28) Montevideo, Uruguay

28. Montevideo, Uruguay     

            

Thursday:   February, 15, 2018             

Day 23 of our trip 
 

I got my wish from yesterday…. We had a slow day off the ship for a while.

Ship Graveyard at Entrance to Harbor

The ship docked in the middle of Montevideo’s Old Town. We could walk off the ship and were already downtown. Very convenient.  No hassle from hucksters, no shuttle, really no passport control to speak of, we just walked off the ship and voila, we were in Montevideo.

I loved that.

The Old Town of Montevideo showed lots of old wrought iron balconies, railings and houses. People were walking

Lovely Old Town

about with their Mate cups. The stores were open but nobody pressured me to come in, buy this. It was very laid back. There is not a whole lot to see, it is more a place where you sit and watch. The lifestyle of Uruguay is not very hectic. 

Lots of Wrought Iron Railings

We walked through the old streets for about 3 hours, stopped here, there and beyond, but bought nothing. 



There were some modern knick knacks but we were aware that we would need to carry it all when we got back after the cruise and… we do not need stuff for the house or personally.

City Park

We found the old City Park and walked around it, looking at some homemade merchandise, some antiques that people offered, but again, we really don’t need a thing. 

Mate Cups

During our Enrichment Lectures on board yesterday, the speaker Humberto said to visit the Restaurant “Brazilian Café” for good WiFi. We did just that. Carol had 76 emails to go through, it took a while, but we were in no hurry. 

It was a nice relaxing day, a comfy feeling of being in a city with such a slow pulse.

Mate - The National Drink

Half of the population of Uruguay lives in Montevideo. For sure there are areas that are more hyper, more active, but I never saw them. To me, Montevideo is nice, but very laid back.  It is almost as if everybody had a Mate high.

For the evening we ate at a table with a single guy named David…. He had money… but….

I felt creepy with him around… David had a crush on our waitress, a girl from the Ukraine. I cannot imagine her being attracted to him, but he never saw it. He was very into himself, into ‘David’ only. I wonder what the crew is being told about how to behave if something like that happens. I felt for our waitress, she was good to keep her cool when David tried to make a date with her. She was polite but kept her distance. Good for her… I don’t know about this David, though.  

The entertainer for the evening was another David, David Mendelsohn. He sang mostly Beatles' songs and was not bad, but when he spoke every other word was “ahhhh….”

I hope you read this, David Mendelsohn…. You will not make it with a speech impediment like that…….

Take lesson in public speaking……. drop the ……. ahhhhs.

Good night

See you tomorrow.