Author: doug

Chinese food in Uruguay! (just kidding)

Chinese dining in Uruguay - well, not really

I think some friends recommended this “Chinese“ restaurant in Carrasco. Well, the friendly purveyor appeared Chinese, and spoke Rioplatense Spanish so fluently that obviously she knew that real Chinese food would hold no appeal for the Uruguayan palate. Unfortunately, that expounded to no taste other than soy sauce, and food that seemed to be leftovers, especially believable considering we were the only diners.

Consider this a “must miss” when in Montevideo. Oh, did I mention ridiculously expensive?

I used to taunt expats in Uruguay: what‘s your favorite Thai restaurant in Montevideo? It was a Schrödinger‘s-cat kind of thing, except that the cat was metaphorically dead. In reality nonexistent. Ditto Chinese.

More curupay and the “pobre Meriva”

Curupay decking in car
One of many loads in the “pobre Meriva,” the poor Chevy Meriva, which functions as the pickup truck I don’t have.

I’ve mentioned curupay wood before, so when friends said they were replacing their deck and I could have some, I immediately made plans to  build a table (better than this one). I didn’t want to be greedy, because what remained they’d use as firewood.

Dinger joint curupay strips
Finger joints: in the north, the strongest point in the board. Here, the weakest, since they didn’t use waterproof glue!

Then they announced plans to leave Uruguay, so I thought “why not?” They’d consider it a favor if I cleared it all out, cleaned up, and re-stacked their firewood to make the place look neater.

Back home, many hours of removing screws, stacking lumber. Many possibilities for projects. And some incredible firewood too.

The fine art of geolocation in Uruguay

OK, red herring. Actually, I think I must have said “hell no” at some point when a web site asked to see where I was located. So this was the result when I looked for the distance to the closest branch of Scotia Bank, whose debit cards are replacing the Tienda Inglesa points cards.

geoloc-01

Hint: we’re only about 40 km away.

geolocate-07

But presumably I know now the geographic center of Uruguay, which is here:

geolocate-02

So naturally, rather than do something productive, I switched to satellite view to find out where I “was.” Looks pretty remote:

geolocate-03

But wait a minute! What are those shapes?

L-shaped forests in Uruguay

Triangular forests in Uruguay

Why, L-shaped and triangular patches of forest, of course.

You can find all sorts of fun tree patterns on Google Earth in Uruguay, which apparently takes the growing of Eucalyptus trees more seriously than its neighbor to the northeast, Brazil.

Ecalyotus trees: Uruguay, yes; Brazil, no

But triangles … why triangles?

 

 

 

Uruguay factoids

Squinting at coffee packages in the supermarket the other day triggered this train of thought.

  • Unless you look very hard for otherwise, the coffee you buy in a supermarket will have sugar in it (“glaseado”)
  • cuts of beef are at right angles to what northerners expect
  • It is almost impossible to buy a long-handled shovel (“you can buy a regular shovel, remove the handle, and put a long handle on it” – yes, I was actually told this)
  • A vehicle with automatic transmission is considered a luxury and taxed higher (in one instance, a mechanic refused to drive a customer’s car onto the rack in the shop because he “didn’t know how to drive an automatic.”)
  • (For North American drivers) Right on red can get you an expensive ticket (I just added to Wikipedia that right on red is not allowed in UY 😉
  • If you take driving school in Uruguay, you will not be told:
    • you should stay in lanes / that lanes have any significance (seriously)
    • what distance to maintain between vehicles
    • after passing, that you should wait until you can see the car in your mirror before pulling back into the lane
  • If Uruguayans say they lived in the United States, you can almost never go wrong by asking “New Jersey or Rhode Island?”
  • If you miss Uruguay in the United States, go to Elizabeth, New Jersey
  • If Uruguayans say they’ve recently been to the United States, you can almost never go wrong by asking “How was the weather in Orlando?”

Feel free to add to the list. I expect I will.

We are enjoying Atlántida

"We are enjoying Atlántida" (Uruguay)

A friend mentioned this sign today, which I only saw for the first time last week. He assures me it’s been here at least four years.

The faceless girl’s bikini — at least the bottom — is very modest by Uruguay beach standards, and the faceless boy … well, how exactly does he balance on one foot like that?