Siesta Es Muy Bueno

Despite the fears of only cheese crackers on Christmas Eve, the hotel was able to get us a table at Fellini's, an Italian place within walking distance. Little did we know, it was basically a family and close friends event. After some initial trepidation, they welcomed us with open arms, served massive quantities of food and wine, and seemed disappointed we did not eat all our dessert. The matriarch was more "Nona" than "Abuela."

This brings some light to the language differences. About 40% of Argentina is of Italian descent (Uruguay must be similar). The best way to explain the accent is to think of Don Corleone speaking Spanish, with lots of hand gestures.

Fortunately, our hotel served breakfast on Christmas Day, so we did not starve. Montevideans go to the beach and so did we. Playa Pocitos is about 2 blocks from our hotel. It was lovely, with mostly families, young couples, and a few pairs of middle-aged women having their gab fests.

La Pocitas Beach - Christmas Morning

John was a little concerned his American-style swim trunks would be out of place. This was not an issue. With only a couple of exceptions, everyone dressed very much like Americans. Definitely, Montevideo cannot be confused with Rio de Janiero.

Surprisingly, a little Italian place down the street opened in the evening and was THE SPOT to be. It was a hopping place -- probably some combination of being open on Christmas AND having NBA games on the TV.

Today is our last full day in Montevideo and we headed out to the old city (Ciudad Vieja) in the morning. There is a small, but nice Pre-Colombian (or Pre-Colonial as you may) museum. It is housed in a very old building that was interesting on its own. We were the only people in the museum.

A lot of shops were closed and there were not many people around. We guess it is because Christmas fell on a Friday and most everyone took off for a long weekend.

There is some street art around. John and I decided to not attempt any interpretation.

Window at the Carnaval Museum

Most of the day was spent wandering and by mid-afternoon, we were hot tired, and sweaty. John uttered his now famous words, "Siesta es muy bueno." And so we did.

Parking Entrada (Multilingual)

Plaza Independencia

Plaza Fabini had quite the Christmas display. A large tree and these fabulous elf and snowman statues. They are rimmed in white Christmas lights and must look terribly cute at night.

Elf & Frosty

Along the entire waterfront is Montevideo's La Rambla. Different sections are named for different people. I have not found why each was chosen. The is a section for FDR, one for Woodrow Wilson, and the one closest to our hotel is named for Mahatma Ghandi. I'm always interested in why streets are named for dignitaries from other countries. It is not something seen much in the U.S.

There is a real mix of colonial architecture and more modern apartments. I am curious to know their history and why some buildings were not demolished. This one is a little more than a block from our hotel.

Covered in vines and padlocked

We did a "dry run" to the bus station this morning and also bought our tickets to Colonia for tomorrow. It was extraordinarily straight-forward and John stopped worrying. To reassure everyone, these are A-1 buses and do not look at all like the kind that carry chickens and fall off of South America mountains.

For our final dinner in Montevideo, we headed to La Otra, a quaint restaurant around the corner. It was mentioned in the New York Times "36 Hours in Montevideo" and is popular with the locals. (Speaking of which, we have seen/heard very few tourists.)

The food was amazing. The "petit filet" was close to 8 ounces and John was embarrassed he had to leave a large amount of his rib eye steak. Fortunately, they had real vegetables, although we are probably fooling ourselves to think that provided any balance to the 800 grams of saturated fat.

Excellent Uruguay Cab - our first

Grilled Vegetables!!

Apple Pancake with ice cream