Pastelaria Austriaca

I discovered Pastelaria Austriaca - a very nice restaurant with good food and grand pastries. I always prefer to eat local specialties but since it is not possible here I am eating pizzas, lasagnas and Austrian specialties. I found in the guidebook two Chinese restaurants and I am going to explore one of them today. Cravings for the NY food got to me, especially the dish with eggplants and fried calamari served at SEA in Williamsburg... There's no Thai restaurant here so I am going to see if I can get something familiar in the Chinese restaurant.

I visited today the US consulate because I got news via e-mail from the tax service I used to fill the tax forms that the state tax return was rejected as incomplete. I did it again, printed it out (since it didn't want to go through electronically) and decided to ask the consulate if they could put it into their post so that it gets to IRS (I heard the Bolivian post is not very reliable and it's impossible to send it Fedex or DHL because there's no name, just the P.O. box...). First I got to the address where the consulate was located until last year - a nice villa among other villas in a quiet district of the town. Then I got to the new address which looks like a fortress - high tin walls and gate with a barbed wire and lots of soldiers around... Inside is very "cold" looking. There's a picture of the President with his usual "deer in the headlights" stare. The photo of Collin Powell was leaning against the wall upside-down. Maybe he just fell of the wall or maybe they have no storage space for defunct government officials. I met with a consular agent who looked very much like the "Octopus woman" - the owner of the two eels "poopsies" - from The Little Mermaid. "Yeeees (my little dear poopsie), what can I do for you?" They couldn't help me because they only have a "pouch for diplomats" going to the States. I wrote a long letter explaining my particular situation, asking IRS not to fine me if the form gets there late. She agreed to put her official stamp on it, as proof that I am abroad and did everything in my power to get it to IRS on time. I told her how disappointed I was that they couldn't send it with the mail going out from the consulate. If they couldn't help me with a thing so little such as this what if I got into a real trouble abroad? It totally sucks. I will complain to the Dept. of State, foreign Affairs. Not that it will change anything, but as a principal - to report the malfunction of the service which should be "for the people" (who pay taxes for it).

When it comes to the malfunction of services I have to say that the only thing that brakes my peace during my travels is dealings with Geico, DMV, Sprint, IRS, EazyPass and the like. I spent a lot of time before I left to make sure everything was done and closed, and I gave everyone my e-mail address just in case there were any questions but there shouldn't be because I closed everything for good, good, good. Suddenly there are charges on my credit card concerning accounts which were closed early February! People! PLEASE, whatever you do in life, PLEASE don't ever work for costumer service! Because I can't believe they hire only imbeciles. I think people's brains become dead in the process... of training... to adhere to the SYSTEM. And the more detailed the system gets, the less effectively it works. Because life is full of exceptions, different paths, special cases, etc. and instead of a system, reason works better to solve these cases. But reason became obsolete. It was replaced by the system, usually computer system and no thinking on the part of the ones operating it is used. I wonder if Franz Kafka could foresee the future and the workings of such (corporate) systems. What I am dealing with lately is just totally Kafkaesque. There's no personal responsibility involved... A person, a thinking person, becomes totally helpless in the face of the system and brainless people... Now that I let some steam out of my head... I am enjoying the lazy afternoon in Santa Cruz. There's a cultural center here so I will see if I can see a movie or a play. There are a few museums on the outskirts of the town and I think I will visit them tomorrow. Today I was totally lazy because it got very hot... I spend the siesta napping in Hostal Santa Barbara. There's a three-months old Spitz puppy in the hostal and I am also spending some time with him. I sit on the nice patio with palms, the puppy accompanies me, and we both observe a huge community of very tiny ants and their interesting paths... looks like a system but a very intelligent one...