From North America to South: One Gal's Tale of Travel: March 2014

Saturday we went to the beach!

Also, Eduardo put on Jeremy's bandana

On Sunday, Melissa and I went to yet another Feria. We had to take a bus to get there, my first time on the bus system here! YAY! The Feria was probably my favorite one that I have been to so far. We got there pretty late so things were closing down but we still found some great stuff. I bought 5 DVDs in Spanish (Frozen, Despicable Me 2, Lion King, Pocahontas, and Mulan). We found shops that were selling puppies, cute, adorable, and impossible to put down puppies for like $15.

After all the shops were closed, we decided to walk around the street 18 de Julio. It’s one of the main streets here in Montevideo and we haven’t explored it yet. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, almost all of the shops were closed. However, McDonalds was open (surprise) so we made our first stop of the semester there. We split a Dulce de Leche McFlurry with oreo pieces. It was heaven.

After that, we found some pretty interesting plazas and a really fancy casino.

Later that night, I went to the beach to enjoy the full moon. It was a beautiful temperature and nice to spend some time alone. The moon was gorgeous but I really miss the full starry sky of home. There is so much light pollution here, I can count the number of stars I can see.

Monday was a crazy day. My first class wasn’t until 1:30 so I made plans with another bike owner to take a look at the bike. He lives in a barrio pretty far away from mine so I knew I would have to take the bus. I did some research about which one to take and left the house at 10 to be there in time for our 11 meeting. However, after an hour of being on the bus, I was told I needed to get off because it was the last stop. I was not where I needed to be and had no idea how to get to the house from there. I found a taxi and arrived at the house a half hour late.

I tested the bike and realized that it wasn’t Lance Armstrong quality but for the price, it seemed like an okay deal. I bought it and started my hour long ride back to the University. After about 20 minutes of riding, the chain fell off. I have ridden my fair share of bikes in the past and know how to put a chain back on so I wasn’t too worried about it. I got off the bike and started to work on the chain. I have literally never touched a greasier chain in my entire life. With one small touch, my entire hand was covered in black slime. The chain was stuck more than I originally thought, so I put some more muscle into it. After 10 minutes, the stupid thing still hadn’t budged. After a bit, a guy on a moped stopped and asked me if I needed help. My first thought was to say no because I was on some random street corner by myself but after reassessing the situation, I realized I was on a random street corner, with no real idea on how to get back to where I needed to be, an hour away from my University and with a bike that doesn’t move. Hence, I said yes, I would love some help. This guy, Charles, happened to have a bunch of tools in his moped so he started working on the chain. After 15 minutes the stupid thing still hadn’t budged. He decided to try and take off the wheel to get a better angle at the one chain that was stuck. Unfortunately, that plan didn’t work because the chain was stuck in a way that the wheel couldn’t come all the way off. After another 10 minutes, another guy on a moped stopped to help the two of us. One of the guys held the bike and the wheel, while the other banged a screwdriver with a rock, into the stuck chain. 5 minutes later, it was finally free.

Once the chain was loose, the guys put the bike back together and inspected it. They then told me that the bike was really bad, I should have never bought it and I should try and return it right now. They said I really shouldn’t even ride it back but rather walk it to be safe. Charles offered to go with me and I graciously accepted his offer, realizing that I had no clue how to explain what happened to my bike in Spanish.

After a 20 minute walk, we made it back to the house and thankfully I got my money back. Charles asked me if I wanted a ride to the University. I started to declined but he insisted. I then realized that I didn’t even know where the nearest bus stop was because I took a taxi to get there. It was a super rural area so there weren’t any taxis driving by to catch. I accepted the offer for the ride. He said great and that he just needed to stop at his house first. As I was riding on the back of the moped, I thought to myself how I was breaking just about every rule kids are taught about dealing with strangers. We got to the house, and I swear I have literally never seen a sketchier place.

I told him that I would wait outside. I felt bad because 5 minutes later he returned with another helmet that was the reason he wanted to stop at the house. Anyways, we were back on the road, my head now safely protected and shortly we arrived at the University. As I was getting off the moped, I burned my leg on the muffler. I arrived to class 30 minutes late, hands still covered in grease and a fresh burn on my leg.

I know that most of you are thinking that what I did was really stupid and dangerous. I agree, I don’t like that I got myself into that situation. I am extremely lucky that it turned out as well as it did. One thing I am learning here is that the language isn’t necessarily the hardest part to adjust to. I have never lived in a city bigger than Eau Claire. Montevideo has 1.5 million people. I often feel like an ignorant small town girl here. I don’t have big city street smarts (granted the bike situation was pretty obviously stupid no matter where you come from). There are lots of things I am learning to love about living in a big city but there are many things I miss about my small, safe, little town.

Later that night, we made plans with the other Americans to go to the local pub for St. Patrick’s Day. We were just going to grab something to eat, relax and hang out for a little bit. We didn’t think that it would be very busy because we didn’t think people here knew about St. Patrick ’s Day, let alone celebrate it. Turns out we were extremely wrong. When we got to the area, we couldn’t even see the pub because the entire street was packed with people. The people were singing, chanting, throwing beer. It was literally insane. We didn’t stay long but it was kind of fun (and scary) to be a part of the atmosphere.

On Wednesday, we went to the museum of Carnaval (remember when I went to a show of Murga during Carnaval). We went for my Uruguayan Culture class. It was really interesting because we had learned about a lot of the stuff we were seeing the day before in class and also because I had actually been to a show like the ones we were learning about.

After the museum, a few of us went to a local restaurant to hang out and saw a little bit of Cuidad Vieja (the old city)

yeah, I don't know. I guess Zebra sells

Thursday, there was a get to know you gathering for the international students and some Uruguayan students. The entire bus and taxi system was shut down for the say because Wednesday, a Taxi driver was shot and killed. Due to this, we all made plans to walk together so we would be safer. We met at my house and hung out here for a while. I always enjoy the moments that we are all together goofy around because we usually only interact at school, or at dance clubs where it is too loud to have a conversation.

After a while, we started the walk to the restaurant. There ended up being a great turn out and it was really fun to get to know some more new people.

Early Friday morning, we decided to plan a trip to Punta del Diablo. A few of our friends were going and we didn’t have any other weekend plans. We booked our hostel and looked up bus times. We ended up taking the 6:30 bus out of Montevideo. Melissa was worried about planning a trip and leaving the same day. I smiled and told her she'd get used to it.

This is a familiar site

Four and a half hours later, we arrived in Punta del Diablo. I was waiting for a stop with a big terminal to get off at because we needed to figure out how to get to our hostel. Turns out, there isn’t a big stop, nor is Punta del Diablo the last stop. All too soon, I realized the bus was leaving Punta and going somewhere else. Panicked, we ran to talk to the bus driver. The next stop wasn’t for another 40 minutes but luckily that was a bus we could take at 1 AM that would take us back to Punta. So, 40 minutes later, we got off in Chuey and bought our tickets back to Punta. We had an hour and a half to kill so we found a local restaurant to hang out. We bought a drink to share and halfway through, we found a fly in it. We told the owner but he said the fly wasn’t there when he opened the bottle so we had to pay anyway. Customer service is a completely different thing here.

We arrived in Punta at 2 and walked the 15 minutes to our hostel. We called to let them know that we were still coming and they gave us directions from the bus stop (there are taxis here). We got settled in and went straight to bed. It was a cold night. We were only given one small blanket and it was super windy. The cabin was made out of wood, so the wind seeped through the cracks.

Our Hostel:

It had a swimming pool but no water

We woke early the next morning, ate breakfast and headed to the beach. The temperatures were still pretty low. The sun felt nice but it was really windy. We spent basically the entire day walking the shore of the beach. It was gorgeous.

Ate a Mexican restaurant and once again didn't eat anything close to Mexican food

These little ants were going hard

Hot Chocolate on a chilly day

Later that night, we all pitched in to buy food and cooked it together. We wanted to make the most American dish that was possible because we are all missing the food. We ended up making make shift mac and cheese and hotdogs. It was honestly delicious. I haven’t had ketchup since I don’t even remember when or anything cheesy. After dinner, we headed over to our friend’s hostel to hang out for a while.

Some tough chefs

We all bought National cups. There are 2 football (soccer) teams here in Montevideo, National and Penarol, and its basically a Packer/Viking rivalry only in much closer proximity. The city is extremely divided and they take this stuff seriously. There is graffiti everywhere for one or the other. Anyways, our family likes National and to make things simple, we do too. However, we were informed by Eduardo that it is a life choice. To sacrament our life long decision, we bought these 25 cent cups to show our allegiance.

We woke up early again on Sunday to walk to the light house.

After we got back, we packed up our things and headed back to the bus stop. We checked with our hostel to make sure that we were going to the right one. As we were waiting, I got a call from Jonas, my friend from Denmark, saying he was taking the same bus and also waiting at a bus stop. However, we weren’t at the same one so we were trying to figure out who was right. 5 minutes later, the bus pulls up. We stick out our hands to stop it but it keeps going. I frantically call Jonas back to tell him that he was right. He talked to the bus driver and 2 minutes later, they picked us up too.

We made it back to Montevideo around 6:30 and walked back to the house. We spent the rest of the evening doing the homework we neglected over the weekend and getting ready for the week ahead.

Here are some more pictures I took throughout the week but I'm not sure where to put them: