Sunday, November 16, 2008
Friends & Family:
The morning started out early for Bill, as he & Frank ran in what they thought was a 10K through the streets of Montevideo. As they neared the end, Bill realized it was only an 8.5K...which was fine with him! Bill ran alongside a friend of Frank's whose government job is replacing lost & stolen Visa's & Passports - ironically this fella told Bill that yesterday he had HIS passport stolen !!! Frank ran separately (and ahead) with his bodyguard (naturally). In the meantime, I was doing my own "work-out" by the backyard swimming pool with my needlepoint.
After lunch, Kathy was good enough to take Bill and I on an extended tour of Montevideo, and first stop was a HUGE HUGE street Flea Market held every Sunday, called Feria d Tristan Narvaja. See the photo of all the live animals (finches, chicken, roosters, mice, parrots, bunnies...) in cages for sale. Believe it or not, I did not buy a thing, but I could easily have gotten a few of the bright orange finches if I could have figured out how to get them home. Chirp Chirp...
Bill was anxious to attend church, so we went to the local Catholic Cathedral only to find it closed on Sunday! While 47% of Uruguayans are Roman Catholic, this country is "South America's most secular country, where there is no official religion and in which church and state are separate."
On another note, the info I brought up from the internet keeps remarking that "Uruguay is the least corrupt country in Latin America - along with Chile." Something else of note is that Uruguay became the first Latin American country (and second in all of the Americas after Canada) to recognize same-sex civil unions at the national level.
Anyway... back to our tour. So after attempting to attend Mass on Sunday, we went to the mall! At the mall (which looks like any upscale mall - which was completely decorated for Christmas with a huge tree & Santa area!), the place was packed neck & neck with people - apparently on Sunday, the mall is the place to be, and whole extended families come to spend the day. The young people cruise the aisles and scope each other out, the parents sit and drink cappuccinos, while the old people grab all the benches and lounge chairs in the center and settle in for the day, watching the crowds push through. Maybe it's the tourists who do the shopping (I did my part).
We visited a few local Artisian stores which sold beautiful garments made from hand-dyed yarns. Tomorrow we spend one more day in Montevideo where we will be attending a lunch at The Residence with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and then scour the city for a leather jacket for Bill. xoxo :-)
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