Not Liking Montevideo...

Happy Friday the 13th!

I was half expecting some trouble today (yes, I can be superstitious!), but nothing happened. Business as usual.

I'm in Montevideo, the capital of little-known Uruguay, right now. This is its Plaza de Independecia on the right. Some processional guard thing going on, hence the crowd. Not particularly attractive, huh?!
I took the expensive, but fast, Buquebus ferry from Buenos Aires yesterday morning to get here.

I'm bored. There's not really much to do in this city.

First thing first, I headed over to the Brasilian consulate in some residential area straight from the ferry terminal as soon as I arrived. I was hoping to get a tourist visa during the day, for lack of better plans. But it turns out that I was directed to a Brasilian embassy building, but not the consular, visa section. That was back downtown where I came from. Sigh. Didn't feel like backtracking.
Luckily, one of the employees was on his way to the downtown office, and offered to give me a ride. I like Brasil already : ) Even though my plans didn't quite pan out. They couldn't issue a visa to me without proof of a ticket into Brasil. Since I hadn't yet figured out the exact how, when, and where of my entry to Brasil (probably by bus within the next week from Iguasu), I remained visa-less.

From there, I found my way to the Pocitos district to check into the hostel. Close to the beach (which I care nada about) but far from the center. Maybe that explains why the hostel was packed with the young, loud crowd. I would've liked to have escaped after 1 night there, but I had already paid upfront for 2 nights and was therefore stuck. Annoying.

Might as well make the best of my time here then, right?!
So, I headed back to the city center to see what Montevideo was all about. Nada, as expected.
The Ciudad Vieja (old town) was small and uninteresting. I don't even have a single picture. The post office was probably the highlight as I got to sit down to write/send off some uncool postcards.

OK. Enough negativeness.
Let me think hard.....oh yeah, the Mercado del Puerto was all out touristy, but the grilled fish I had there reached the top of my yumminess scale! Just pick a fish and they grill. With some sides. I guess 280 Uruguay pesos isn't cheap, but it was personally worth every penny.
In the one random museum I walked into, this mate cup was interesting.

In Uruguay and Argentina, the mate tea is everywhere. It's often drunk hot thru a metal straw from funky shaped cups, with the standard ones being round/gourd-like. Doesn't taste too bad, but might be a bit too bitter for my tongue and too high in caffeine. From my brief experience in this country, I can confidently say that Uruguayans drink more mate than the Argentineans.
The one thing I don't like about this is that you see piles of spent leaves on the streets and elsewhere. And it closely resembles cow manure...

I think that's the extent of my sightseeing in Montevideo.
As I mentioned, my hostel was far from pleasant to be in. But one upside was its proximity to a large shopping center. For 2 nights in a row, I went to its movie theater there and watched "Slumdog Millionaire" (about time!) and "Bride Wars". It's cheap too, @ 125 pesos (~$6) on the Friday/Saturdays and 80 pesos (~$4) otherwise. An old couple yelled at me in Spanish for putting my feet up. I actually didn't understand what they were saying (my espanol still sucks), but I'm guessing that's it. I just responded with a blank stare. At which point a guy showed up with his daughter and told the couple to shut up. And then turned to me and said "crazy, old people. Don't worry!" in English.
I also stopped by a spa to get a full-on pedicure. I didn't realize how "full-on" this was going to be. When the esthetician took out a blade object, I was shocked; never seen that at the nail salons! But she masterfully started scraping all the dirty, dead skin off my feet. By the time she was done, there was a huge pile. Amazing. Me feet are soft and pretty now : )
Me like.

…But me still no like Montevideo. Doubt I'll ever come back here.