R.I.P. cooking endeavors

Ever since I’ve come home all my cooking endeavors have been disastrous. I have successfully destroyed every recipe and even managed to make myself sick from my own cooking.

What happened? Admittedly I have never been a great cook but at least in Uruguay my meals didn't burn and literally make me ill!

We'll be starting up roomate dinner night again though so I might just have to resurrect what cooking skills I have left.


A side "dish":
I would love to write about Adrian's visit and post some great pictures but between my full time job, full time schooling and long distance relationship, I just don't have the time! So, my posts will be short and sweeet while I'm back home in Arizona :)

Cultural shock

Ok, I know I was only out of the states for two years so the shock really comes from the adjustment and how much I miss Uruguay.

I miss the attitude that 10pm or even 11pm was still early and the night was still young!

I saw a woman the other day at Wal-Mart walking around with her parrot on her shopping cart...that was shocking.

Where are the open markets? I loved weekends walking around the park in Montevideo and visiting all the make-shift stands.

Speaking of walking, I hardly ever see anyone outside walking here! Do they all just stay inside and watch their TVs? The other day I walked to the grocery store and three people honked at me. Was it because I was walking and they thought it was a ridiculous enough idea they felt they had to honk?

I ate more hearty meals in Uruguay. Where's my delicious, cheap steak and wide variety of fresh foods? Oh, I remember, they're too expensive here! But hey, chips and junk food are cheap! :/

I feel like the attitude here in the U.S. is that if you work all day you can only have fun on the weekends, but weekdays can be just as fun too! We use to stay out until 2 am on a Wednesday (the old and the young) and then get up and go to work! Who cares how much sleep you get if it means you get to have fun and celebrate someone's brithday or recent accomplishment at work or school!

Some things I don't miss about Uruguay though are: the poop on the side walk, kids smoking marijuana on the street corner and lazy police! I appreciate our officers and I like that I don't have to watch where my foot falls every time I am out doors. Although, I harldy ever get the chance to walk here because we are such a car culture...

Big cars! That's another shocker. We all have such big cars! Why is that? They eat up so much more gas and are harder to park.

Stuff, we have so much stuff! It's amazing all that we have and we just want more, I know I'm part of that, but I am at least proud that I can recognize when I am wasteful and greedy and then remedy the situation. I had no idea how wasteful I was until I lived in a third world country. If your zipper breaks on your boots, don't buy a new pair, fix the zipper, the boots are still perfectly good!

Ok, that's all I have for now, I could go on and on but I should cut it off now!

I'm in love with Uruguay part 2...

After the hike we headed to Rocha. If you look through the earlier entries on my blog you’ll find a slide show of photos from the last time I visited the beaches of Rocha and see why I just had to go there again. There are so many small coastal villages to visit and each has its own enchantment. We drove through many but stayed the second night of our trip in La Paloma. That day it was a bit colder so our beach time was limited to hunting for sea shells and rocks off the shore and we ended the day in a great mom and pop hotel called La Viola.

The next morning we headed out to Punta del Diablo, spent some time on the beaches there, found a hostel for the night to stay in and took advantage of the daylight that was left by driving to the nearby National Park reserve of Santa Teresa. There we visited a fort built in 1762, drove through the winding roads of the massive park, stopped to see the botanical garden and parked at an excellent viewpoint of the beach of Santa Teresa. All in all it was quite a busy third day!

The last day of our trip we woke up early and headed to see a few more sites and since it was pretty warm outside we decided to spend a little more time on the beaches of La Paloma before heading back to Montevideo. Adrian let me drive the manual car since I ‘ve had several lessons. It was a smooth ride all the way until we arrived at the beach and I got the car stuck in sand. Adrian specifically said not to go in that direction and for some reason I continued…the result? The car was stuck in the sand for a good 45 mins. Several people offered to help, one person tried to pull the car out with his truck but the rope broke. So we got down on our hands and knees and dug the car out of the sand to try and remove it ourselves. We were not successful and another group of people passing by noticed us struggling and jumped in to help us. Using their truck they successfully pulled the car out of the sand. Here’s to helpful Uruguayans!

I'm in love with Uruguay part 2

I'm in love with Uruguay part 1...

This last weekend Adrian and I headed northeast to the beaches of Rocha. He took two days off from work and since the school year has ended for me I was free as well so we headed out on vacation!

We practically wore the same thing every day but for some reason we both felt it necessary to pack our huge trekking bags filled with junk we didn't use.

We started the trip about 5 in the afternoon and before we reached our first destination point, Piriapolis, we drove to a couple touristy places I hadn't been to such as Casa Pueblo, the house of a famous Uruguayan artist that overlooks the Atlantic ocean and a wavy bridge that Adrian and I drove over twice at a super fast pace to feel our stomachs in our throats.

After that thrill we were on our way to Piriapolis. We arrived at about 8:30 and there was still light out, it was early by Uruguayan standards. Adrian wanted to splurge for the night so we stayed at the 4 star Hotel Argentino with tennis courst, thermal spas and much more. It all sounded great but because it was not the high season they closed all their amenities early. It was quite frustrating. S0 we woke up early the next morning to take advantage of the spas and tennis courts. We spent an hour at the spas and then were going to play a few rounds of tennis but unfortunately found out that they were still closed. We decided Hotel Argentino did not deserve its 4 stars, what's more the service was not at all superb, they were quite cold and routine.

After we left the hotel we explored the town a bit and finished the Piriapolis tour with a hike up the highest "hill" in the town. It was a pretty good hike, and throughout the trail water was cascading down the rocks we needed to step on. Although I fell about 4 times I had a lot of fun. What's even cooler about the hike is that just before you begin the climb you can walk through labyrinths of the nature reserve park and see all kinds of animals native to Uruguay.

Stay tuned to my blog for details on days 3 and 4 :)

I'm in love with Uruguay part 1

The big party after the Elections!

After the results were announced the celebrations began and although it poured rain the Mujica supporters wouldn’t let that get in the way of this long anticipated celebration.

60% of Montevideo voted for Mujica so there was quite a crowd that blocked the busiest street in town and that crowded the rambla (boardwalk along the beach) in the Old City. Adrian, his brother, his mother, a family friend and I headed out to join the crowds. We drove first along the rambla and moved at a snail’s pace behind all the traffic that was honking and cheering at the news of their new President. We joined in the fun and I got to film during the moments in which it wasn’t raining so take a look at what I captured! It was a night I’ll never forget, old and young dancing in the streets, waving flags and singing in the rain.