Adventures in Uruguay
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2008
1
7
13
Trip End
Ongoing
Colonia del Sacramento,
Uruguay
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
So needless to say, it was rough waking up at 7am to go to Colonia the next morning, but I did it! Catherine and I got to the Buquebus, the ferry company that takes you across the river to the small Uruguayan city. The ferry was HUGE
at azucar
! It was almost like a cruise ship, with comfortable seats and decorations and even a duty-free shop onboard. We sat down and I spread out over 3 seats and slept almost the whole trip, though we did get some pictures in.. We got to Colonia and walked to the heart of the town. It was so cute--it's a small colonial town on the Rio de Plata (which is actually a murky brown river) that was established by the Portuguese at the end of the 17th century. We bought a ticket to all the museums in the city for 10 pesos (about $3) and walked around all day. The houses are almost all colorful and in that old Latin American style: one-story, flat roofs, wooden doorways, gardens with beautiful flowers all around.. The streets are still mostly cobblestone and there are few cars that go through the town (especially the old part of it). We climbed up into the lighthouse (180 steps up a steep curvy ladder) and took pictures of the entire city down below. We ate some delicious food, some ice cream, had so cafe, walked through shops, and enjoyed the old charm of the city. When it was time to leave there was some confusion because we thought Uruguay was an hour ahead of BsAs, but because of daylight savings time, it ends up being the same. Anyway, we ended up being early for our ferry back and waited around in the terminal. Catherine told me some hilarious stories about travelling with her friends to Italy and we were both so tired and delirious that we were hysterically laughing. I think people were scared.
after salsa
When I got back home I was too tired to go out, so instead I slept for about ten hours. Sunday morning a few of us went to the cancha, or stadium, of Boca Juniors, Argentina's most famous futbol team, to buy tickets for the match later that day. We stood in line for a while (they have a separate line for women!! I thought that was nuts) and bought our tickets to the game. After that, we walked around the neighborhood of La Boca a little bit, which is incredibly colorful and full of street vendors and performers. But it's supposed to be a pretty dangerous neighborhood if you stray off the touristy streets, so we left not long after getting there.
Later on, I met up with Ben, Mark, Nathan, and Cati (their friend from their program) at Cafe Bercy.. I think it's becoming a weekly tradition for them, and the waitress even knows them by name. We hung out for a while and talked about future travel plans to either Iguazu (the waterfalls) or somewhere closer, like Cordoba, the second largest city in Argentina. Haven't decided yet...
After that, it was time to go to the game. When we got there, we saw some vendors selling Boca gear and souvenirs and some kids bought jerseys. Then we got to our seats and sat for about an hour until the game started
Cati and Lea
. All I can say is that it was COLD. The other team was from Tigre, a suburb close to the capital, and their fans were CRAZY. They were yelling and singing during the whole match. There were fireworks, little pieces of paper with ads being thrown around, cheerleaders, and of course, lots of yelling and singing "GOL" every time Boca scored. It was a lot of fun, but not as crazy as I hoped.. The crowd was definitely tame. After the game (we left early, but they were obviously winning!) we went to get some food and then went back to my apartment with a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate. We had some good conversations about travelling and diversity and race and school and it was good to connect to people in my program. Everyone left at around 2am and I went straight to sleep. Today was my first day working at Exemys, the tech company that I'm doing a market analysis for. So far, it's kind of hard because I don't really know much about the industry or the product and it's a lot of specifics that I don't understand (i.e. random combinations of numbers and letters that mean something that I don't understand) but I'm sure it'll come with time. The people there are all really nice and welcoming, and they only speak Spanish so I'll be forced to improve =)
This week is pretty open so far, but I want to go to a tango show tomorrow (it's free!) and maybe a museum on Wednesday or maybe explore San Telmo (one of the more historic neighborhoods in BsAs). Til next time!
