Day 7: Wed 31 Aug - Buenos Aires

 A very early start for the combined breakfast session. The session started at 07:15 am with "breakfast" followed by the presentations. You couldn't really call it breakfast though - a muffin and tiny croissant with tea or coffee!?? The presentations were quite good though. It was then straight into Jane's combined session with Lee – The role of the pharmacists in managing emergent diseases, with two presentations, then mornos, another presentation then lunch, and the last two presentations after lunch. The first three presentations were quite good and fit the topic well, however the last two were not so good, quite boring really.     

Early morning in Buenos Aires

Reflections on Rio Darsena Sur

Women's Bridge, aka Women's Bridge

We had a few minutes between the end of Jane's session and the start of Sylvain's session.  With the exception of the first presentation, all others were interesting and relevant to the title of Law and order in emergency pharmacy practice.  The session finished a little earlier which was good as it gave us time to get back to the hotel to change for MEPS Dinner.  The bus picking us up was late but we made it to the restaurant with plenty of time to spare. It was a set menu with 3 courses. Main was a choice of salmon or chicken. I think those that had the chicken had the better deal as the salmon dish was more rice with a tiny bit of salmon. Entrée was cold meats and cheese and dessert was raspberry tiramisu.  We were all having such a good time that we didn't realise the time was going so fast and all of a sudden we were told that dinner was over and it was time to get back on the bus to return to our respective hotels.

Only got back to the hotel just before midnight, had a quick shower and into bed.

Arne & Silke

Hidayah & Arne

Oscar, Ann, Hidayah, Arne, Silke

Régis, Steve, Ahmet, Hulya

Top Table with Jane and Sylvain

Bill, Tom, Pat, Peter

Natalia, Left, John, Richard

Bernie & Nick

Mark, Tristen, Graeme, Pernille

?, Alex, Ulf

Halim, John, Mark, Tristen

Arne, Hulya, Ahmet, Silke

Day 6: Tue 30 Aug - Buenos Aires

Did not have a very good sleep last night - maybe I was over-tired? However, I still made it up for 7:30 am breakfast and was at the Congress Centre at 10am for liaison visits prior to my session at 11am.

I was supposed to be co-chairing the session with Richard who got this dates and timings mixed up and failed to show up! It was not too much of a problem as there were only 4 speakers in the session with one of them being me. I decided not to introduce everyone, as the FIP Congress App had very good bios of all speakers and I encouraged everyone to read them instead.

After lunch, it was time for the MEPS Board meeting which went for longer than it has in a long time - 3 hours in total. However, we did have a lot to discuss and we resolved many things.

I got back to the hotel in time to dump my backpack and head off to Korean reception with Steve. Steve was in a hotel just around the corner from where we were and he met me in my hotel and we walked the block and a half to the Korean reception. The main aim of attending this function was to try and find a military contact for next year. We only managed to find someone who knew of someone who might be able to help. I got his business card to give to Sylvain.

After a couple of beers and spending an appropriate amount of time at the reception we left and I was back in my room Home from Korean by 9:30pm. My "shower" this evening was in lukewarm water in a squat position in the bathtub/shower as there was still no hot water, and the water coming from the hot tap was just a trickle. It would have been quite hilarious to see really. Thank goodness I had a face washer as the bath tub did not have a plug, so I couldn't even put a small amount of water in the tub in order to have a bird bath. Talk about improvising, adapting and overcoming. I managed have a half decent wash and was asleep not long after.

Day 5: Mon 29 Aug - Buenos Aires

Another good sleep and early breakfast (7am) to be at the Hilton for a 10am meeting/brainstorming session on Humanitarian pharmacy.

The rest of the day was spent attending various meeting and sessions.

Back to the hotel to change for the MEPS Meet and Greet which was held just down the road at the Ministry for Defence HQ. This building was huge and the reception hall and were very large and quite grand. The building is over 100 years old and very solid. There were more high ranking officials there than we'd seen anywhere, even the Minister for Defence! Of course, very few of us can speak Spanish, and very few of them can speak English so it was hard to mingle and chat. They served finger food and red wine - Malbec. There was also beer, which I consumed and was told off by some Brigadier that "you should be drinking the red wine, it is the best Malbec in the world". I replied that I was Australian and that we like to drink beer, to which he was sometime perplexed, but anyway.

It was a very good night and I think the people that have just joined MEPS were suitably impressed with everything. Hopefully we can get hold of a South Korean tomorrow night at their reception to get a military contact to begin negotiations with for next year.  The buses left about 9:30pm to take us back to our hotels and I was in bed by 10:30pm.

A side note: the hot water pipe in the hotel burst sometime during the day so there was no hot water to prepare for the M&G. I had to wash my hair in the hand basin and had to contort myself to get my head under the tap. Anyway, I managed that and with a bit of deodorant and perfume, no-one was any the wiser! The hot water was back on when we got home, thank goodness.

Ministry for Defence HQ Building

Reception foyer

Theatre Hall

Argentinian Colonels and MEPS

Argentinian Generals and MEPS

Minister for Defence and Sylvain, MEPS President

Reception Hall

MEPS Meet and Greet

Nita, Alex, Régis, Halim

Hidayah, Bill (background), Tristen, Argentines x5, Kiri

Pat, Halim, Wendy, Tom

Pat, Sylvain, Bill, Tom, Halim, Régis, Alex

Arne, Wendy, ?, Jane, Ann, ?, ?, Halim, Nick

Petere, Sylvain, ?, Natalia, Bill, Halim

Nick and Ulf

Steve and Richard

Halim, Tom, Jane (background), John, Ina

Silke and Pat

Hidayah, ?, ?, Peter

Josefina, Natalia, Sylvain, Jane

Day 4: Sun 28 Aug - Buenos Aires

 I had another really good sleep and was up and about by 6am. Met the others downstairs for breakfast at 7:30am and left for the Congress at 9am. Although it was not raining, it was not sunny and the temperature was only 10 deg C with a very lazy wind. A brisk 20 min walk and we were at the Hilton (Congress Centre) all warmed up.

First up was the MEPS Business Meeting where we elected a new president as our Chinese colleague was unable to continue. The meeting went for about 1.5 hours. It was then time for lunch which we had in a cafe across the street from the Hilton. We had another meeting to attend before attending the Opening Ceremony which was the same as every other year: speeches, awards presentations, and entertainment. The entertainment was typically Argentinean - singing and dancing.  After the OC, it was off to the FIP Welcome Reception which we did not leave until after 8pm.

A relatively early night still trying to beat jetlag.

Richard, Alex, Nita

Ulf, Jane, Ann, Tom, Pat

Arne, Sylvain, Pat, Steve, Nick

Day 3: Sat 27 Aug - Buenos Aires

Had a really good sleep until 2am when I woke up in the same position I went to sleep in. From then until 4:30am, I slept but tossed a bit. At 4:30am I started to hear a drip, drip, drip and thought it was the rain outside so tried to ignore it and go back to sleep. Alas, it was the aircon leaking onto the fake wooden floor and making a big "splat" sound every time a drop hit the floor! So, I got up and put a towel on the floor and slept for another half hour or so, until the towel became sodden and the "splats" came back. I was awake by then so decided I had had enough sleep.

I turned on the lights and made myself a coffee. The room does not have coffee making facilities but being the "adapting, overcoming and improvising" person the Army has taught me to become, I used my portable heating element I bought at Duty Free in Sydney in 2006. Two mins later, water was boiling and I added coffee and creamer and had a nice coffee before breakfast which was not until 7am.  I spent the time in between waking and breakfast fixing my phone settings so I could send emails from it. I would receive email, but not send. I eventually got there, not a second too soon as the phone was about to go out the 6th floor window!  Breakfast was a mix of hot and cold; hot was scrambled eggs or omelette, cold was cheese, ham, bread, jam, pastries, cereal and coffee (well I suppose that is hot as well). I had some cereal, followed by eggs, ham and cheese with two cups of coffee.

We had arranged to take a City Tour by bus, and met in the lobby for an 8:30am pick-up. We were led to believe it was a three hour tour starting at 8:30am. Well, we only got picked-up at 8:45am, and then we did the rounds of another six hotels to pick up other passengers. By the time we got to the big bus for the tour it was about 9:45. BTW, I forgot to mention that the weather was "tickly nasty" and was likely to be so for the whole day. I had my doubts about how much we would be able to see, but went along for the ride anyway (what else can you do on a rainy day?).  By the time we got to our first stop, a supposed coffee break and comfort stop where the loo was through one of those touristy shops, it was already 11am. Jane and Sylvain had a business meeting to attend in the afternoon and had to be back at the hotel by 12:30pm at the very latest. This first stop was about 500m from our hotel!! So, the three of us walked back to the hotel whilst Trudi and Ann continued with the tour.

The three of us went to lunch at a cafe about 100m from the hotel and whilst the food fed the worms, they were not the best meals we've had, so we won't be going back there again unless necessary. J & S went to their meeting and I went back to the hotel and lay on the bed and crashed for two hours! I knew I had to wake up but just couldn't open my eyes, but I obviously needed it as I felt a lot better after it.  Steve met us here in our hotel and we (Steve, Trudi, Ann and I) went to dinner just around the corner from the hotel to the London City Café/Restaurant. The steak strips were good and the beer (don't know what brand) was excellent as well. It was still raining on our way home to the hotel.

There are no pictures attached because I didn't take any. Hopefully we will be able to do a walk through the city on another day.

Day 2: Fri 26 Aug - Brisbane to Auckland to Santiago to Buenos Aires

I caught the hotel shuttle bus to the International terminal and was checked-in by 7:30am. I was lucky enough to get a points upgrade to Business Class for the Brisbane to Auckland and Auckland to Santiago legs, so was feeling really good about that.  Went through the obligatory security checks, Customs and Immigration which are both very flash and new. No lining up to talk to the man behind the window; scan your passport, stand on the "feet", camera takes your picture and compares to your passport and that's it. Then you just put your passenger departure card in the box and off you go!! Plenty of Feds about though, so you need to get it right!

They have also changed the way you go through the Duty Free area - you have to walk the whole way thru, just in case you see something you might like! There was no tempting me, I was a little bit hungry as I missed a proper dinner last night and wanted to find the Plaza Lounge (QC undergoing renos so using this Lounge in the meantime, not as big nor flash as the QC though) to have some breakfast and a coffee. I did however, stop at the Currency Exchange to change my Chinese money to Pesos. That done, I made it to the Lounge with about an hour to spare before having to board. I had a couple of pieces of toast and a good flat white (coffee) and felt like new again.

Well, I thought it was an hour to go. However, apparently there were massive headwinds on the way over from New Zealand and that delayed the arrival of our aircraft. So, after an extra 50 minutes, we boarded and then had to join the queue for take-off. Luckily the strong headwinds were now strong tailwinds and we made up the time and landed one minute late. This leg to Auckland was only 3h10m long, but I got to watch one movie - Mother's Day - funny and moving. If I had eaten all they had to offer, I would not have been able to fit through the exit; it was a bit OTT. But the staff were all very attentive and happy.

As they couldn't give me a boarding pass in Brisbane for the Auckland-Santiago-Buenos Aires legs, I had to find the ticketing office in Auckland International airport. So, found that, no-one was home. Decided to go to the QC and made it there only to be told that I had to go back to where I had come from but only at 3:30pm. So, I had a cool drink (water) and then made my way back to the ticketing desk, queued for about 15 mins only to be told that the airline personnel from the operating aircraft (LATAM) would only be on deck at 4:30pm. Back to QC and the nice ladies at the QC desk asked me how I went. Told them I was not happy, so they made a phone call and told me it was 4:15pm that the desk would be open!! They also informed me that the flight from Sydney was delayed and therefore the flight from Auckland would not be leaving until 7pm, instead on 6:10pm!! I finally got my boarding passes and felt a lot happier and more relaxed. Seat 2H from Auckland to Santiago and 5B from Santiago to BA.

We didn't end up leaving until about 7:30 pm and there were only 13 pax in Business Class for 36 seats. So, as I was one of the only ones who had someone next to me, I moved to seat 3H. The other lady was appreciative as well. Had a glass of champagne before take-off, then a glass of SB with a very yummy dinner - beef of some description. Watched 3 movies: Eye in the sky, Money Monster, and Demolition. Slept and dozed between Money Monster and Demolition. It was then time for breakfast and it was a full cooked breakfast, and of course I couldn't eat it all!! Shortly after breakfast we landed in Santiago. I walked the entire airport looking for the Admirals Lounge which QANTAS uses in Santiago. Steve and I have been there in 2006 on our way to Salvador for FIP. The walk was good, and I eventually found it (opposite gate 19-20 for future reference), had a shower and a relax.

The flight to BA was delayed by about 40 mins, and it was standing room only!! We made up a bit of time in the air and were only 20 mins late arriving into BA. Immigration was a breeze. Luggage took forever to arrive and Customs was a breeze. I found the taxi rank with not much effort and was soon on my way to the hotel. Cost me 240 Pesos and I arrived about 8:30 pm.

The first room they gave me (on the 1st floor) was right on the road, and the buses, cars, and pedestrian traffic was very loud, so before unpacking anything I asked to be moved. Got a room on the 6th floor in the middle of the hotel so was happy with that. Unpacked and waited for Jane, Ann, Sylvain, and Trudy to get back from dinner and met them in the lobby before showering and sleep.

My room - #607 Reino del Plata, Buenos Aires