Part 3 - Stuck in Panama City at 4:00 a.m. with no Wallet, Money or Identification

This is a story from just a couple months ago. I was in Panama and had gone out for the evening with a friend of mine. We had dinner, then went for some drinks, then went to an apartment in Paitilla where several of the her friends were having a little party. Well, at about 3:00 a.m., we left in a taxi. The taxi dropped her off at her house in El Dorado, and then the taxi driver was going to take me to my buddy Ben's apartment where I was staying for the night. I was about half-way to Ben's place when I realized I didn't have my wallet.

I had the wallet earlier in the night when we went for dinner and drinks, so I thought it must have fallen out of my pocket back in the Paitilla apartment. I asked the taxi driver to take me back to to the party. Well, the wallet wasn't there. I now had 2 immediate problems: First, I didn't know how I was going to get back to Ben's apartment, because I didn't have money for a taxi. That leads to the second problem - I had a taxi driver waiting for me downstairs who expected to be paid for driving the girl home and then taking me all the way back to the Paitilla party.

I asked the people at the party if someone could "loan" me a few dollars to pay the taxi driver. I managed to find one guy who gave me $5. I went downstairs and asked the taxi driver how much I owed him - $8 he says. My reply was, "Well, all I have is $5." The taxi driver called me an "awebao" (read "dumbass") and squealed his tires as he sped away. It is interesting how squealing your tires is an international way of saying "I feel very angry with you". Anyway, as the taxi sped away, I knew that one of my problems was now gone.

Then I started trying to think of how I could get back to Ben's apartment, which was several miles away.

Clubbing with a Kingpin

This is a picture of me with Guillermo Coppola taken in the VIP area of the Terrazas del Este club, in Buenos Aires Argentina.

Your first question may be, "What was Ryan Bullock doing in the VIP area of a club in Buenos Aires?" Well, the explanation is that I was not Ryan Bullock that night - I was "Chip Duracell". That's right... of THE Duracell family. My great grandfather started the Duracell battery company, and I am the an "heir to the Duracell family fortune". Of course that is ridiculous - there is no Duracell family. But Chip Duracell gets to step into the VIP area.

The next question is who is Guillermo Coppola. Well, here in Argentina he is known as "El Rey de la Noche" (the King of the Night). Basically, he is a major socialite, politically-connected celebrity, and womanizer who many believe has had links to organized crime here in Argentina. Coppola was Diego Maradona's manager for years. For those of you who don't know, Diego Maradona is a former Argentine soccer player and the current manager of the Argentine national soccer team. Many people consider Maradona the best professional soccer player in the history of the game. He is certainly one of soccer's most controversial figures.

Coppola was arrested back in the mid 90s after police busted him with more than 500 grams of cocaine in his Buenos Aires apartment. He was initially charged with drug possession with intent to sell. Police claimed that he may have been part of a drug ring that sold drugs in resorts along Argentina's Atlantic coast, and Coppola was potentially facing up to 20 years in prison. Here is a New York Times article from about a week after the incident. After he spent over a year in prison, it turned out that the drugs may have been "planted" in Coppola's house by an undercover police officer. Anyway, they let him walk.

There is certainly a lot more to tell about Guillermo Coppola. Back in 2009, he released an autobiographical book full of stories and anecdotes about Maradona, power, drugs, jail, women, scandals, and nightlife. The book cover is pictured here:

Diego Maradona used to say that Guillermo
Coppola could "smoke under water", which is
an argentine expression that means that he
can do anything and everything. That explains
the picture on Coppola's book cover.

Cargo Partnership between Mississippi Gulf Coast and Panama

It is not that often that I get to talk about Mississippi and Panama at the same time. On the surface, one of the few things that the two places have in common is that Ryan Bullock loves them both. Anyway, I am excited to report that representatives from Panama's Tocumen National Airport have been in Mississippi this past week where they signed a cooperation agreement with the Gulfport/Biloxi International Airport. Here is a link to an article from the WLOX News station in South Mississippi.

Rafael Flores, general manager of Panama's
Tocumen International Airport, inks an
agreement with Bruce Frallic, the Director
of Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport

The agreement will allow international cargo coming through the Panama Canal to be flown into South Mississippi, where it will subsequently be stored and transported out of an air cargo facility at the airport in Gulfport. Interstate 10 runs through the Mississippi Gulf Coast, providing access to 10 primary north-south interstates between southern California and Jacksonville, Florida.

The possibility of a synergy between the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Panama has excited me for several years. In October of 2006, while I was living in Panama, a proposal to expand the Canal was approved

Engagement Toast from Argentina

My buddy, Brian Hayden, asked his girlfriend to marry him. Even more important, he has asked me to be the best man in his wedding. On Easter weekend, a bunch of people from the wedding party got together in Destin, Florida to get to know one another and to celebrate the engagement. As the best man, I would have liked to have been involved in planning the weekend - but I could not even attend, because I am in Argentina. I checked out flights, and it would have cost me about U$S 2,400 to get up to Destin for the weekend.

Instead, I got my friend, Darren, to pick up 8 bottles of not too expensive champagne and take them over to Destin. Then I recorded this video-toast, and put it on YouTube. Everyone gathered in the room and toasted, and then I got to talk with everyone for a few minutes over Skype. Before watching this video, you should know that it took about 6 "takes" to get something presentable. "Takes"... that is a technical term that we use in the industry :-) Anyway, that means that I toasted to Brian and Anne-Moreland 6 times. In otherwords, I was a little buzzed by the time we recorded this one.

How I Accidently Ruined the Student Government Elections... for EVERYONE

Chicos,

I apologize that it has been over a week since my last post. I had my first test at the University of Buenos Aires on Monday, so I spent all last weekend locked away studying. The test was on National and International Arbitration. It was an oral exam, where the professors have 4 or 5 students at a time come into the classroom, and they just barrage each of us with open-ended questions about all the material we have discussed throughout the course of the semester. Lemme tell you, it was tough. My Spanish is good in that it is no problem for me to attend a dinner party and chat for 3 or 4 hours. I can converse, make jokes, and even make charming, flirtatious remarks to your girlfriend... for hours.... On the other hand, discussing international arbitration and implementing such a specific and technical vocabulary is a real challenge. Anyway, the test went really well. I passed it, and did well enough that I may even be "exempt" from taking the final exam... depending on how well I do on an in-class project next week.

I have also been a little preoccupied and distracted over the past couple days tying up some final loose ends on an expired relationship. There is much more to it than that, but I'm not ready to tell that story. I usually try to put a light-hearted spin on my stories, and maybe even identify a lesson to be learned from my experiences. These feelings are just too new, though.

Instead, I'll tell another story that is a lot of fun. This is the story of how I accidently ruined the Student Government elections at BU Law last year...

Fútbol Argentino - San Lorenzo Celebrates 102nd Anniversary

This past Wednesday, I attended the 102nd birthday celebration for Club Atletico de San Lorenzo de Almagro. My buddy, Francisco is a huge San Lorenzo fan. Several years ago he bought me a jersey, which I proudly wear when we attend San Lorenzo soccer games. San Lorenzo is the only Argentine soccer team whose fans organize each and every year to celebrate the anniversary of their club's founding. Lemme tell you, they put on quite a party. On the Club's 100th anniversary, more than 17,000 people filled the streets of the small Argentine neighborhood. This year where were more than 3,000.

I have included a short video that I recorded on Wednesday night. We started off in front of the church where the Club was born. I'll tell you more about that later in this article. Several bands and singers took turns performing for the group of gathering San Lorenzo fans. A priest even stepped up to the stage to lead the group in a prayer - he followed the prayer by putting on a San Lorenzo hat, which contrasted with his full clerical robe. That was when they unloaded the flag. I say "unloaded", because the flag is 100 meters long. You can see part of the flag at the very beginning of the video I have included. We all helped to carry the flag about 17 blocks through the streets of the neighborhood to Avenida La Plata, where the original San Lorenzo stadium was located until the late 1970s. I'll tell that story in just a moment.

Understanding Argentine Soccer
Unlike professional sports teams in the U.S. or even soccer teams in the U.K., Argentine soccer clubs are not structured as corporations - they are "associations". There are no equity partners or shareholders - the clubs are made up of "socios". These are fans who pay annual dues for membership in a club, and they elect the President and officers who run the clubs, allocate funds, hire the coaches, and negotiate contracts with the players. San Lorenzo currently has more than 25,000 "socios", but in its heyday it had more than 40,000. Each and every "socio" has a recognized stake in the Club.

To fully appreciate the passion of the Argentine soccer fan, you have to understand that unlike professional sports teams in the U.S., these clubs represent much more than the actual teams. The clubs are more like community institutions. For example,

Somebody Who Loves Me...

That is a loose translation of the name of a popular Argentine novela - see Alguien que me quiera. "Novelas" or "telenovelas" are sort of like a cross between soap operas and mini-series in the U.S. Novelas are packed full of passion and drama like soap operas, but they generally run for a much shorter duration.

This guy in the picture Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. He is one of the characters in the Argentine novela "Alguien que me quiera". I have run into him a couple times at San Lorenzo soccer games, so I guess he must be a fan.

Apparently Viggo Mortensen was also at the game yesterday. He is an American actor who has been in a number of films - the most well known is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I learned yesterday that he spent a substantial portion of his childhood living in Argentina. Apparently he is also a pretty serious San Lorenzo fan, and he shows up periodically at the games.