Uruguay!

Ahh I can't believe it is September already! Where does my life go? And where does my money go for that matter? Oh yea, I've been traveling all over the place :-)

This past weekend I went to Uruguay! We were able to visit Montevideo and Colonia. I ended up going with 2 friends from TCNJ (holler!), Jill and Kristin, and a group of their friends. The interesting thing here is that Uruguay is only a boat ride away! And we all know how I love boat rides! NOT. In Buenos Aires you can take a ferry to Colonia or Montevideo and vice versa. We ended up taking the 8 am ferry that was a direct ferry to Montevideo (I say direct because they also have one that goes to Montevideo, but that lands in Colonia and buses to Montevideo). Anyway, Buquebus was pretty cool (here's a picture of it on the left). There are no assigned seats, everyone just goes in and sits wherever. There's also food and lounges, and a nicer part for first class (which is obviously out of my budget now haha). The trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) took us a total of 3 hours.

We arrived  in Montevideo around 11 am. Another stamp on my passport- check! Luckily our hostel was about a 10 minute walk from the buquebus station so we didn't have to take a taxi. We had a bit of a mix up with the location of the hostel, but after walking around for a bit we finally arrived. I didn't mind though because we got to explore before we had even planned to explore :-) We walked then walked around the city and were able to see quite a bit. We were staying in the older part of the city (it's cool because most of the roads in this part are strictly for pedestrians), but we also went and walked a bit in the newer, more modern part of the city. To the left is a picture of Plaza Independencia (the main plaza and tourist spot in Montevideo). On most of the streets (in the older part of the city) people set up stands and sell things. It was really like one huge flea market and it kept us occupied for quite some time! And yes, I again added to my flag/postcard/magnet collection! We then went and ate lunch at this place called "el mercado del puerto". DELICIOUS. We walked inside this building and were suddenly in the middle of who knows how many tasty restaurants. We picked one of our liking and had a delicious and very cheap lunch. I ate a grilled red pepper stuffed with ham, melted cheese, and egg. YUM. Here are a few pictures of ciudad vieja de Montevideo (old city)...

After lunch, we explored some more, did some shopping, and took a walk towards the coast (Montevideo does not only have the city feel, but it also has beaches!). Later that night (Friday, the 27th) we went out to celebrate Kristin's 21st birthday! We went to this really cool tango bar, and obviously had a bottle of champagne to celebrate! There was a singer and two guitar players, and we even got them to sing happy birthday in spanish. By then, the bar was packed and everyone was singing along :-) Obviously the singing also entailed bringing delicious desserts to our table. You can view these in my pictures on the fb (I've apparently formed the habit of taking a picture of every interesting thing that I eat here haha). Below is a picture of me, Kristin, and Jill (TCNJ representin!!!) and also a group shot before going out for Kristin's birthday.

The next day we took a bus tour of the city in the morning. We went through pretty much all of the city, and the most popular barrios. We were able to see the national soccer stadium (Montevideo is so tiny that they apparently only need one main stadium?), the main legislative building, and the most popular part of the playa. To the left is a picture of part of the coast! It's a shame that it was so overcast when we went because the scenery was great. After the bus tour we ate a super delicious lunch (can you tell I love the food down here?), picked up our stuff from the hostel, and headed to the bus station to take a bus to Colonia, our next destination. We navigated the public bus system pretty well and were able to arrive sin problemas at the bus station. At one point when we were on the way to the bus station on the bus a homeless man came on the bus and basically pitched us an advertisement on why we should give him money. There's a first time for everything right? It's amazing to note how much poverty is evident down here. It's obviously evident in the US as well, but being that I don't live in a large city I rarely am ever exposed to it. We hopped right on a bus to Colonia right as we got to the station and arrived there 2 hours later.

Colonia is a small, historical, touristy town in Uruguay. We stayed there Saturday night (the 28th) and Sunday during the day. Saturday night we went to this great parrilla (a restaurant that mainly sells food off of the grill) called El Porton (recommended to me by my wonderful host mom!). Ivonne is from Uruguay so she gave me the scoop before I left :-) We went out that night to the one and only boliche in the town. It was a bar/club, but it also had a terrace that was pretty cool. In the bar section right next to the DJ were two artists painting. I was amazed by this because 1- it is fascinating to watch someone paint, and 2- who does this in a club? If you've read before about my odd experiences from Paraguay this shouldn't surprise you about the things that happen with the night life here haha. I'm not joking, please refer to the picture above.

The next day was a ton of fun! We rented motos!! And by that I mean mo-peds, and these tiny little 3-wheeled cars (look to the left). We spent the day driving around the city and seeing what we could. We stopped and walked around a harbor for awhile and also drove along the coast. Being that I haven't driven anything in over 2 months can you imagine the lead foot I had? Haha good thing the moto didn't go over like 50 mph. We stopped at several stores, ate in a great restaurant (surprised?), played dress-up old school uruguayan style, and had some more helado. I had an absolute blast driving around all day long! Time finally came to get back on the boat and go home (boo!). We took the slow boat back to the city because it was the cheapest. Wasn't a huge fan of the ride back (we were rocking back and forth and I had run out of dramamine), but other than that the entire weekend was awesome! I am going to leave out the part about my tiny adventure returning to my apartment Sunday night haha. Stay tuned for more :-)