Montevideo (Uruguay)

I should put a disclaimer on this post.  It will probably be filled with a lot of information that seems useless to the majority of people reading, as you have never lived or even been to Montevideo.  I lived here as a teenager, and so was probably inappropriately excited to come back to this small, relaxed, quiet city, with an affinity, bordering on obsession, to Mate, a love of all things beef, and an explosive night life.  I contemplated actually putting this post under my own thoughts, but then the parts most of you are interested in, would be missed.  So anyway, feel free to skim...

As we drove into Montevideo I tried my hardest to shuffle through my memory.  The streets seemed familiar to me, and distinct from any other place we had been, but I wasn't sure if that was because I was trying to make it familiar, or because it actually was.  Anyway, it looked just like every other city we had been in to Jared.  I think I got most excited as we drove down the Rambla, along the ocean, and I spotted a small, dinky carvinal that I spent countless weekends going to, and riding the dangerous Rock and Samba, a ride that basically tried to buck you off like a bully, by spinning and then stopping and bouncing, but there is no safety strap to keep you in, and to add to the element of unsafety, people do tricks and handstands while on the ride.  I know it doesn't make any sense to people that have never seen one, but I give a nod of nostalgia to all those who lived down here and experienced the awesome Rock and Samba ride.  We drove around to several hostels before finding the right price, and settled in.  Our purpose in Montevideo was to sell the car, so first we looked up how to get help from the embassy, which we could not elicit until the next day, leaving the rest of our afternoon free.  First things first, my old house!!!!  We drove to my old neighborhood, which wasn't too far away from where we are staying, by Ciudad Vieja.  I sat outside a bit, took some pictures, which the guard later told me wasn't allowed, and pointed out everything to Jared.  Man, I missed that house; so many pranks, late nights, cookie dough pigouts, sleepovers, dumb waiter trips, and parties we had there.  We then hopped back in the car, and I successfully tried from memory to get us back to my old school.  We drove around the neighborhood, taking photos, and remembering the gazillion times I would ride bikes and rollerblade around to friends' houses.  Then we drove to an area called Arocena, right by the school.  For nostalgia reasons only, I had to eat a McChicken from McDonald's there, probably making that McChicken #2,376 from that particular McDonalds, haha. The area had changed quite a bit.  The houses were bigger, and shops were fancier, but the general vibe was the same, tons of kids hanging out after school goofing around.  I also found, a true gem.  A small restaurant, we simply referred to as "El Bar", in fact called Bar Arocena, was still present.  It was the only thing that looked more than 5 years old.  Patrick and I used to go to the bar at about 5 am after dancing the night away at the clubs.  It's one of the only places that´s open 24 hours a day in Montevideo, and makes maybe the best chivito ever!  To the point that, we required that be our last meal in Montevideo, before heading to the airport 12 years ago.  Anyway, obviously that was on my "must do" list for later.  We then drove back to the hostel along the Rambla, and saw the makings of a great sunset, but when we got back to the hostel, we didn´t leave with quite enough to see it well, so I vowed to try again another night.  Jared went back to the hostel, and I walked along the water for about an hour, before returning to the hostel.  I had a quick phone call to make to Australia, and by the end, we were starving; I geared up for some asado steak, but Jared opted out, as they did not accept credit card.  Unable to watch me eat the 2 big slabs of steak with churrasco sauce on the side, and paprika, garlic mashed potatoes, he went to the grocery store to find some dinner, while I took in the sights, sounds, smells of a Uruguayan parrilla.  In the end, I couldn´t finish all the mashed potatoes, so I packed them up and headed back to the hostel to relax, and head to bed.
The next morning, Friday, we woke up and had the free breakfast of pan, dulce de leche, and coffee at the hostel.  Our big task for the day was going to the embassy, but our time slot was from 3:30 pm to 5 pm, so we had some time to kill.  We walked to Ciudad Vieja, and saw the Teatro Solis, Plaza de Independecia, with a market for what was apparently, Gay Pride day; we walked through some of the booths, and looked at some artisenal shops, and down through the pedestrian street that led all the way to the port and the Mercado del Puerto, constructed in 1889, and now converted into the asado house of all asado houses, chocker-block full of different restaurants serving some of the best beef in South America.  We ran a bit over our time limit, and had to haul over to the embassy, which was, conveniently, walking distance away.  Jared got some information on customs services for the car, quickly, and I snapped ONE photo, just ONE, of the embassy, and we walked back along the Rambla to the hostel.  About half way there, a car pulled up, and 2 uniformed officers came out, explaining that I couldn´t take photos of the embassy (mind you, the old embassy website used to have basically the exact same photo on it´s mainpage), and that I would have to delete it.  The whole "oh my Dad, blah blah" routine, though surprising them, did not keep me from having to delete the photo.  That is now the second time I´ve been chased down by cops to delete a photo in my life.  Humf.  After returning to the hostel, Jared sent out a bunch of emails to the contacts he had received from the embasy, but we weren´t expecting anything until Monday.  We opted for a cheap dinner, so Jared showed me the grocery store, with a nice selection of pre-made food, including some delish empanadas.  The rest of the night, we relaxed and watched the Sony Channel; introduced while I used to live here, it is the only TV channel in English, and shows a random selection of shows from all different networks, including Friends, which I could watch all day.
Saturday was the 29th of September, a special food day in Uruguay.  Back when people would get paid at the beginning of the month, by the 29th day, they did not have enough money to eat a "proper" meal, so they would make gnocchi from scratch with the leftover meat as sauce.  I woke up that morning and took a jog, showered, and tried to head out to a big Saturday morning market, but unfortunately, the rain kicked in, and the market would close, so instead, I helped Jose, who works here at our hostel, Willy Fogg, make the gnocchi for lunch.  I had never seen gnocchi made from scratch, so it was educational for me.  It also seemed like a relatively easy dish, ingredient-wise, so it will definitely be something I try in the future.  Around 2 pm, we all sat down to eat, and had really good gnocchi with meat and chorizo sauce, and parmesan cheese.  Yum!  After that, the red wine I was served while preparing the meal, the gnocchi itself, and the rain made taking a nap nearly impossible; so, I rested and slept the next few hours.  When I woke up, the day was still crumby, so we relaxed and watched movies till late.
Sunday morning came, and the weather still wasn´t amazing, but I did not want to spend 2 days in a row hanging at the hostel, so, along with a fellow hosteler, we geared up to head to Colonia del Sacramento, a small colonial town that was used by the Portuguese to smuggle goods to Buenos Aires.  Though we normally opt out of cute colonial towns, as often you´ve seen 10, you´ve seen them all, I´m glad we went, because this was, I think, the cutest we´ve been to.  A lot of the houses are now small artesinal and art shops, and food and wine vendors, so we got to walk through some of the old houses.  I had another chivito for lunch, before heading back to Montevideo for the evening.
Monday was the day for Jared to really get into gear with car stuff.  He looked into both importing companies, to sell the car, as well as exporting companies in case he either couldn´t sell it or it was too expensive to import.  I didn´t really want to sit around again, and the day was gorgeous, so I set out to try to find tango lessons!  I had noticied a place a few blocks away from the hostel, and when I entered there was a man, Julio, in a small, dark studio.  He said he could give us classes starting that day, but first, wanted to see what my "skill" level;  I tried to convince him the my level was 0, but he wanted to put me in some heels and have me walk.  It took about 2 minutes for him to realize, I was not kidding, and we made plans for that evening.  I, then, hopped on the bus, and went over to the Stadium, built in 1930 for the first World Cup, which, coincidentally, Uruguay won!  The stadium also happens to be right by my old house, so I took another stroll to see it.  There was a museum at the stadium, but more of a Uruguayan sports museum, than soccer specific, so it was neat to see all the different details of the first World Cup.  It was not nearly as technologically advanced as the Sao Paolo museum, but still interesting.  After that, I walked around the neighborhood a bit, before hopping on the bus back to the hostel.  By that time, it was well after lunch, so Jared and I headed out to the Mercado del Puerto for some asado, first stopping at a shipping company to check on prices to ship the car back to the US, which by the way cost about $3,000, not including fees on the US side.  Our lunch was a great cut of beef for us both, and mashed potatoes again.  We checked our watches at lunch, late lunch, and realized we had to scarf down the food in order to make our tango lesson.  I was initially, a bit bummed, hoping to be able to enjoy my meal slowly, but found that I was so hungry, and the food was so good, that it was gone in 10 minutes, without me even trying to rush.  We then booked it back to the hostel, put on our dancing shoes, literally, well at least for him; I put on my dancing dress, and ran down to our lessons.  I was lucky enough to be able to use heels from the instructor, since I had none.  I we spent an hour learning some of the basic steps in tango.  It was really enjoyable, and we were pretty bad, so we set up an appointment for that next day as well.  I was pretty pooped after my day, so we went back to the hostel, ate dinner, and relaxed the rest of the night.
Tuesday morning, still unsure about the car´s situation, Jared worked more on how to get rid of it.  I lounged around waiting for him to finish to go to the museum.  In the end, he decided not to go, so I went solo to the Museo de Juan Manuel Blanes, a Uruguayan artist by the Parque Prado.  The bus took a lot longer than I expected, so I kind of had to rush through, but did also get to see the botanical garden exhibit, made in 2008 in honor of the Princess of Japan; probably, my favorite part.  I then had to take a cab back to the hostel to make it in time for our tango lesson.  We definitely improved a bit from day one, and built upon that, and again, made plans for lesson number 3, the next day.  Finished out the night again at the hostel, with some grocery story dinner.
Wednesday, we woke up, and had another lazy morning.  I had asked my parents to send my debit card down, as Jared´s was no longer working from Brazil, and I had massive charges attached to my Chase debit card.  It arrived that day; as of now, I am still having trouble activating it, but hope that will all be resolved by tomorrow.  Things started coming together for the car, and the owner and his partner at the hostel actually made an offer!  So, everything was looking up in that department!  We went to the Museo de Gaucho and Moneda, owned by the Banco Nacional, which was really small, but pretty neat, as guachos are a unique part of the culture of Uruguay and northern Argentina.  A gaucho is basically a cowboy, but with bolas and spears and, of course, mate cups made from silver and gold.  The actual edifice is neat too; a gorgeous, marble, and dark wood building that used to be a home.  After the museum, we drove back out to the neighborhood, Carrasco, where I used to go to school, to get our hands on that old school chivito I had been dreaming about.  The bar is dark, and dingy, with a few old mean sipping whiskey, and a futbol game on in the background, but holy Mary, mother of God, do they make a chivito right!  Blew my other chivitos out of the water!  So happy, we made the trek out there for one, and Jared had one too!  After that, we went to my old school, in its new location, just so I could quick pop in, and see if any of my old teachers were there.  The only surviving UAS vet was Jeff Granger, basketball coach extraordinaire!  He remembered me, and we chatted a bit, and talked to some parents at the school.  After satisfying my curiousity, we went to the mall, Portones, to find Jared an alcohol backpack, not kidding, he has bought some bottles of alcohol that are unique to different countries, Aguardiente in Colombia, Pisco in Peru etc.  Unfortunately, we again looked at our clocks are realized we were running late for class, so we sped back to the hostel to change for tango.  At the very last minute, the teacher had to cancel, so we instead just grabbed dinner, and relaxed for the night.
Thursday was homework day.  As you know, I have been super behind on this blog, so I have basically been typing all day, and running in and out trying my debit card in different ATM´s while my poor mother works on the US side at my bank trying to get them to turn the stupid thing on.  I was actually never able to acitvate my card in the end, because for some crazy reason, Capital One sent me a card that was really never intended to be activated...long and frustrating story.  I finally had to give up, right around the time of our tango lesson.  I initially did not want to have to go to the tango class, as I was so frustrated with the debit card situation, but it the end, it actually helped me relax.
Friday, we were planning on going to Punta Del Este, and spending the night there, to hand over the keys of the car to the person buying it (he has a house in Punta, and offered to let us stay), but apparently, we misunderstood, and he didn´t want to go to Punta until Saturday, so we ended up staying in Montevideo.  We woke up, and had an early class of tango.  Our instructor was the nicest person, and invited us to have lunch with him and his girlfriend at his house.  We had a traditional meal of salad, morcilla, and pork. Jared at one point asked what the morcilla was, at which time I told him that you never ask what you´re eating at an asado, because you might not like the answer.  After eating though, our instructor´s girlfriend, Carolina, told us that morcilla is blood sausage, and explained what it was make of, basically cooked blood.  We spend several hours there, and upon returning, tried to go to a notary to finalize documents for the car, but unfortunately, it was closed, so we would have to wait until Saturday.  We walked out again to try to catch the sunset, but for a second time, left too late, and missed it, grr frustrating.  As it was Friday, I wanted to experience a bit of nightlife here, but Jared did not want to go out, so I latched on to a few people that work here, and we went out dancing and drinking until 7am!  Lord, I was not expecting to stay out so late!
Upon returning to the hostel, at 7am, I crashed into bed for a few hours or sleep.  At about 1:30 pm, I woke up, showered, and we headed out to walk around a bit, and meet up with Ema, an old friend of my parents from when we lived here.  She took us around to some spots in Ciudad Vieja, and took us to coffee.  After a bit of a caffeine boost, we ran around trying to get things arranged for us to leave the next day.  We bought our bus/boat ticket over to Buenos Aires, and cleaned out the car, and packed our things up.  This would be the first time that we would have to carry absolutely everything on our backs...I was already starting to miss the idea of having the car.  That night, we ran out to say goodbye to Julio, and gave him all of the extra parts for the car, as well as the surfboard.  Jared had been trying to sell it a bit, but was unsuccessful, so we figured we would give it to him as a thank you.  We finally went to bed around midnight.
This morning is our travel day.  We woke up, and finished everything that we had to do with a bit of time to spare, until... I looked a my phone clock and realized it was freaking daylight savings here, and the clocks advanced an hour, meaning, we were actually an hour behind schedule, meaning, we missed our bus.  Fantastic.  Our first day having to actually take buses to get around, and we screwed up already.  We ran down to the bus terminal, and thankfully, they allowed us to change our ticket to later this afternoon.  Phew!  So, back to the hostel.  We have sold the car, and have everything ready, so hopefully, no more problems, and we will be in Buenos Aires tonight.
Montevideo for me has been wonderful.  I was so hoping to satisfy my curiosity, and come back for the first time in 12 years, to the place I so fondly remembered.  My life in Uruguay, at the time, was a worldwind, and left such a huge impact on the person I´ve become.  I recall nothing but good memories from here, and I am so happy that the people and city I remember are just as warm and welcoming as they were before.