A taste of Uruguay

  'Christmas in Montevideo' - sounds cool, right?
It was actually darn hot!
    Honestly now, I have no idea what Uruguay is all about. I guess I didn't even scratched the surface in the 4 days I spent there.
     Most of the people leaving from BA, arrive in a boat to Colonia and continue in bus to Montevideo. I didn't want to book a full trip with the boat operating company, cause then i would have had to get in the bus directly upon arrival, without seeing anything. So I went to the bus terminal and bought a return trip to Montevideo with a uruguayan company, also leaving me a few hours on the return day between bus and boat.
So, what is considered to be a must, for every proper tourist, it's the old town. I found it looks like an idyllic piece of cheesy film set

 So at some point I had enough and headed towards less beaten paths - the non touristic area. And I found this really awesome wall , surrounding a stadium ...

 and some real life settings ...

 …nonetheless idyllic.
A broken heart is a really heavy load to carry around in places like this. In high-noon with no sunscreen on.
       I also missed the bus to Montevideo (LOL, right!) because I had no idea there's a time difference between Argentina and Uruguay. And so I met Laura from Finland who was coming from Chile and heading home through Brazil, who made the same mistake… Luckily we could take the next bus without buying new tickets.
       I was to meet Laura again, as we ended up in the same hostel, after her initial one closed and I moved because my first one cancelled breakfast. This second one didn't have much of a breakfast, but there was coffee, a cheeky cat, it looked great and had a general good-vibe. It is called Live MVD, if you ever look for a hostel in Montevideo...

 I got to Montevideo in a special time - I am not sure if the rest of the year the pace is as slow as during the holidays. Otherwise there's the same mix of stiles and rithms as in Buenos Aires

 …aaaand it has a lot of beach!

 this was taken on 25 of December! I was not aware, but my knees were frying
  I've never been more far away from Christmas! When one walks around covered in sunscreen by day and insect-repeller by night and sweats instead of peeing  … there's no such thing as Christmas

    Although… the dinner, the night before, offered by a family of couchsurfers , for the lonely travelers was the closest thing to a christmas dinner I've ever head. Simply wholehearted hospitality and sharing. And a lot of meat! :P

      What else would there be? Montevideo is more expensive than BA, I was surprised to find out… and apparently - more dangerous. Some people from the hostel got mugged… There seems to be this practice to wait and assault the tourists at the free WiFi spots.
… and I have the impression, South America is full of runaway americans (from the US), mostly from San Francisco, that ''cannot be in their country anymore''.
     Actually, I guess there's a whole runaway wave going on for some times now (me included)… people that just keep moving from place to place, cause they don't feel at home anywhere and they've seen the futility of staying and fighting to make their own country their home…
I'm gonna get back to this, cause it's a big subject.

Strange days

oh, my … I neglected my journal a bit.

Well I'll try really quick to sum it up as I am packing for Montevideo :) Yes!- my Christmas present to myself ! I really have been a good person this year.

My internship in the Can-Can Club is over. There hasn't been much work in the last 2 weeks - the guys just started remodeling the studio, cleaning up, preparing projects that will start on January…, making holidays plans… I've used the free time to finish this until the 16th.
Well actually, I've used more than that, so I didn't go out much either. It was too hot anyway :P Oh,  btw, I found the solution to cope with the heat - working out like crazy :D (no joke) I wake up early - and start my cardio and stretching program at about 8:30, 9 am when there's already like 27-30°C. by the end of it I've sweated through 3 t-shirts and a towel, but everything afterwards seems so much cooler. This also soothes my guilt for giving in to argentinian artisanal ice-cream

This week I started going out again.
There was the last drawing&drinking get-together topped with a jam session. Here's the moment when the empanadas arrived and the people were trying to figure it out which ones were the ones they ordered - there was a key on a piece of paper with the symbols baked in for each flavor. Really smart :)

I also went to a Couchsurfing event, to meet some of the people I will be spending New Year's with, yesterday I've been in the Once district which pretty much looked like a huge market-place - big shops , small shops and street vendors everywhere!

 and today I've been to the Mercato de Pulgas again and I was disappointed to realize that it's not really a flea market but more of a furniture and antiques market. Still pretty fun to walk about

 What else?… ah, there were the usual blackouts that happen together with the heatwave once everybody starts their air-conditioning

 and here's two melted cats :

 So, nothing strange about all this… Well, it's me - I feel strange, detached …like there's a thin membrane between me and the wold. Sometimes I don't even feel the ground beneath my feet… I still don't know what this is, but I don't like it - it makes me blue

Merry Christmas !