Uruguay...Argentina's Canada

Sorry this post was such a long time coming! I ended up going to Uruguay not once, but twice, and decided to just stick both weekend adventures together for your reading pleasure.

Oh, and I'm lazy. I'd rather watch reruns of "Miami Ink" and season two of "So You Think You Can Dance" than tell fuel my ego with this blog sometimes...sorry.

So anyway. You must be wondering, "Bri, why are you nicknaming Uruguay after a big North American nation that has a ridiculously similar culture to the United States?"

I imagine you saying this as you're sitting in a little kindergarten chair behind a little kindergarten desk, with your hand eagerly raised. I also imagine offended Canadians.

Well, it's because Uruguay is very similar to Canada in the respect that while Canada has many cultural aspects in common with the United States (or is it the other way around???), Uruguay has much in common with Argentina. Accent, food, ethnic makeup, etc. And like traveling to Canada from the United States, it's really easy to travel to Uruguay from Argentina. Many Argentines escape to Uruguay for weekend vacations during Saint's Week and the summer, since Uruguay has some really fabulous beaches. There are some places in Uruguay that even make excellent day trips.

So let's so you my not one, but two vacations to Uruguay.

The first one was to Montevideo, the capital of the nation. According to Anthony Bourdain, exemplary scholar in food and badassery, Montevideo looks so much like Havana that many films including scenes in Cuba actually shoot in the Uruguayan capital. Like "Miami Vice."

I have to agree, even though I have never been to Havana. There was lots of colonial architecture and palm trees, and it was pretty sweet.


The oldy-timey entrance to the city.

Unfortunately, I don't have too many pictures of the city. Why, you ask? Because Amanda, Jeremy and I made it a goal to eat tons of Uruguayan cuisine.

Example one: the chivito. It is a sandwich which typically includes:
1.beef
2.hard boiled egg
3.ham
4.bacon
5.cheese
6.mayo
7.lettuce
8.tomato

This, ironically enough, was a "Chivito Canadense,"or a Canadian chivito.

My heart couldn't handle this. I got boiled chicken for lunch.

Another food highlight: Puerto Mercado. Amanda and I were inspired to eat there by this "No Reservations" clip. The scene from the Puerto Mercado is near the end. Vegetarians and vegans, avert your eyes!


Anyway, that heavenly meat extravaganza couldn't be left ignored. So me, Jeremy and Amanda wandered the old city and sat down in the "Land of a Thousand Parillas" and snarfed down this:


Sweetbread, lamb and cow tripe, chorizo, ribs, chicken, blood sausage, red peppers, lots of little unidentifiable things...yeah we definitely contributed to the decrease of the farm animal population in Uruguay that day. That tasty, tasty day.

I'm going to be a vegetarian for a while when I get home. I'm seriously going to need to detox all the meat I've been eating out of my system.

The weekend after Montevideo, I went back to Uruguay for a day trip with my friend Lizzie and her housemate Charlie. We took a ferry to Colonia, a little coastal that's so small, they don't have stop signs and you can ride golf carts through the streets.

Which is what we did. We rented a golf cart for twelve American dollars and drove 5km to an old bullfighting ring in the middle of nowhere. Problem was, it was pouring rain and we didn't think to rent a golf cart with windows. I wish I had windshield wipers on my glasses like Harry Potter...

I did not look cute on the golf cart, I was a soaking freezing mess. Hence, those pictures will not appear here. So here's one of me in front of a random person's house in Colonia...shortly before I fell in the mud.


Colonia is really super cute, it's lots of riverfront property with promenades and colorful houses. Even though it was wet and cold and I only had a sweatshirt, I really enjoyed myself.

On a final, non-Uruguayan note: can you believe it's June already? I'll be back in the States in 23 days!