i haven´t had coca cola yet

and i wonder how long it will take before i finally get the urge for some "coca". if you don´t see a uruguayan walking down the street with a bottle of coke, you would see them holding a thermos of hot water under one arm and a mate on the other.

 

buskers: they don´t play on the street, they get into the buses and play for you there. last night a guy came in with a guitar with a girl singing protest songs and it was really good. everyone clapped and gave them money. even my dad and my dad is really cheap! but it´s in pesos and a few pesos  isn´t worth very much.

 

i forgot to mention that the house that my aunt sold, the one my dad grew up in was sold to a business. my dad, his brother and sister slept in one big bedroom and that´s now an internet cafe. my granfather´s bedroom is also an internet cafe. on every block there´s an internet cafe. they call them cyber cafes here. they don´t serve any coffee. it´s mostly teenagers playing computer games. last time i was here 7 years ago, i couldn´t even see one internet cafe and now they´re everywhere.

 

i saw ben affleck in a spanish deodorant commercial! i think it´s called axis. or it could be an american commercial that´s dubbed but i don´t think he would do that. he probably flew to spain for that. that would be too embarrasing to be seen doing that in the states.

 

last night i went to la ciudad vieja with my parents. it´s close the port and it´s the oldest part of the city. we were there at 7pm and we thought the stores would still be open and lots of people would be walking around because it´s a tourist area but all the stores were closed and very few people were walking around. we asked the tourist police why the stores were closed and he said that they close at 6pm because there are too many robberies around. the ciudad vieja is 10 blocks of pedetrian only traffic and if you walk straight down to the port there´s a great market but that was closed to so we walked back up and it was really scary. there was no one around and an owner of a cafe came out to tell us not to walk on this street because of the "chorros"  thieves. i saw a few 7 year olds begging and i was even scared of them. they´re good and fast at stealing and i was carrying my camera. we got out of there really fast and found this really cool place close to this old theatre called Teatro Solis. lots of people were in this bar."bar tasende". it´s a legendary bar that´s been around for 75 years. my dad knew about it. lots of people were there and lots of people who work for the theatre go there. i loved the atmosphere. everything was really old. i had a pomelo, my parents shared a 960 ml bottle of beer and we each had a plate of piece with 8 small square pieces. some places give you pizzas that come in a square shape, not circle and they cut them up in smaller squares. i think that´s the italian way of doing it. we also had a plate of Faina. Faina is a typical uruguayan pizza that´s made with corn flour and water. there´s no topping. it´s very thin and delicious. well it was so good and they had a wood over. everything was only $8! i want to go back there!

 

today i walked by a mcdonalds and saw a woman drinking from an espresso cup! the McDonald's here sells espresso coffee in those tiny white porcelain cups! much more sophisticated than the canadian-american mcdonalds.

 

there´s a magazine stand on almost every block but it´s mostly cheesy celebrity or naked girls on the cover. and you know you´re in the expensive neighborhoods when there´s american magazines. i went to pocitos today and saw a high rise made of marble!

 

this spell check is in spanish so complain over my typos and spelling ok?

 

most stores close between 12:30-2:00pm for lunch.

 

when you´re introduced to a stranger you normally kiss them on the cheek. there´s lots of kissing going on. uruguayans are really nice, warm, friendly and polite people. except for the ones that want to grab your wallet and purse.