500 hours studying English = 1000 hours studying Italian (or any other Romance language) = 150 hours studying Esperanto.
• Esperanto has not been a secondary official language of any recognized country. Neutral Moresnet is the world's first Esperanto state.
• Esperanto is used in China to communicate between people with different dialects.
• Studies show that studying Esperanto before another foreign language expedites the acquisition of the other, natural, language.

UBA vs UT

There is a conflict inside me if public or private education is better. Although I went to a private kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, I discovered the public system when I started the university at University of Buenos Aires. I do recognize that going to a private secondary school prepared me well for the university. However, there are really good public primary and secondary schools in Argentina.

When I refer to education in Argentina’s universities, I will talk from my experience as student at UBA, although there are many other public and private universities in the country. Being aware of that, I do not want to degrade the other universities that are excellent as well or to hurt any UT student’s feelings with this humble comparison.

When I started the university, the system was really different than what I was used to. There was nobody reminding me anything and being aware of my performance. If I wanted to learn, then I had to focus and make efforts on my own. It was a huge transition to get used not to pay any monthly fees. My parents did not have to make an effort to pay my school, they only gave me money for books, school supplies and other materials, which was insignificant compared to the fees they were used to pay.

Quality of education in the University of Buenos Aires is excellent, although most of the professors work in poor conditions and teach for free for years until they first get paid. I guess that many of them do so because of the prestige it means to teach at UBA.

There are many structural flaws in UBA buildings, old furniture and bad lighting. You do not have soap or toilet paper (you should thank if you have water!). I guess that is what you should expect in a public system in which corruption dominates and structural investments are not being made. But most students ignore that because they are getting free university education which is scarce in most of the countries. My parents, who studied at UBA, told me this was not like back to their student days.

In both UT and UBA there a lot of foreign students. While in UT most came from Asia and Middle East countries and are from wealthy families, in Argentina they came from adjacent countries such as Colombia (mainly), Bolivia and Peru, from lower and middle classes who seek in Argentina their chance to get a free college degree, since in their countries they do not have public universities. There is also internal migration to Buenos Aires and other major cities from other provinces or towns that lack universities or their quality is not as good as the ones there. Argentina lacks the federalism that US has, in which each state is more or less independent from the federal government.

When I started attending classes at the University of Texas I compared it with my university. I guess that paying really expensive fees in the US allows universities to spend a lot more money in infrastructure, equipment and other materials than in Argentina. Most of the classrooms I have been in have media equipment such as projectors, screens and computers. All the professor make use of this instruments and use PowerPoint presentations and slides. I wonder what they would do if there are power blackouts or Internet failures (which are very common in Argentina). There is so much dependence in technology.

The main difference between UT and UBA is the use of technology in classrooms. Most of the professors in Argentina use the blackboard and chalk. In some rare occasions they use projectors to show some slides. Also, all the students take notes in notebooks, NOBODY uses the computer in class. We do not have any system such as Canvas where teachers upload files and notes. Each professor uses the system they feel comfortable with (Google Drive, Yahoo Groups, Mail Lists), which causes many difficulties each semester when classes start and we need to learn how to use a different system. It is annoying for both teachers and students.

Class at UT with projector

Class at UT with projector

Class at UBA with blackboard

Class at UBA with blackboard

In Argentina is very common to study until late hours in night shifts. There are classes that last until 11 pm, whereas in UT, from but I have heard, classes last until 8 pm. The reason I believe it is like this is because in Argentina, students are used to work while they study, and many do so in full-time jobs, so the only time they get to attend classes is in the evening-night. Here in UT, students usually work in part-time jobs and full-time jobs are unthinkable.

Also, there is a difference I mentioned in my previous post that UT has all the buildings in a campus opposed to the UBA that has its buildings spread all over the city. There is hardly no relation and cooperation between faculties, each one has their own rules and system. If you study Economics at UBA, you will attend all your classes in the Economics building. You will never have to attend a class in the Natural Sciences building, as it happens at UT.

Having to pay for education leaves a big part of the population without access to it. You will go to college only if you have enough money for it, opposed to the public system in which all the population have access to it as it occurs in Argentina. Because of that, you do not cross into many social groups at UT, they are all middle and upper classes that can afford that huge expense. In Argentina you see people from all different social contexts that make huge efforts and sacrifices not working as much as they should in order to invest in their own education.

Although I grew up in a middle class family and I always had what I needed, once you try the public system, you cannot think of going back to the private system. That is why I will choose UBA all my life, no matter how many equipment and supplies private universities have.

Austin vs Buenos Aires

To start this blog I would like to introduce myself very briefly. I am Lorenzo from Buenos Aires, Argentina, I am 19 years old. I am studying Economics in the University of Buenos Aires and I recently won a 6 weeks scholarship in USA to study at the University of Texas at Austin with a group of 25 scholars from all over Argentina. The idea of this blog is to reflect my observations in Austin during the program Friends of Fulbright. Posts will be posted here on a weekly basis.

As soon as I arrived to USA I started noticing the differences between Buenos Aires and Austin, including the tiny details which became the most noticeable.

To start with the fauna, I rarely saw any pigeon in the streets. As the movies have shown, squirrels were dominating the streets. Also I observed some crows and blue jays in the treetops.

Pigeons in Buenos Aires

Crow

Squirrel

Most streets in Austin are ordered by numbers, while in Buenos Aires they are named out of politicians, important people and places all over the world. What is also notable in Austin is the absence of bumps or “baches”.

Streets in Austin, unlike Buenos Aires’, are not made out from tiles, they are from big blocks of concrete. This may pose an advantage when the time goes by and tiles begin to loosen up, as it happens in Argentina, and water filters between joints making a challenge to keep shoes clean in rainy days avoiding water spills.

To my amazement, I have not seen as much garbage in the streets as usually found in Buenos Aires. Sidewalks are neat, groomed and maintained. The grass is perfectly cut in a way it does not invade the concrete.

Contrary to my beliefs, Americans do not recycle as much as I thought. Although they have recycle bins, these are not so abundant and people do not always separate residues. Also most things in shops come with excessive packaging, but this is not much different from Argentina.

Both Austin and Buenos Aires have rivers that cross the city: Río de la Plata and the Colorado River. However, you cannot dive in the Río de la Plata, because of the pollution and the lack of shores in the city.

Colorado River

Río de la Plata

Car drivers in Austin seem to be more polite and patient, contrary to Buenos Aires’ ones who are always hurried and furious. Pedestrians do follow the rules and obey the traffic lights, something that may sound a dream in Argentina.

What I did also notice was the scarcity of motorcycles, which are very abundant in Latin America. In Austin everyone travels in car, this might be the reason why buses are almost always empty and clean. Something that I found really useful of buses is that you can put your bike in the front and take it once you get down the bus. It was interesting that students do not pay bus tickets.

Bus with bike in the front

Austin bikeway system looks really great. Lanes are wide and well signed. However, the public bicycle rental system really disappointed me. It is really expensive, even more than taking the bus. These does not incentives people to reduce car use. In Buenos Aires, there is a free rental system that incentives the use of bikes, which are becoming more popular as an alternative to buses and subways. So if you do not buy a bicycle it is not convenient to use the bikeway system in Austin.

Austin public bicycle rental system

Buenos Aires public bicylce rental system

A big difference between Austin and Buenos Aires is the distribution of universities. Although both cities have many universities, I will only refer to the UT and UBA. Contrary to the UBA, the UT is concentrated in a huge campus, all university related buildings are there and properly organized. In Buenos Aires, different buildings of the UBA are distributed across the city. This is really bad as it collapses every means of transport near each faculty, as most are located near the city center. Although there was a project many years ago to put them all together in Ciudad Universitaria (similar to the UT campus), this did not work out and buildings are still spread all over the city.

Both universities have iconic and really nice buildings. The tower in UT is one of the most popular landmarks in Austin. Law, Economics and Engineer buildings are also landmarks with great designs

UT Tower

UBA Building of Economics

UBA Building of Engineering

UBA Building of Medicine

I cannot finish this post without mentioning the similarities between the Texas State Capitol and the National Congress of Argentina. Although their functions are not the same, their designs are really similar. I really like these architectonical styles that reminds me the economic power and opulence that Argentina used to have back to the time it was built.

Texas State Capitol

National Congress of Argentina

To sum up, streets are cleaner in Austin and people seem to obey the laws more than in Buenos Aires. It would be nice if Argentinians could learn to behave or act in that way.