Itinerary | Buenos
Aires | Buenos Aires (2) |
Montevideo | Punta
Del Este | Day at Sea | Itajai | Santos | Paraty | Rio
de Janeiro
After a good night's rest, Mom, Will, and I departed
to Montevideo. We were on a mission there to buy some postcards
and to mail the ones we had already filled out. At one of the
pharmacies nearby, we bought postage and divided up the stamp
licking. We managed to get the first batch sent from here. Once
that task was completed, we set out to explore the city on foot. |
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Our first stop was to the central square (called
Independence Plaza) where we took a picture of this monument.
I discovered that my zoom
function on my camera
worked great as I snapped this other picture of the birds on
the statue's head.
This is a pretty busy main square and there were shops and
buildings lining the central park area. These shops were mostly
tourist-oriented, so we figured we'd investigate them when
we were headed back to the ship. |
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| From here, we decided to wandered around a little
bit toward some other sights that were on our map. It was a really
beautiful day, so we enjoyed walking around and just looking
at the people, traffic, and various vendors we found lining
the street. Very soon, though, we came across this theatre: |
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It's a beautiful theatre. Mom wondered if it
was open and the next thing we knew, Will was on
his way to find out. He's wonderfully assertive like that.
As it turns out, the building was open and tours were available.
(I'm sorry, mom...but the following story is too funny to skip.
I'm sure I got the numbers wrong, but they're not important
anyway!)
We went to pay for our tours and the man told us that the
prices were:
"80
pesos
in Spanish and 100 in English." Well, we were all confused
by what that meant so we asked him to repeat what he said. He
did and my mother looked at me, obviously still confused, and
then handed him some money and said, "Well, here ...whatever
this is." We
figured
it out
and
had a
good laugh...the
Spanish vs. English prices were for the language used by the
tour guide. At that point we were assigned a gentleman who addressed
us in English and took us on our tour. |
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| Above: So our tour started by sitting in the seats
on the main floor of the theatre. We were asked how much of the
history we wanted to hear, since our guide found it to be "the
most boring part of the whole tour." Gratefully, he skipped
it at our request and began telling us about the construction
and
features of the building. First, he asked us to take a look at
the ceiling and determine how it was made. We guessed that it
was carved or molded plaster. As it turns out, it's painted canvas
that has been nailed to the ceiling. He pointed up to the part
of the ceiling where the chandelier was hanging and directed
us to look at the part with Verdi's name (middle photo). He
directed us to look a little to the side and you'll see the nail
head dimple there (right photo). I put a red box around it so
you
can spot it more easily. The workmanship was impressive! We admired
it for a bit and then we followed him to the elevator that we
took up to the top floor of the theatre. Oddly, he did not get
into the elevator with us, but decided to run up the stairs and
see if he could beat us. He lost. :-) |
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| This is where we started; this is the "Chicken seat" section
of the theatre. The name comes from the fact that you'd have
to crane
your neck out over the edge like a chicken in order to see the
stage. |
Moving further toward the back of the theatre, you can get
a much better view. He demonstrated the acoustics by talking
to the workman on the stage floor. They could hear each other
perfectly without shouting. Therefore, this theatre uses no amplification
equipment at all. |
This is a view of the seats from our very high position. Given
the slope of the floor and the shape of the rows and seats, there
really wasn't a bad seat down there. What's surprising is that
there was LEG ROOM! |
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On the ceiling and over the main stage, you saw the comedy
and tragedy faces. I took a picture of these with my zoom so
you can see some of the incredible detail there.
Mom asked if we could go see the stage and backstage area,
so our guide got us back into the elevator and raced us down
to the ground floor. He beat us this time. :-) I should mention
at this point that the air conditioning was turned off during
the renovation, so it was quite humid and warm in this theatre!
I'm just glad I didn't have to wear a suit jacket and long pants! |
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To the left, you see a photo of the theatre from the backstage
area. This part of the theatre was expanded from the original
and some of the original seating was kept backstage as a memento.
On the right, you see my mother pretending she was an actress
prepping for a show. This dressing room was large and could
accommodate a lot of people. The star's dressing room was locked,
so we didn't get to see it. I got the distinct impression that
we got to see areas of the theatre that were not on the official
tour simply because we asked our very accommodating guide. |
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| Once the tour was finished, Mom wrote a very nice
comment in the visitor's log for all of us to thank everyone
for their hospitality and to encourage our guide to continue
his work in mastering English. Thankful to be outside in the
relatively cooler air, we strolled towards some of the back streets
to see if we could find a camera shop for Will to get some more
film. |
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Left: This is a picture of one of the bustling
market streets not far from the the theatre. We were waiting
outside while Will
checked for film in one of the stores. This area was a bit
less touristy and you could see locals eating at some of the
open-air
cafes.
Right: A short walk towards our next stop,
we decided to stop and refuel. This is the restaurant where
we ate. We ended
up having a simple lunch of sandwiches and coffee, but then decided
to gorge ourselves on THREE slices of amazing cakes. My favorite
was the chocolate and carmel torte-like cake. It was amazingly
rich, but ooooooooh so good. :-)
Refueled, we began to walk towards a building we saw off in
the distance that looked somewhat important. Along the way,
we talked with some friendly locals about the city. |
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Left: This is the recycling unit for the city. These horse-drawn
carts go through the trash left on the curb and take anything
that can be recycled. The remaining trash is left for the regular
garbage trucks to take.
Right: After a LONG walk, we finally made it to this building
(I think it's the capital building). We rested in the nice breeze
for a few minutes and then headed back. |
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| Now, I'm leaving out a section of the day's trip,
mostly because the pictures I took didn't really look very good.
However, we did get to go see a pretty major church in the city.
I should say that Mom and Will saw it. I stayed outside. There
was an open-air flea market outside in the park, so I basically
wandered around there and looked at the stuff they were selling. |
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Left: While browsing around the market, I noticed that not
even Uruguay is exempt from the Mormons. Unfortunately, they
never turned around so you don't get to see the ties and name
tags, but you can see the rest of the uniform is there.
Right: On our way back to Independence Square,
we stopped for a long while in a very nice park with a fountain
and lots
of benches to rest our weary feet. Will took this picture of
us there.
After getting back to the Square, we did a little shopping.
I found this really cool wooden cat sculpture in one of the shops
that I bought for Yener. Mom and Will were outside looking at
hides from cows and other animals that were for sale...I guess
Will was thinking about using them to upholster something.
We finally got on the bus and headed back to the ship ...I
was exhausted. |
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The day's fun was not yet over, however. For
dinner, the ship did a barbecue dinner. The meats were all
cooked and
seasoned in the style of the local restaurants in Uruguay.
That means, no heavy sauces to mess things up...just great
meat, barely
seasoned, and cooked to perfection. It was incredibly good
stuff. This dinner was held on the pool deck of the ship and
included
a HUGE buffet of food to accompany the meat. After dinner,
there was a show entitled "Party Time" which included
two singers and four dancers. It was actually pretty good.
I think what I liked
the most was that all of the performers had to walk by me to
get to the performance area, so I got a good look at them. :-)
After the show, I couldn't stand any more and totally crashed
back on my bed. Our next stop, Punta Del Este, promised to be
a busy day. |
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