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South America » Uruguay » District of Montevideo » Montevideo
December 7th 2006

Published: December 8th 2006

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BigJeff

Casa Rosada

The Pink House. This is where the Argentine President goes to work every day. Like our White House, but.. pinker.

Sorry we've been scarce for a few days. Since we've last written we spent a little more time in Buenos Aires and then made way across the pond to Montevideo, Uruguay via a big water taxi called the BuqueBus. Crappy wifi reception at the Radisson prevented us from being able to write any new blog entries or check email for two days. Now we're back at robert's place in BA, with some decent internet access.
As far as Montevideo goes, it's a heck of a lot smaller than BA. There's a lot less traffic and everyone seems to be moving at a much slower pace. For example one of the first things we noticed here was that when attempting to cross the street on foot, cars actually stopped for you. Even when there wasn't a stop sign. This just doesn't happen in Buenos Aires. If the street lights are green for the cars, you'd better be out of the road in BA. Our hotel appears to be in a kindof Chinatown section of Montevideo. Pretty strange. There are quite a few Asian people in Buenos Aires and Montevideo that speak only spanish. Quite unexpected, and makes me look twice every

El Obelisco

The Obelisk. Some kind of monument to Argentine independence I think. Very large and almost every street seems to lead to it.

time I see / hear it.
We made it into Montevideo late Tuesday evening, and didn't want to venture out very far by ourselves in the dark so we ate dinner at the top of the hotel and then headed to the hotel Casino to play Baccarat. The rules for Baccarat down here are a lot different than in Vegas, and it took us quite awhile to get the hang of it. We actually won some money that night, and it was great practice for our Spanish because nobody at the tables spoke any English. I wont about $750 and I believe Devin won a couple of thousand. Uruguayan. : P Too bad the exchange rate is 24 to one.
Wednesday we decided to get out and actually see the place. We took a walk down by the water. There's no real beach per say here. Not nice flat sandy place as we think of beaches. The water does meet the land, but it's green grass like your lawn all the way down to that point. Quite bizarre. The rest of the coastline is rocky craggy points, or industrial port. We hit up Punto Carretas shoping center as

Disco Heart

See I told you these crazy hearts are everywhere!

well. This is the cities biggest shopping mall, and is built from what was once a prison. Sounds freaky, but the building is totally rennovated and you'd never have a clue what it once was if nobody told you.
We had dinner out at a place called Don Peperone's later in the evening. We got a huge sizzling pan full of various grilled meats for about 12 dollars.. There were a few different cuts of beef, some pork, and chicken as well. Pretty much just like Argentine food. It would be very easy to go on the Atkins diet around here. After dinner it was time for a few beers. We wandered around and found an Irish pub. Yes, an Irish pub in Uruguay, complete with a band playing irish folk music. After a few "yellow submarines" (a beer with some kind of shot turned upside down at the bottom of the glass) we decided that we were gamblers again and hit the casino. This time, luck was nowhere to be found. I tucked my tail between my legs and headed to bed.

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