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God Lives in Argentina

Does God Live in Argentina?

An accepted paper in the IJCAI 2015 workshop meant one of us had to travel to Buenos Aires to present our paper. Because of the circumstances it was decided that I would travel to present our paper which spoke of a bio-inspired approach to correct the speech recognition output.
The first impression you get when you scan of BA on the web is that of an unsafe place with loads of information about where to use the ATM, worry about counterfeit notes, leeching taxis, variable currency conversion rates. Add to this the travel.

Mumbai to Buenos Aires is equivalent to almost 21 hours of -actual- plane travel. A short leg from Mumbai to Doha (3.5 hours), a long stretch from Doha to Buenos Aires (17.5 hours) with a short breather at Sao Paulo to stretch your legs. This is a journey that seems less enjoyable and more of a punishment if you traveled economy!

Reached BA around 830 pm and hunted for a place where I could convert my USD into Peso. I quickly figured out that English in not a language that the locals speak and I do not speak an iota of Spanish. My ability to communicate is tested, for the next 7 days.

I land up in an expedia.co.in booked hotel poorer by 450 Peso. Check-in Spanish-English and lo it is winter in July. Yes, BA is in the southern hemisphere. I looked up weather and I am made to believe that it will rain on my third and fourth day of stay in BA.

Being used to “predict rain” and no actual rain and vice-versa in Mumbai, my common sense tells me that I should keep an umbrella handy. I am ready.I look up the hourly weather prediction and find that the it will start raining from 6 am till about 1 pm and then there is sun shine. I tell myself, lets us. I wake up at around 630 and I find it raining. Wow. This is neat prediction. So I go about the day with my umbrella which means a walk of 1.5 km from my hotel Carsson on VanMonte Road to the conference venue – Sherton. And during the lunch break (around 110 pm) I sneak out and find that it is bright and sunny. Wow again.

And the correctness of the hourly prediction was to the hour throughout my stay in Buenos Aires. Making me believe God lives in Argentina. Na. God lives in Buenos Aires.

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freethinker said…
As you are now close to God, we will have better access to HIM. Thanks. Regards. SugataSanyal
9:43 PM
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