I got back from the feria today, unpacked fruits, veggies, cheese, nuts, and other good stuff, and found these in the bottom of the bag.
The first digit of the three items on the left is a 1. The second digit of the first item is also a 1. A cursive 1, I guess.
The list on the right has a classic Uruguayan backwards 9 and Z-style 4, but other than that the numbers are pretty legible. The letters, however…see if you can figure them out and then scroll down for the answer.
marron (green pepper)
calabacín (squash)
remolacha (beets)
lechuga (lettuce)
cherry (tomato; it doesn’t get cold enough in Uruguay to grow cherries AFAIK)
A jet flew overhead, and out of curiosity I looked it up on flightradar24.com, finding this far more interesting flight path. A helicopter, obviously checking for something, finally returning to MVD
where it probably landed on the “X.”
What was it? Here things get strange.
It’s listed as a privately owned Bell 212 helicopter, illustrated with an image of a private jet, registered in the United States. That is certainly no private jet path, especially with an altitude as low as 50 feet at one point! And I seriously doubt a US registered chopper is doing surveillance in Uruguay.
But the jet is easily explained: N845RL is a US-registered jet. About which the photographer writes, “I have no idea what this private Learjet 45 is doing at Aero Sports Fair 2002 in Brazil wearing US Registration and flag. Anyway, welcome!”
Flightradar24 also says the helicopter private, which I doubt, however
I find no government Bell 212 helicopter registered in Uruguay. But the Wikipedia article mentions the military version called the Bell UH-1N Twin Huey, and
I know the Uruguayan Air Force has those.
While this is going on, I sent Syd a message with a link to the flight path which was very near his house (a couple times it got close enough to us that I could hear it, but I never saw it).
And he replied that he had just been watching the TWO helicopters, one white and one black, directly overhead. Being a bright day, the “black” may well have been military green, but the white? And why only one on the radar?
A bit of strangeness to make the day more interesting.
I had to stop when I saw this perfectly silly little car parked near the beach. I’m pretty sure it is too small for me to be able to even sit in, much less drive.
I ordered a book from Amazon in the US. If I lived in the US, I would have received it within three days. But of course I don’t, so I shipped it to Miami whence it was brought by air for USD 12 (under two pounds weight). Plus a few bucks for home delivery.
But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead.
The Miami shipper delivered it to a local delivery service called DAC. From DAC’s warehouse in Montevideo to my doorstep is roughly 46.5 kilometers, a one hour and five minute drive, according to Google (pronounced google-eh) Maps. So allowing a few minutes for confused DAC employees to fumble around, I could drive there for my package and be back in under two and a half hours.
Assuming an average speed of 6 km/hour, I could walk the same in around 15 hours and 20 minutes.
But let’s go further: if DAC had strapped my book to the back of a giant tortoise and sent it on its way, theoretically (of course the poor thing would have to take breaks) I could have my book in just over 7 days.
(To make it more realistic, we’ll assume the tortoise has more than just one book to deliver.)
Am I being ridiculous? Consider how long DAC took to deliver a package 46.5 km, and you tell me.
That’s over 11 days. The tortoise could have been more than halfway back by the time DAC accomplished its delivery.
Completely pathetic? Maybe not: they were quicker than a 3-toed sloth would have been, given the same task.
Our little freezer in the casita died, fortunately not containing nothing more valuable than a few kilos of doggie hamburger (but oh did it stink after four days!). A prompt home visit by technicians (under USD 12) determined the motor was dead, meaning repair would cost more than replacing the whole thing. So how to get rid of it? One of the guys suggested there was a number for the intendencia you could call.
I still haven’t found that, but I did find a map of home waste collection, showing the different zones, neatly color-coded. Aha! This might be useful! But no, that’s it: just that. No schedules, no legend.
