Hangin’ With Ambassadors

Wahoo!!! I have a night with some time for a blog. It’s about time. This past little while has been pretty busy, and pretty stressful too. I’ve had some big projects to finish at my internship, and my class had our midterm this past week as well. But, alas, I have survived, and my dad is flying in tomorrow for the weekend so I can’t wait to see a familiar face and show him the ropes of DC.

My sightseeing adventures have been lacking lately, but I’ve definitely been taking advantage of all the conferences happening in the city. A tip for future TWCer’s, be sure to google “think tanks” before you head to DC and bookmark them….then check all of their events sections as much as you can and hit up all the conferences possible. I haven’t been to a bad one yet, and I swear there is something for absolutely every interest. With the Summit of the Americas happening, and all the press being given to Mexico, I’ve been able to find so many that I’ve had to pick and choose. It’s a sad life I live, I know.

One of my favorite ones that I’ve attended was with the Council of the Americas, and was regarding US/Mexico relations. The Ambassador of Mexico, Arturo Sarukhan, was one of the speakers and I swear his level of charisma is right up there with Obama’s. He is an extremely good speaker, and is one of those people you just want to listen to.

This past week I also went to a daylong event about NAFTA. There were about 5 sessions throughout the day and it was great. It got a little painful to sit there all day, but the speakers were all of such high quality, and included people who had been involved in the negotiations of NAFTA. AND, I also met the Canadian Ambassador, who was attending one of the sessions. I’m not gonna lie, it was kind of an awkward meeting because I introduced myself and then didn’t really have anything else to say……I’m so used to the whole “where are you from/how long have you been in DC/what organization are you with,” that I panicked with the Ambassador and pretty much gave a “nice to meet you” and got out of there. Good times.

I also was able to attend a committee meeting of the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee. It was in the Rayburn building, which is super classy. Now I would recommend everyone to go to at least one of these meetings just to see how they work…..but to be honest, it was boring. It was about the Merida Initiative, which I generally find to be rather interesting, but the whole process of each Member stating their position, and then each witness presenting their stuff (all timed and “Mr. Chairman” formal) just isn’t my style I guess.; they also stopped halfway through to break for an hour and a half so I ended up leaving anyways and really not getting much out of it. The moral of the story is, at least I now know how it works and have went….even if that means I never wish to go again.

The next one I’m hoping to go to is this Friday at the CATO Institute. Its about drug decriminalization in Portugal, and how drugs have been legal there since 2003. Who knew? I sure didn’t. I think it should be interesting because a lot of the talk about the Mexico drug war touches on legalization, but no one seems to be ready to REALLY talk about it yet…plus I’m planning on taking my dad, so I’m excited to see what he thinks.

That’s all I got for now….I’m expecting my next post to be full of sightseeing adventures after this weekend so brace yourselves.

Paz.