Early Monday, 41 foreign ambassadors and their spouses caught flights from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles to "Experience America."
"Washington, D.C., is not America," said Ambassador Kailash Ruhee of the Republic of Mauritius. "D.C. is the center of power for the U.S., and it's extremely important, but also it's extremely important to know what else is happening in the other states."
U.S. Chief of Protocol Nancy Brinker, a former ambassador to Hungary, decided to survey all 186 foreign ambassadors posted inside the beltway on what they thought would help them do their jobs better. She found that they wanted to know more about America. Hence the State Department's "Experience America" tour.
In January, the ambassadors traveled to Florida for a few days, where they visited a solar energy center, Kennedy Space Center and Disney's Epcot Center.
Now, they're spending a week in the Golden State.
After a brief breakfast (endive, pasta and shrimp salad; lunch meats and bread; fruit) and opening comments by Brinker, the ambassadors piled onto two alphabetically and geographically apportioned tour buses. Bus 1: Antigua through Luxembourg. Bus 2: Macedonia through Uganda.
First on the agenda was a sneak peek at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, a nearly $1-billion comprehensive health facility that will open Sunday. After a presentation by hospital leaders, the group was primed to see the high-tech, empty wards.
"I'd like to be a patient here," said Ambassador Michael Collins of Ireland.
"You almost feel like getting sick," Ambassador Ruhee said as the group traveled in an elevator up to the Neuroscience/Stroke and Intensive Care Units on the sixth floor.
Murmurs of awe accompanied the group throughout much of the tour. Only $40 million of the money used to build the hospital was from the state, while much of the rest was from private sources. ("That's very unique to America," Collins said of the large share of private funds.)
And then, no one is ever turned away from the UCLA facilities, officials said. The new hospital will treat everyone with its high-tech devices. Again, murmurs of amazement.
"It's very cool, you can learn lots about new technologies," said Ambassador Armando A. Panguene of the Republic of Mozambique. "But this is beyond our reach," he said with an abrupt laugh, "for many years."
On the basement level was Simon, a simulated patient who went into cardiac arrest. It was a group effort to bring him back.
