Montevideo

Ok so a little recap on what all's been going on this last week. I finally feel pretty adjusted to all of this craziness and I'm starting to get more and more of the language here.(I better be. I've had 12 hours of spanish class every week which drives me crazy but that's another post in itself). Classes started this week and they are insane! We technically only have 13 weeks of school compared to the 16 weeks we have in a normal semester so everything is very fast paced and very crammed. This week was overwhelming just having to here all the assignments we are going to be given, but I'm sure as the semester goes on I'll get in the swing of things.

In 2 weeks we take a group excursion to Buenos Aires which should be really cool! I'm not exactly sure what to expect, but I have heard that Buenos Aires is considered the Paris of South America so its gotta be cool, right? Also, Amanda, my girlfriend, told me that there's these shoes in Buenos Aires that are like TOMS in America (they're actually the shoes that inspired TOMS) and so I'm pretty excited to see what they look like.

So a little bit about Montevideo and Uruguay. The country of Uruguay is geographically about the same size as the state of Washington. There are around 3 and a half million people living in Urugay and 1.5 million of those people live in Montevideo. Montevideo is a very urban city with a downtown and an old town called Ciudad Vieja. It's very interesting what a range of people there are. The coastal part of the town has very nice houses, basically mansions, and farther in there are some slums and shanty towns. A lot of homeless people have taken up digging for recycling and then putting it in bags on a cart pulled by a horse. It's really interesting to see, but its sad at the same time because some of the people on the cart are the same age or younger than me.

Ciudad Vieja

One really nice thing about the city is that it is on the coast, which means that there are quite a few beaches near where we live. I've already been to the beach four times since I got here and my skin is paying for it even though I've been trying to put on a good amount of sunscreen, but its just hard sometimes. I'll have to post a picture or two of the beach. So far, the beach is where we've had the most fun. We played some volleyball and soccer with some locals. Their footwork is insane, but it makes sense because Uruguay is in between Brazil and Argentina, two of the global powerhouses in soccer. Uruguay actually won the World Cup twice, and they're back in it this year.

So back to Montevideo, I live one block away from the biggest street in town which makes catching a bus really convenient, but most of the time people just walk. Unless something is more than 30 minutes away, you walk to it. The second day we were here we walked all the way to Ciudad Vieja (Old Town) and on the way back I was almost positive that I was on an escalator disguised as a sidewalk that was going the wrong way. The Walkers, who are the couple that live at Casa ACU (the house where I'm staying) ensured me that the sidewalks weren't actually escalators, but I'm still not sure about that.

Another part of the city that I absolutely love is the Ferrias. Ferrias are kind of like farmers markets but they sell everything imaginable. Yes, I mean EVERYTHING. If you're looking for a pet salamander or maybe a snake or a puppy or an owl, you can find all of those at the ferria. If you're looking for antiques they have those too. What about underwear, you ask? Oh, yep that's also on the list of items for sale. Every vendor specializes in something whether it's food or clothes, or pets. I found some local soccer jerseys for like $20 so I think next week I'll be adding those to my soon to be growing collection. The ferria near me is only about five blocks away, but it's only open on Sundays til 2 so I have to wait til next week to buy the jerseys. (talk about torture) But it's surprisingly relaxing to walk down the crowded street looking from vendor to vendor soaking up the culture as you go along.

So there you have it, now if anyone asks you if have been to Montevideo, you can lie to them and tell them yes. You can talk about the playas (beaches), ferrias (markets), and Ciudad Vieja and they'll think you lived here forever. Or if you're honest, you can just tell them that the reason you know all about it is because of my amazingly descriptive writing skills.