El domingo

Our Sunday adventures...

We took a long walk down the Rambla today until the playa (beach) ended, then we dodged up into the neighborhoods for the walk back. Ít´s so interesting to see a different way of life and living. We saw many people walking to the local mini-markets where the fruit and vegetables are on display in crates out front and you go inside long, narrow aisles to find all the things you might in a large supermarket at home, but with fewer choices of a particular item, different packaging and certainly a different language... however, we were surprised to see many similar brands. We found Helleman´s mayonaise, but in a plastic bag. And, Pedigree dog food - same yellow bag. Yogurt is in a large glass pitcher-like container... just interesting. We had a brief conversation with the storekeeper where he offered to sell us a newspaper and I explained that we couldn´t understand it, so no thanks.

After our long walk we headed to the ex-pats lunch and had a wonderful time with a welcoming and very talkative group of people. We met people from all across the U.S., several Uruguayans, one Canadian and two from Ireland. They had much to share with us about moving to, living in and doing business in Uruguay. They all love it here and seem very happy. They identified a few things they miss, but not anything they couldn´t live without. They answered our questions at length and seemed very supportive of the wine industry here. One woman, whose family makes wine in Argentina, knew all about growing grapes and wine making and noted a few other vineyards she knew of for sale.

And, Carlos showed up to give us a phone and set our arrangements to meet for dinner tonight. You may recall from our first post that Carlos is the father of a Red Crosser I work with. Carlos is coming to our hotel at 9:30 tonight and we will go to dinner somewhere he chooses. For those of you who know Steve, this is quite a late time to go to dinner, however, this is apparently when the town gets going for evening meals and socializing. Apparently, if you are going out to the clubs, you wouldn´t dare show up earlier than 2:00 a.m.! We will not be doing that!

After our ex-pat lunch, we took another walk because it´s really fascinating to see the shops and cafes and found several pastry shops, a sporting goods store where Steve bought a fleece pullover with the National rugby team´s logo on it and then we found the most amazing McDonalds I´ve ever seen. McCafe...very cosmopolitan! We can report that a Big Mac meal is about $5.00 in Uruguay, although we were too stuffed to eat anything else.

That´s all for now... we have to go take a nap so we can be awake for dinner at 9:30 p.m.!

Marianna and Esteban