"Mate" and such

Hello! I’m a little pressed for time this morning, so I’m hoping to get just the most basic facts about yesterday up for your perusal today. I’m being picked up in about 20 minutes, and JUST now acquired the adapter that lets me plug in my computer. (My roommate Paul Stieber had one in our room, so I leeched off him, which allowed me to put off a purchase until this morning. And then this morning, nothing opened until around 9:30 AM. I am regularly so punished for my wickedness.)

So yesterday we transferred to our new hotel, with the aid of Natalia, my host; her daughter, Florencia; and the host of Joanne, my colleague, whose name is Pamela, and whose importance more than doubles because of the fact that she has a car. They took us across town to the Hotel Oxford, where we dropped our luggage and then headed to the Feria.

There’s a large area of streets that are blocked to traffic on Sundays, and which are then home to a huge street shopping extravaganza. It goes for blocks and blocks, and you can find everything under the sun.

It’s a very photographable place, of course, and I was snapping like crazy. One of the things that most struck me at the market was the ubiquity of mate. Natalia had told me that the typical thing to see in Uruguay was people with their thermos of hot water under their arm, and their bombilla of mate in the other, but even having been forewarned, I was astonished at the percentage of people who were actually doing it. I started snapping pictures, and couldn’t stop. Here are the results. (As this takes so long to upload, it’s probably going to be the meat of my post for the day. I may get a few more things in, but I would hate to be late to meet Natalia downstairs.)

After the market, we took a bus to Parque Rodó, which the Uruguayans refer to as their Disneyland, with a chuckle and a hope that you won’t quite chuckle, because they really do love it. It’s a small amusement park that’s open year-round, and, in a twist that I found just delightful, is run by the municipality. A publicly-owned amusement park – beautiful.

My greatest triumph there was in a game where you shoot targets against a wall with a rudimentary shotgun, which probably shoots light beams that you can’t see. When you hit certain targets, the semi-animatronic dummies and structures there leap up and shoot water at the crowd assembled behind you. I don’t think many of the Montevideans are hunters, because they weren’t quite aiming correctly, and a couple of people had their turn before I even realized that the soaking was possible. (I realized this by getting soaked.) So when I stepped up, I expected it to be very difficult. Instead, just about every shot I took wound up sending arcs of water shooting out past me and into the crowd. 

That’s how it’s done, Montevideo. That’s how it’s done.

Well, it’s 10:18, so I’d better had down. Hasta luego!