An inquisitive old fart with a camera
40+ people lined up to get into a farmácia? That seemed a bit odd. I was on my way to pick up alterations from the modista (seamstress*).
I asked her why this might be. Turns out this is the first and only pharmacy on the coast licensed to sell marijuana. Aha!
.
* 2 women’s pants extensively altered, torn men’s cargo pants turned into shorts, baggy shirt turned into tapered, all for $700 – USD 21.50.
Ya think? New filter cartridges above; the ones below have been in place for all of three months.
A few minutes later, all set to go again. One of the cartridges is supposed to be changed twice a year. No way! Four times a year for each.
You can see water that came out of the tap (more than once) here. Unfortunately, when we had a well hand-drilled shortly after arriving, they stopped when they reached water at 17.5 meters. Had I known better, I would have had them go 10 meters more for potable water, not just irrigation water. Alas, it was done, and to revisit it now would involve removing one of our two avocado trees, and that is not happening.
A flier showed up in our mailbox for the new droguería in town. Start with that: droguería translates as “drug store,” so what’s the one thing you would expect a droguería to not sell? Did you say drugs? Congratulations! They sell industrial chemicals, cleaning supplies, garden products, cleaning and beauty supplies…but not drugs. Here’s the flier:
Deliveries without charge; that’s nice. But if you’re a native English speaker and your brain shuts down halfway through, you can read it as “deliveries without cargo.”
Worse, if you’ve lived in Uruguay a while, that almost seems right.
I’ve been gradually de-Googling, and was delighted to find an alternative to Google Translate that promised to be good.
Alas, that delight was short-lived.
So, forget this – on to something practical: find out if the window people are ever going to measure for a screen, as promised weeks ago. Need their phone number. “Stuck to soccer field 5” seemed like a strange address, so I wondered if I was missing something.
Apparently yes. Or at least, someone/thing is missing something.
…to start thinking about an asado.
This calf was tethered along the road a few blocks from our house on Saturday.
In town, not in the country. A few blocks from the beach.
Go figure.
It took us three consecutive day trips to Montevideo to get our Uruguayan passports renewed (actually to get our Credenciales Cívicas updated, a process gratuitously complexified by various functionaries in different government offices) – but we’re now good for ten years, yay! The latter two days involved lunch at new places: Lisandro, offering a variety of sandwiches and salads, but better yet, a peaceful location in crazy Carrasco, and Estrecho, similar fare but better, on Sarandí, the busy walking street in Ciudad Vieja. (Fun to note that Lisandro’s web site offers the address of their other location in Zonamerica as “Driving Rage,” which could, in this country, well be a Freudian slip.)
Yesterday, in Estrecho, the waitress gave us tourist map.
At first glance, it seemed promising.
But then I looked closer.
I guess the idea is you find a bike and make your way, maze-like, through this circuit that just kinda looks like it was laid out to accommodate the sponsoring restaurants and stores. Since we were recently in the area, I looked closer and quickly found a couple that gave addresses nowhere near their Carrasco locations.
On the flip side, this:
Postage-stamp sized listings of exactly 100 businesses, with details in 6-point type.
In terms of design, it’s attractive, and not particularly informative. It might be interesting to follow some of these routes, but I find nothing compelling about them. Nor would I settle on any of the sponsoring restaurants without learning more about them.
In the end, though, it’s got maps. And I love maps!
…or whatever.
Weird sky this afternoon:
Well, OK; could have been weirder:
(I just discovered a kaleidoscope filter in my $30 Mac image editor.)
“Thanksgiving” potluck late lunch at Jerry’s hotel including Uruguayans, Canadians, and South Africans as well as Americans. Quite a feat to organize (I didn’t) and fun to get together with some people we haven’t seen in a while.
And then this visual treat on the sand-covered patio:
The brakes on my bike had gotten bad enough that stopping without putting shoes on pavement was no longer a sure thing. (You will, by the way, often see Uruguayans braking bikes and even motos using that method.) So I rode it in the wilting heat this morning to the little bike shop for them to do their magic. Bicycle repair really does seem like magic to me, especially after I try to do it.
I then walked to Tienda Inglesa, where a cashier last night has shortchanged me 20 pesos. I thought something was wrong, but the mathematical part of my brain seemed to be on vacation. When I got home, I confirmed it. 20 pesos is maybe $0.60, but there are lots of new hires for summer in Tienda Inglesa, and it bothered me that the cashier had not counted the money up – at least not the small stuff – the way I’m sure they’re required to do.
Was she lazy? Incompetent? Perhaps skimming a coin here and there? I can’t speak to the first two, but long story short, at the end of her shift she counted 20 pesos more in her till than she should have, and all was duly noted by Tienda Inglesa, and promptly given to me after the requisite recording and my signing in a spiral notebook.
I was impressed.
Back to the bike shop, a pad had been replaced, brakes now threatening to throw me over the handlebars. For a total of 50 pesos, or $1.50. Which made me wonder when was the last time in my native country one could have had something like this done for $1.50 – the 1960s?