Uruguay

Sorry it's been forever since I've posted, things have gone from slow and relaxing to crazy hectic.  I've been feeling much better (almost 100%), so we thought we should try to check some sights off our list.  Since Uruguay is only a 1 hour ferry ride away and easily accessible (customs and immigration took less than 5 minutes), we packed our backpacks and off we went.  We bought tickets for the ferry (about $30 each) and headed to the port.

The ferry was nice, the seats reminded me of an airplane, but much roomier.

They had TV and a concession stand.

Bye bye BA!

Once we got to Colonia, Uruguay, we hopped in a bus to go to the city of Montevideo (about $20 each).

This bus was so comfortable!  They had these leg cushions that you could pull down from the seat in front of you to rest your legs...fancy!

Some pictures from the bus (it was mostly just fields until we got to Montevideo):

2 hours later, we arrived at the bus station:

Uruguayan pesos are worth even less than Argentinean pesos (about 27 to the dollar), so stuff is somewhat cheaper.  

Map of Montevideo:

We didn't do much research before leaving, which isn't typical of me (I blame it on my virus, which I have named Victoria, BTW), so a couple things were surprising:

#1:  We were expecting a 30 minute bus ride, not 2 hours, so by the time we got to Montevideo it was getting dark!  Bummer!

#2:  We had no idea the city was so huge, we were expecting a tiny beach town.  

First thing on our list was to find food!  We were starving and ducked into the first place we could find:

We shared this steak and salad (really good flavor, but a little tough):

Ahh, much better!  Now our next goal was to find a hostel.  We took a cab to the main drag and walked.  We found the water:

See that black stuff?  It's in there somewhere (sorry, it was dark!).

More of the city:

I get that these pictures suck, but I'm just trying to give you a feel of the place, which I'll admit was underwhelming.

We found a hostel we liked:

Again, terrible pictures, sorry.  We put our stuff down and wanted to see more of the town, so we walked for awhile until we found this bar:

Nice!  Except for 2 things:

#1:  It was FREEZING in Uruguay!  It was frigid, making walking, talking, sitting and not dying SO hard!

#2:  Not only was it a holiday (someone historic's birthday), but there was a quarterfinal futbol (soccer) game on, so everyone was at home watching and no one was out.

We made the best of it.  The bar had these funky chairs:

and a guy walked around passing out condoms for "fending off the cold."

I ordered some spring rolls:

and we just hung out, half watching the game (we're starting to get more into futbol (at least trying), since it's EVERYWHERE and everyone is obsessed).  Then we went back to the hostel and hung out with some people staying there.  One guy made us mate. 

I had been wanting to try mate forever!  It's almost like the national drink of Argentina (and apparently Uruguay) and you need this special cup and straw (with a filter at the bottom) to drink the mate.  Mate is a type of tea and you can buy the powder at any grocery store (and the cups are sold everywhere too).  You pour in the powder (it's very strategic) and then the water but only on one side and insert the straw somehow making sure it filters correctly.  Whatever!  We tried it and it was WEIRD!  It was really bitter (which I usually like), but it also tasted very earthy.  I can't pinpoint it, but it was neat to see it made and finally get to see what all the fuss was about.  Aaron actually liked it, but it didn't win any prizes in my book.  But hey, whatever floats your mate!

Aaron added our names to the communal fridge:

We went to bed late and had to wake up early, so we could take a walk and see the place in daylight.  Honestly, not much better than at night.  I know we didn't get to give the place much of a chance, but from what we saw we were unimpressed.  I've heard really great things about Montevideo though, so maybe we just totally missed the boat on this one.  I don't want to judge a book by it's cover, but since the cover is all I got to see, I'd have to say it wasn't on my list of memorable places.

Here are some pictures of it in daylight:

Yea, these suck, but we were in a cab, so that's the best I could do.  Then another bus ride back to Colonia, this time it took even longer because it made like 50 stops!  Grrr!  By the time we arrived in Colonia, it was almost nighttime again!  Man, we just can't catch a break!

Colonia, while having much more street appeal than Montevideo, was just as deserted.  It was like a zombie apocalypse just came through and wiped everyone out.  It was crazy!

Eerie!  We ended up staying in the same hostel chain we stayed in last night.

We got a 4-person dorm and shared with a couple from Switzerland.  They're on a 10-month trek through North and South America and Asia.  Awesome!

We ate next door at Barbot.

They craft all their own beers:

However, we were not in the mood for beer (have I mentioned it's FREEZING HERE?!), we wanted food!

I got some sort of open-faced sandwich and Aaron got chicken nuggets and fries covered with a gross sauce.

Not impressive, but killed the nagging in my tummy for awhile.  It wasn't warm enough in the restaurant, so we immediately went back to the hostel, showered and got in sweats and sat by the fire in the living room.

Of course, everyone was still watching the game, so we watched while sipping hot tea and playing Gin Rummy (my Gonkie taught me how to play when I was a kid and it always reminds me of him, so shout-out to my Gonkie!).

Aaron braved the cold and went to the store and got some weird, but tasty snacks:

We sat by the fire until it was late and went to sleep in the most comfortable bed we've had in awhile.

Woke up early this morning to take the ferry back to Buenos Aires.

Bye bye Colonia!

Hola BA!

There's a waterfront casino!

Then we walked forever to the Subte and made it home.  Check out all our passport stamps:

When I finally took my shoe off, my sock was wet with blood:

Attractive, huh?  I guess one of my toenails cut my other toe.  Trust me, I cut my toenails regularly!  These shoes squish my toes together so much that I guess one guy sliced the other.  It's like foot-binding over here!  My new strategy is to wear band-aids on certain toes if I'm going to be walking a lot.  We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, we have one more week until we're off to Europe!  We're so excited, but also really stressed because we have so much to do!  We have to pack, mail a box home, plan our route (since we're backpacking for a couple weeks), I still have to go back to the dr one more time AND on top of all that, we still want to try to get to Patagonia.  We're trying to plan a quick 2-3 day trip to see some glaciers before we leave, so cross your fingers!  The weather is supposed to be awful this time of year, but we don't have any other time, so OH WELL!  Get ready for us, Patagonia!  We're coming for you!

Lastly, just want to wish all the dads out there a very Happy Father's Day!  Dad's don't usually get the credit they deserve and I think Father's Day is a good thing, so way to go Hallmark!  I want to thank my dad for ALWAYS being there.  I never had to miss him or wonder where he was because he stopped working long hours to take care of us when we were young.  He would do my hair (let me tell you, no one did hair like my dad.  My braids NEVER fell out!), take us to school and participate.  He was always at our school and all the kids and staff knew him.  He threw us pizza parties and chaperoned our field trips and stood with me outside Lucky's to sell candy bars (I sold the most in the entire school one year).  It couldn't have been easy having a daughter, dealing with periods and boy crushes, but he always tried not to embarrass me (but your dad asking you at 11 years old about your period is the worst!).  Through it all, he's still the one I call with a problem or random house/car question (not too long ago, I made him drive half an hour to my house to kill a spider.  To be fair, it was gigantic (in my head)).  Anyway, Happy Father's Day Dad!  Here's to 100 more spiders!