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| View from Paula's balcony |
Last week I was lucky enough to travel to Montevideo, Uruguay and be shown the city by some of the best guides I could ask for. The trip was unforgettable. It’s safe to say I was a little nervous about making an international flight by myself in a Spanish speaking country, but the stars must have been aligned in my favor because somehow all my bus/taxi/plane travel went off without a hitch (for the most part…).
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| Hello Montevideo photo exposition |
To give a short background, Federico Estol, a photojournalist from Montevideo, Uruguay made trips to my Montevideo the past 2 summers to make a photo book about Monte and its connection to its southern sister city—Hello Montevideo. While in Monte, he stayed at our house and practically became part of the family (he told me he considers my dad his 3rd dad, after his real dad and stepdad, adorable). The book was released a few months ago and has become pretty popular in Uruguay! Popular enough, in fact, to earn an exposition of its photos in a beautiful historic building in Montevideo’s oldest plaza. As it turns out, the grand opening of this exposition fell right in the days that I was planning on visiting. So after arriving and getting settled in at my friend Paula’s house, I headed off to represent my city at the exposition. It was such a fun experience! I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the world where I would get such attention and interest for the sole fact that I grew up in Montevideo, MN. I was formally introduced to the crowd, presented with flowers, and chatted up by multiple important Montevideans. It was surreal to see these people dressed in business suits, sipping wine, intently studying large photos of Monte’s trailer park, main-street, and Duffy’s. Definitely an experience I will never forget :)
Throughout the week I was toured around by Paula and Alina, two lovely ladies that I had met briefly through my Dad while they were spending time in Minnesota. Both are English teachers, and I had the cool opportunity to go into their classes to speak and answer questions about Montevideo. Alina mainly teaches adults learning English to help further their careers. I was surprised to hear about how it’s pretty much necessary to at least have a general knowledge of English to even get a degree in Uruguay. Almost everyone there talked about going to college and being expected to read books, articles and research in their area of study in English. That would be like me going to college to study psychology and being assigned psychology books and articles in French! Oye. They were also kind of excited to hear that a town in the U.S. is so interested in them because they generally feel ignored by the U.S. and rest of the world in general, being such a small country. Alina and Paula also teach middle and high school English, which was a very different but just as fun experience. They were enthralled by the book and thought everything looked exactly like the movies. Four girls even wanted to take pictures with me after class to post on facebook.
Besides all that, I had a blast exploring the rest of the city. Some of the highlights were: watching tango at Montevideo’s oldest bar, experiencing the beautiful architecture in the old city, accompanying Paula on her blind date ;), going to Federico’s 30
th birthday party, taking a trip to Punta del Este (a neighboring beach city), and of course trying every food and drink that Uruguay had to offer. Dulce de leche, chivitos, pascualina, milanesa, mate, uvita, media y media, and of course Uruguayan’s pride and joy: their meat. One day, Alina and I feasted on a lunch of French bread, huge pieces of melted cheese, French fries, chorizo, beef AND I even tried gizzard. Not half as bad as expected.
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| Tango at Montevideo's oldest bar |
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| Happy Birthday Fede! |
Overall, my trip to Montevideo was super enriching and memorable, I only wish I would have listened to Fede’s advice and missed my flight so I could stay longer :)
To give a short background, Federico Estol, a photojournalist from Montevideo, Uruguay made trips to my Montevideo the past 2 summers to make a photo book about Monte and its connection to its southern sister city—Hello Montevideo. While in Monte, he stayed at our house and practically became part of the family (he told me he considers my dad his 3rd dad, after his real dad and stepdad, adorable). The book was released a few months ago and has become pretty popular in Uruguay! Popular enough, in fact, to earn an exposition of its photos in a beautiful historic building in Montevideo’s oldest plaza. As it turns out, the grand opening of this exposition fell right in the days that I was planning on visiting. So after arriving and getting settled in at my friend Paula’s house, I headed off to represent my city at the exposition. It was such a fun experience! I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the world where I would get such attention and interest for the sole fact that I grew up in Montevideo, MN. I was formally introduced to the crowd, presented with flowers, and chatted up by multiple important Montevideans. It was surreal to see these people dressed in business suits, sipping wine, intently studying large photos of Monte’s trailer park, main-street, and Duffy’s. Definitely an experience I will never forget :)
Throughout the week I was toured around by Paula and Alina, two lovely ladies that I had met briefly through my Dad while they were spending time in Minnesota. Both are English teachers, and I had the cool opportunity to go into their classes to speak and answer questions about Montevideo. Alina mainly teaches adults learning English to help further their careers. I was surprised to hear about how it’s pretty much necessary to at least have a general knowledge of English to even get a degree in Uruguay. Almost everyone there talked about going to college and being expected to read books, articles and research in their area of study in English. That would be like me going to college to study psychology and being assigned psychology books and articles in French! Oye. They were also kind of excited to hear that a town in the U.S. is so interested in them because they generally feel ignored by the U.S. and rest of the world in general, being such a small country. Alina and Paula also teach middle and high school English, which was a very different but just as fun experience. They were enthralled by the book and thought everything looked exactly like the movies. Four girls even wanted to take pictures with me after class to post on facebook. 
Besides all that, I had a blast exploring the rest of the city. Some of the highlights were: watching tango at Montevideo’s oldest bar, experiencing the beautiful architecture in the old city, accompanying Paula on her blind date ;), going to Federico’s 30th birthday party, taking a trip to Punta del Este (a neighboring beach city), and of course trying every food and drink that Uruguay had to offer. Dulce de leche, chivitos, pascualina, milanesa, mate, uvita, media y media, and of course Uruguayan’s pride and joy: their meat. One day, Alina and I feasted on a lunch of French bread, huge pieces of melted cheese, French fries, chorizo, beef AND I even tried gizzard. Not half as bad as expected. 
THANK YOU!!! for your sensitivity... from an Uruguayan in Spain...
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