This week was busy, and Wednesday was the national Independence day in Argentina. I met with Dr Gustavo to discuss the WS-Reliability pattern I wrote, he gave me some feedback on my work and some pointers.

 Dr. Gustavo      Dr.Gustavo  and I having a meeting.

I still cannot believe that I am leaving already, my time in Argentina has run by so swiftly and now it’s time to return to Florida, I have had many experiences here that I will never forget. Below are pictures of the lab, the team, myself working and the Informatica Building:

Me closing the lab, I am generally the last one to leave.

- Meet the team                    The Informatica Building

We had a dinner with Julian and Andres on Thursday night, just one last dinner with our teammates in the LIFIA lab, oh so sad. Dr. Gustavo invited us all to dine with him on Friday night, a little sending off dinner, we spoke about our experiences as well as the highligts of the trip. See some pictures of this event below:

- Dr Gustavo and is wife.

The dinner       - Everyone

I have gotten so much done in the last two months, I am gratified and encouraged by my accomplishments. I was able to work in a lab with many young people in the Computer Science field, we ate lunch together, shared our work experiences and interests and of course we partied together as well.  The atmosphere in the LIFIA lab is warm and conducive to work.

I want to thank all the persons that made this experience possible for me and  all the other students in the PIRE program. The opportunity to study in a foreign country, and to learn from people in the same field of study is great. I have learned so much about the culture, the people and also a lot about myself. Many thanks again for making this happen.

This week was very fruitful I completed the WS-Reliability pattern as outlined in the POSA template. I started to focus more on patterns for fault-tolerance in Web Services, I also started conducting an evaluation of several fault-tolerance patterns with a view of classifying them. Today marks the beginning of my final week in Argentina, my experience here will not be forgotten.

 Students in the LIFIA Lab.    The Lifia Lab

 Computer Science Building.     Working at the lab

This weekend was also exciting I visited Colonia in Uruguay which is just one hour from Buenos Aires, I spent the whole day there. Explored the culture and the people, they have lots of arts and craft, the people were very friendly and helpful.

One thing I noticed was that the drivers were very kind, and stopped for pedestrians to cross safely. The town was very quiet and had an old town feel. Overall my impression of Colonia is that it’s an excellent place to relax and take it easy, the pace is very slow. The prices were outrageous though, the meals were like 250 Uruguay Pesos, wow! Please see some of the pictures I took in Uruguay below :

 I also visited Florida avenue in Buenos Aires to take in as much of Argentina as I could. The weather was not so fair, it was overcast, cold and it rained heavily. Despite the weather I had a good weekend. 

 Jamaican Sunday Dinner

We promised the guys in the LIFIA lab that we would cook them a Jamaican dinner before we left, and since we only have 2 weeks left to go! We all gathered at Andre's home to have a spicy Jamaican Sunday dinner. I made them stew chicken with white rice, a salad with sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, sautéed string beans with diced carrots in butter sauce. All said the chicken was spicy but still, they ate the whole thing, yummy and very Jamaican. Simone made oxtail with a macaroni casserole and a salad. See pictures of this dinner below:

This week has been very fruitful. I embarked on my fourth day on my quest for a visa. I went back to the embassy and received a temporary visa which is valid from present until September, cool.

So most of this week was hectic for me, I had so much to do. I am happy to report that I have a  first draft of a pattern for the WS-Reliability standard.

The second highlight for this week was going out to a tango show and dinner with Andres and friends. The first was of course getting my visa. Firstly I was under the impression I would see tango dancers, I was wrong. Actually the show was a mixture of the tango and Candombe. The Candombe (can-dome-bey) is an African derived rhythm that has been an important part of Uruguayan culture for over two hundred years, which was/is currently gaining a lot of popularity in Argentina.

The show was spectacular, I enjoyed every second of it. They had a band with people playing many musical instruments. The singer was really energetic and was very skillful in doing a mixture of acrobatic stuns while dancing. I assume this is the signature of the Candombe dance.

The crowd at the show was small, but very charged by the performance, lots of shouts, clapping, dancing, a very festive mood. I also met another PHD student, Francesca who was a part of our dinner group. She is from Boston originally but was doing research in Chile and studies in France. She came to Argentina for the weekend, now that’s cool. I wouldn’t mind doing that every month.

After the show ended at about 1:30AM, we went to Andres’s sister home. It was so nice we played an interesting game which I found entertaining and chatted for a while. We then bid good night to all at 3:30AM, wow what a night. I don’t want my time here to end, Argentines really know how to have fun!

This week was rather hectic for me, more of a hassle more than anything else. I spent three days trying to get another tourist visa, mainly because the thirty day visa I got when I entered Argentina will expire on Father’s day – June 15, 2008.

 I left my house at 6:30 AM to go to Buenos Aires with a guide to assist me with translation to get another tourist visa, well this was my understanding. On arrival to some government building this was around 7:30AM, I found out, I had to pay 50 pesos. I had to join a line to get my finger prints taken I was then told to return in 9 hours time.

I then went to a famous cemetery in Recoleta, Buenos Aires and saw the tomb of Evita. The cemetery was not what I expected; the graves were more like extravagant monuments, with very elaborate sculptures and marble floors. Some were like luxury houses in my opinion. See some pictures of this cemetry below:

Dog walking is also very popular in Buenos Aires. There were many beautiful parks and buildings in the city.

After walking for most of the day, which was very windy and cold, I retuned for my visa. Turns out all I got was a document which stated I was not a criminal. I was told I had to get some other documents also. I arrived home at 7:30 PM and called it a night, however as luck would have it, I also came down with the flu.

The following day, was more of the same walking from place to place trying to gather all the necessary documents to obtain a visa before June 15, 2008. I have never walked so much in my whole life. I guess the exercise is good.

After spending a lot of money, because I had to pay for each document required to get the visa. I was told I could finally go to the embassy for the visa, well this was my understanding. Friday, my third day on the quest for a visa, I went to the actual embassy with all my documents in hand. I joined a large group of people in a very small room to wait my turn to speak to the person at the front desk. I got a number and waited my turn to show my documents to the officials.

After a long wait, finally, it was my turn. I gave them all the documents, they took them and asked me to wait some more. I was then summoned some time later and I signed a few more documents. I was then told to go to the bank and pay 200 pesos and return with a receipt. I had no idea I had to spend more money. Luckily, I had some money because I went to the bank earlier that day, after disposing it all on Wednesday and Thursday, this place is for the rich. So they advise me go to a bank which was far away, when there was a branch of the same bank just on the corner to pay the 200 pesos. I soon found out why, the lines in the bank on the corner were outside, almost 2 blocks long. I found that, it was pay day and lots of people were getting their checks cashed. 

In the interest of time combined with the fact that the section of the embassy which dealt with visas was going to be closed by 1:00PM. They would not reopen until Tuesday June 17, 2008, because Monday was a national holiday – Flag Day. In light of this, and the fact that I needed to get this visa before June 15, 2008; I got a cab to take me to the bank they suggested. I got through in 40 minutes and was on my way back, just minutes before noon to the immigrations office. I got in on time and gave them the receipt; they took their copy of it and gave me a copy. I was then told to come back on Tuesday (another day of hassle) with the said receipt and they will give me a letter. This letter will state that I am awaiting the visa, they never said how long it would take to get the actual visa. Oh well, such is life .

I guess I had better use the weekend to catch up on my "ALL" my assignments for my online courses at FAU and the weekly PIRE report.

On Monday we all went to have a "birthday lunch" with Andres, but it didn't end there, we had a mini party for him afterwards at the lab, we had a very yummy cake and sang him Happy Birthday again. Everyone in the LIFIA lab came together and bought him a gift -wine, so sweet. The restaurant where we had lunch was really good, I ordered grilled chicken with a salad, the price 42 pesos. The prices seem to go up daily, the food is great though.

I found a cozy nook called EL Barba, they serve lots of beef. I ordered the choripan, which is just a beef sausage with bread, similar to a hotdog in the sense that it is sausage with bread. It was delicious.

El Baraba 

We were invited to the big city of Buenos Aires by Paul, an American student who has been working in La Plata for almost a year now. First we took a bus from La Plata to Buenos Aires, this took a little over an hour. Buenos Aires had huge buildings almost similar to New York City in my opinion, with the exception of a few majestic European looking buildings. We walked about the city for a few hours and we found a very beautiful park, the view from this park was spectacular.

I fell in love with the door of a bank in Buenos Aires, it was made of gold and some other metal. It was elaborate and beautiful. The mall was also impressive the ceiling had a painting of angels and had beautiful marble floors, very nice. There were many shops in the streets surrounding the mall; all had fancy clothing, paintings and leather jackets etc. One point to note we could not afford anything in the stores or mall in Buesnos Aires, It was very expensive.

After walking through the streets we decided to move on to our intended destination "China Town". Alex left us to meet with his family. We took a train and in 20 mins time we were in China Town. The streets were full of people, stores and street vendors. Paul took us to one of his favorite restaurants there. We ordered spicy food, but of course it was not very spicy. China town was very small and spanned no more than two blocks, despite its size, China town was very interesting busy with tourist and people trying to sell interesting looking foods.

We decided it was time to return back to the city to catch our bus back to La Plata. On the way back to La Plata I saw a really bad - fatal accident. Another point to note, every time we meet someone new, the first thing they advise is to be very careful when crossing the roads. I can attest to this, it's no joke, the drivers are not very tolerant of pedestrians.

 In sum we had a great time in Buenos Aires, many thanks to Paul.

me in the bus heading to Buenos Aires             Paul our humble tour guide 

 Mate is a herbal tea which is very famous in Argentina, one of my fellow LIFIA friends, Emiliano invited us to have some. I tried it once before, it has a bitter taste, not my favorite. We were told it's an acquired taste.

Argentina is beautiful, and I cannot over emphasize how nice the people are, they are so warm, kind and helpful. This week I visited the La Plata Museum, it was majestic!  The building was adorned with rococo designs, the architecture was just incredible.

There was a plethora of historical artifacts including the remains of many dinosaurs. They had a large collection of preserved animals including those local to Argentina. There was a display of an actual meteorite, it was amazing.

 dinosaur claw           skeleton of a dinosaur               A meteorite

 more dinosaur remains:

The museum also had a section of anthropological displays, this was very interesting. They had artifacts that were used by ethnic groups thousands of years ago.

I was invited to the birthday party of Andres, it was great! Argentineans really know how to party, there was great band, lead by Julian, he rocked.

The party at 1:00AM                        the party at 3:00AM 

I and Alex toured the city of La Plata, we discovered several interesting people and places. We stopped by a park and met a friendly local who tried desperately to conversate with us, despite the language barrier, he spoke really fast and spoke no English, we took some pictures and continued to explore the beautiful city of La Plata.

Our greatest find to date was the La Plata ZOO. The funniest part of this find, was actually finding the entrance to the ZOO, just by luck we walked in the opposite direction and ended up circling the ZOO, almost 1 hour later we found the entrance. The ZOO was spectacular, we saw a wide variety of animals.

We stopped by a restaurant and got some lunch, I ordered Chicken de Lemon, it was great!! I paid like 40 pesos for the meal, the usual cost is usually in this price range. The meal was worth every penny of it. 

We walked some more and decided to get back home to rest, my feet ached. We had walked a good 5 hours.

The flight to Argentina was 8 hours and 35minutes long, I spent much of the time reading and talking with my fellow Pire friends. We arrived in Argentina at 6:05AM on Friday, we went through customs in no more than 30 mins and exited the airport in search of our ride to La Plata. I was more than equipped for the weather, however it was not cold it was actually similar to the weather in Florida.We met with the early morning work traffic on our way from the airport to La Plata, it took us nearly 2 hours to arrive. I met Dr. Gustavo my advisor a very warm and friendly man, and a student of his named Julian. I and Simone were taken to our apartment which we will reside at for next 2 months.
The apartment is located very close to the University of La Plata, no more than 10 mins walk. The streets were busy with students, who looked on curiously; apparently we stood out as tourists. Dr. Gustavo gave us a tour of the university and showed us the lab in which we would be working. The housed about 18 students in total, the students were very helpful and friendly.Julian took us all to lunch, I had beef and chicken empanadas, and something else I don’t remember the name of it.  

Later that day, Julian and some other students from the lab invited us to dinner at 9:30PM, this is the regular time to have dinner in Argentina. In fact we were told that we could not get dinner any where between 4-8pm. I ordered a very Argentinian dish, Bife a la Criolla, it was delicious, we left the restaurant about 12:30AM and turned in.

Student Name: Ingrid Buckley

Supervisor’s Name and Title at FIU/FAU:  Prof. Eduardo B. Fernandez

Name of the PIRE International Partner’s Institution: Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina

Supervisor’s Name and Title at the PIRE International Partner’s Institution: Prof. Gustavo Rossi

Project Title: Patterns for fault-tolerant and secure web services

Problem Statement: Development and integration of several patterns for fault-tolerant and secure web services

Motivation and Impact: Fault tolerance and security are fundamental requirements for web services. In particular, fault tolerance is not well studied. Expressing fault tolerance and security and their combination through patterns can improve the understanding and the design of systems using web services.

Current Status: Our group has developed several models and patterns for web services security. We are now looking at reliability and fault tolerance aspects. We are writing a survey of fault tolerance patterns that we will apply later to web services.

Research Roadmap: The survey of fault tolerance patterns will be ready by the end of April. We will start then to write specific patterns for web services fault tolerance. We will also look then at their combination with security patterns.

Relation to PIRE Core Research Projects: As indicated above, security and fault tolerance are fundamental aspects of a distributed infrastructure for enterprise or critical systems integration. We have extensive expertise in these topics, shown by numerous publications, that will be complemented with the web expertise of the UNLP group.