Who wants to be an Uruguayan Millionaire, and Buenos Aires = Malas Lluvias

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We arrived in Montevideo on a bus from Colonia, after crossing the bay from Buenos Aires. If the ferry were the USS Minnow, we´d be sunk. Let´s just say we were happy we didn´t have a car down below on the boat. One wave jolted us so badly, you could hear the banging in the hold. Kids screaming, people vomiting in the bathroom...it was awesome. The bus was much less eventful, as we could not see a thing through steamed up windows during the 2.5 hour drive. We learned from the tourism office that a cab to our hotel would be about 90 Uruguayan pesos. So we stopped at the ATM and withdrew $400U, just to have some extra after the cab. We later learned this was equivalent to about $16. So lets do the math here...to be a millionaire in Uruguay (on their monetary system), you need about $44K US. I´ve reached a major benchmark in my life.

Other thoughts, musings, observations, and occasional insight from a week in Uruguay:
Carnaval in Uruguay does NOT equal Carnaval in Rio. In fact...I´m not sure it equals Flag Day. We wanted to get out of Rio just before the masses of tourists descended on the city, bringing out the most creative pickpockets and street vendors with crafty ways to talk you out of your money. We learned that all of the major parades in Rio took place in the Sambadrome anyway, which would have cost us a minimum of $500 through our hotel. And getting tickets anywhere else would have been impossible. So...we went to a bloco in the streets of Lapa, and missed much else of the happenings. Dan had been very excited to read that Carnaval in Uruguay was apparently their most important festival as well, taking place over the span of 5+ weeks. Well, we missed the parade in the beginning, and left before the parade at the end, leaving us with...drum roll...Los Rascalitos. We actually found one of the main venues for Uruguayan Carnaval, just in time for the gathering crowd. The first act came on, and performed for an hour. The emphasis in Uruguayan Carnaval is on comedy, not parades and costumes, although they do have some fancy get-up. The crowd laughed...once. The second group came on and started singing, which it appears most of the acts do. Tough to enjoy when you´re not a native speaker, and you´re not sipping away at your Mate´or local beer.

This is not to say that we didn´t enjoy Uruguay. We left Montevideo and arrived back in Colonia. Within a couple of hours, we managed to hitch hike a bus from our resort back to the centro while meeting a friendly local tour guide, and then met a nice American couple, James and Kaitlyn that we ended up sharing a few beers with, and a late dinner as well. Colonia definitely had it´s charm (and Montevideo did as well), with colonial cobble-stoned streets, old buildings, and dog poop. Yes, we´ve learned that it is best to know how to play sidewalk hop scotch. Dogs 1, Holly´s Brand New Havaina Flip Flops from Brazil 0. We were cautioned by our guide book about Buenos Aires, but the rule applies generally. And it´s TOUGH to site see while you also have to watch every step you take.

So now we´re back in Buenos Aires, and back in the rain (Malas Lluvias). Apparently the storm that was here last weekend when we passed through flooded a lot of the place. The rain that came today may have done a bit of the same. We did get out to Recoleta cemetery, and began to enjoy the local architecture. I will say that you don´t know how good you have it in the US until you put on cardboard-crunchy underwear that have just been air-dried after coming out of a BA washing machine. We barely made it back to our apartment today from touring the cemetery in time to pull our laundry off the porch, or it would have been soaked all over again.

So that´s all for now. James and Kaitlyn, the Americans from Colonia, actually have an apartment in BA as well, so we´re probably meeting them for a show tomorrow night. If we can get in touch with them. Which brings us to this:

We have a phone at our apartment and can accept incoming calls. The number is (54 11) to get into BA argentina and 4822-6460 for the apartment. According to this site (http://www.ehow.com/how_13412_call-argentina-united.html) it is either 011-54-11-4822-6460 or 011-54-1-4822-6460.

Best time to call is probably in the morning before 10am Buenos Aires time, but we may be around at other times depending on our site seeing and whatnot.

We just read that there is a winter storm warning for Arlington, which probably applies up to Columbia as well. 6 to 11 inches of snow?! That´s as tall as the dogs. We´ll be sweating while you´ll be digging.

So, call us if you can and you want, we´ll be happy to hear from anyone. Signing off for now (the rain stopped and we can actually leave this internet cafe). Cheers!

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