Uruguay!

Bienvenidos a Montevideo, Uruguay! Where according to our tour guide, just about everything is either old and abandoned, or refurbished by prisoners (just kidding, keep reading for the details). While the country may kind of seem thrown together, the beaches are beautiful and it's been a great vacation spot in the middle of my Buenos Aires trip. After our 30 minute flight over here, we took a driving tour of the city and started in Carrasco, the wealthier part of Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay where we're staying). We drove past multi-million dollar homes on the beach, then stopped at Plaza de la Armada, a lovely garden on the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean.

Plaza de la Armada

Beach, flowers, city, what more could you want?!

The entire group on the trip

The tour ended at Plaza Independencia, the most prominent area of Montevideo. It is important not only because of the buildings here, but because it divides the Ciudad Vieja (old city) from the Centro (center). The tomb of General Artigas, the man from the statue, is beneath the statue, and the president works near here as well. Teatro Solis, a big opera house and theater, is on one side, and Palacio Salvo, an older important building is in front of the statue. We were honored to have our hotel here as well!

Plaza Independencia

One downfall of moving countries is always having to exchange money. Let's grasp this:

• US dollar = 4 Argentinean pesos = 18.3 Uruguayan pesos

Finally, we adjust to Argentina amounts, and are now thrown off when dinner is 200 pesos. What does that mean?! Elizabeth devised the formula of going a decimal point back and dividing by two (if the dollar were 20 Uruguayan pesos) to get a better understanding of what we were spending, but sometimes our brains are just so fried from a long day that it doesn't matter.

Uruguayan pesos- $1000 bill

We realized that Uruguayan citizens have been kinder to us, even giving us separate checks at dinner last night! Their accent is easier to understand than Argentina's too. We had our first real "family dinner" with everyone on the trip, which has been difficult to organize in Buenos Aires since our apartments are so far away. Out of convenience and pricing, we ate at our hotel casino (which happens to be one of the more popular attractions in Montevideo) and then swam at the pool. Jordin, Stacey and I had an excellent "chivito al pan" for dinner, which was a steak sandwich with fried egg, lettuce, tomatoes, 'muzarella' cheese and ham. YUM.

The pool's roof had a cool reflection, so we took a picture!

We woke up to a phenomenal complimentary breakfast on the 25th floor with a great view of the city. Pancakes with dulce de leche, an egg casserole, fresh-squeezed orange juice, real milk that's not powder, yogurt smoothies, fresh fruit, and the best medialunas (croissants) I have ever eaten. What's not to love about Montevideo?!

Elizabeth, Stacey and I took a walk through Ciudad Vieja (the old city) to kick off the morning.

The architecture in Ciudad Vieja

Teatro Solis- a big theater in Montevideo

The view from one side of the hotel restaurant

Carolina planned a media tour to various outlets in Montevideo, specifically the Monte Carlo radio and television stations. At the TV station, we observed how Uruguay imitates the US but tends to fail, and saw an overall lower quality of news delivery. They are in the process of switching the station to HD so we heard about that and watched the 1 p.m. newscast live.

Monte Carlo TV station

The radio station not only gave us a bag of goodies including a digital recorder, alfajors (cookies/galletas in South America), a notebook and a calendar (what could I love more?), but also provided a phenomenal hourlong presentation on the station and journalism in Uruguay. Robert, a manager at the radio station, discussed its history and more. This was more interesting because it can easily be applied to the majority of South America and its status with the news. Monte Carlo's goal is to provide strictly informative news content and music without analysis or talk shows, and they stick to it and receive good ratings.

From here, we left for the US Embassy, which I talked about in my last post. Directly following, we walked the Rambla (Promenade) of Montevideo and lasted for about five miles! Our determination began in finding a park from the original tour where all the stone was laid down by prisoners. We remembered it being a beautiful park, and finally found it! Also an example of Uruguay's buildings being abandoned or refurbished by prisoners. Here's what we saw on the walk along the way! Why not walk down one of the most beautiful shores ever?

Sunset from Uruguay!

The park

Montevideo is quite a conquerable city considering its small size!

We even walked from point 1 to 2 and back on here :)

After another chivito sandwich for dinner (had to get it again, at a different restaurant), we returned to the Radisson exhausted from our long day. The hotel happened to have the first "Hielo Bar" in South America, so why not check it out? Hielo is the Spanish word for ice, and the entire bar--stools, glasses, wall frames, bar tables--are made of ice in a room that's -7 degrees Celsius (about 18 degrees Fahrenheit). After a trip to the ice bar, the night ended with socializing in our rooms, getting called out twice for being too loud (whoops, might as well happen while we're young) and overall nice fellowship with everyone on our trip.

Stacey, Jordin and I in the ice bar

With the exception of the Despegar flight incident that took up more of the day than it should have, we arrived safely back to Buenos Aires just to leave again. Adios Uruguay, hopefully I'll be back for either the State Department or your beautiful beaches!