(Hello, how are you all? I am phenomenal. This country is very fun!)
So, some items from the last couple of days. On Friday we woke up early and took a trip to the port to receive Yellow Fever (Fiebre Amarillo) vaccinations. The port itself has very high security, so we had to go through some fancy rig-a-maroll to get into the area itself. Thankfully no one came up on the computer as a terrorist and they lest us through gates. It was very cool to be able to see the port and all the machinery that goes along with shipping. You can really begin to understand how important the port is to the economy of Montevideo. When we arrived at the place to receive our shots, it wasn't all that impressive of a building and didn't give you a relaxing feeling of sanitation, but it was the place that we were taken and we didn't ask any questions...After the shots (which turned out to be quick and painless) a friend of mine, Mark Foster, and I took a stroll back to the Casa via the Plaza Independencia. In the center of the plaza there in General Jose Artigas' mausoleum and a giant statue of him on a horse. Artigas is very important to the Uruguayan people because of the extent to which he lead the fight for independence from Spain and then Argentina and Brazil.
The plaza is also the center of the Ciudad Vieja (Old City) which has a lot of old architecture and other cool things to see. It's also really tourist oriented and there are a lot of shops and markets that we like to see and hang out at.Friday night, a group of us hooked up with some Uruguayan friends a hung out on the Rambla (which is a running/biking path that runs the length of the Uruguayan coast, along the beaches) practicing Spanish and having a good time. They treated us to a ride on a carnival type spinning-wheel thing at a nearby little amusement park. It is interesting to compare the safety standards of amusement rides here to those in the US...
Saturday was filled with studying, getting caught up in Math and reading stuff for the next week. In the evening we were able to escape to go hang out with our local friends again. We sat and talked at a friends house with his parents and some other of his friends many of which didn't speak english and I think I was the
butt of several jokes because I couldn't understand anything that they were saying... Then we went to Ciudad Vieja again and hung out at an Irish pub that had a live band playing English music that we could see along with for a change. Don't worry there wasn't any alcohol involved on my part, so don't get your hackles up. We were hoping to be able to do some dancing, but the party doesn't start down here until about 1:30 in the morning so we had to leave before it got started. We didn't end up getting back until 2, just in time for curfew. Whew, what a crazy couple of days!
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