Walking towards Constitution Plaza from Independence Plaza, there are bronze Generals on horseback every block, as well as little plaza’s and parks.
There is something sad about memorializing heroes in bronze and then placing them outside where pigeons squat on their pointed military hats and defecate on their medals. It is an unfitting end for men who have contributed so much to their country.
There are plenty of fountains on this boulevard too, mostly in the center of plazas with water pouring from jars held by Roman Goddesses or shooting from the pursed lips of cherubs. These fountains sometimes have no water, waiting for maintenance men to hook up lines, clean the pond, paint the walls of the pool. Occasionally, in front of well financed government buildings, you find ponds with water lilies and colorful fish.
In Constitution Park the fountain is generic and empty of water and I am startled because it appears one of the statues from this fountain has been moved by delinquents in front of my McDonalds.
There is a small jar filled with money at the statues feet.
Stepping back and watching, I watch the statue lips move and I see her breathe.
The makeup on her face is thick and her hair is perfect. She remains still and doesn’t make eye contact until I drop a bill into her jar. Then she bows and smiles, reaches into a pocket and hands me my personal fortune written in Spanish, which I have since lost, but am sure it wished me a long and prosperous life with a wife that loves me and seven or eight children who get good grades in school and go to bed on time.
I wave at her, she smiles at me, her palms opening and closing as she clicks two wood castanets. She finishes with a bow, to me, and returns to her statue position.
It is easy to get mentally lazy.
She has made this day spicy, and, for that, she is a real Goddess.
This live concert is next to the Mercado, about lunchtime. There are posters advertising it on phone poles but their music grabs me by the ear through my open studio window and drags me to come watch and listen.
This band calls themselves ,” Murga Don Timoteo”, a local group sponsored by a local paint company.
They perform with style, sporting costumes that look more African and Brazilian than Uruguayan, and, despite their visual cornucopia, they sing with precision, clipping notes that need to be clipped and holding notes that need holding with dynamics and vibrato.
Good singing is good to find and this free concert is good luck for a music lover like myself.
If this chorus line wasn’t dressed up like Las Vegas dancers, would their music sound as good as it does?
The answer, of course, is ,Yes.
Big cities should be a worker’s paradise with good wages because there is too much construction and maintenance needed to match equally with people who will work a long hard day for little pay and no recognition.
Walking near Constitution Plaza, on Sarandi street, Gustavo, a fellow painter, is working in a doorway. He has applied paint remover and is scraping softened varnish off a door jamb with a scraper that won’t damage the wood.
Gustavo’s next step will be to take sandpaper and smooth the wood surfaces. Then, after cleaning, he will apply a thinned down undercoat of polyurethane, lightly sand and wipe everything down with a tack cloth, and finish the project with two full strength coats of exterior polyurethane with a flourish of his three inch sash brush.
Painting is not without honor but, at the end of the day, it was, for me, always a relief to clean my brushes, fold drop cloths, seal up paint cans and load the van.
New doesn’t last long in a city of several million and paint makes glamour girls out of a lot of plain Jane buildings, offices, kitchens,bathrooms and bedrooms.
Working men keep this world operating.
It takes an even bigger crew of painters to keep the stars sparkling.
Next to the farmacia is a door that leads to an upstairs apartment that leads to a family that leads to a mom and dad that leads to a warm place for kids to grow up. When you look at a street of closed doors, faded or chipped or cobbled together, one never knows what is behind them. It is hard to guess what this schoolboy will see when the door to his home opens and he walks into his family bosom.
Kids don’t ask for a lot but they need a home, kind words and behaviors towards them, security, love, and a sense of belonging. These youngsters are brothers and sisters and they are, this afternoon, busy turning back into kids after school has spent all day trying to civilize them.
This afternoon this little boy knocks, peeps into a little slot where mail is dropped, yells out if anyone can open the door and let him inside?
He is excited and ready to dump his school stuff on his bed, then go out into the streets to play soccer with friends.
School isn’t for little boys anymore, but they still have to go.
When visitors get off cruise ships at the Port of Montevideo, one of the first places they visit is the Mercado Del Puerto, a collection of steakhouses, gift shops, and art galleries under one big tin roof.
Uruguay is famous for wine and steaks and inside the Mercado you have multiple choices in a meat lover’s paradise. Early in the morning, around nine, chefs load firewood into their ovens and by lunch the smell of cooking meat says to ” come on in.”
This afternoon chefs are grilling, a girl markets wine from Uruguay to tourists, waiters scribble orders on small pieces of paper. Talk fills the place with large and small groups enjoying the Mercado’s savory ambiance.
From the Mercado a visitor can fan out into commercial and residential side streets and find boutiques, art galleries, neighborhood restaurants and local stores that depend on residents more than tourists. This port area, neglected, is slowly being reclaimed by a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Later in the day, I too enjoy an enormous steak with fries and a beer, for dinner. Sailors at the next table talk loud in German and drink prodigious amounts of beer with their brauts.
Food, eating, and drinking are some of man’s fondest activities.
Uruguay steaks don’t have to apologize to any chef and I recommend the Mercado as a good place to meet a steak in person, cooked any way you want.
Living just down the block, I would be negligent not to eat here as often as possible.
One of the joys of travel is meeting foods you have never tried before, and enjoy foods you love cooked better than you can cook them yourself.
Regardless of where I travel, one of the most asked questions I get is – “Do they have a McDonald’s?”
There is a McDonald’s in Montevideo, Uruguay. It wasn’t sought out, isn’t on my list of important things to do, but it is a cultural landmark that marks the landing of American habits to every corner of the world.
This McDonald’s is not flashy but the familiar arches beckon me to come closer. Employees wear uniforms just like they do at home, freshly washed and ironed. Coffee is made in an expresso machine and costs two dollars a cup, cheap for Montevideo.
Sitting outside, at one of the benches under a grove of trees, I feel right at home.
We Americans have landed and planted our flag.
Wherever I go; There we are.
In worn areas of most world mega-cities, there is street art, some commissioned, some spontaneous.
This art can occupy an entire wall like our sixteen foot lady. It can be part of a series of images on a parking lot wall like our two faced head. Street art has no pretensions. It doesn’t care about frames, security guards, tickets or reviews.
Street art is a delight. Street music is a delight. Street food is delicious. Street people are full of edges and angles. Street talk is coarse and poetic.
Art and artists fight around the world to move into public places so the public can enjoy their muse. Gallery walls are too small, too exclusive.
What is sad is so few of these people walking and driving past pause and admire the images, touch them,or have arguments about them.
You can look at this street art for free, as long as you want. You can linger. You can scratch your head. You can laugh at the boldness.You can even write your name on the wall if you wish.
Why are people, these days, too busy to stop and look at what is right in front of them?
When you are looking for produce in the Port area you are not near the grand shopping palaces you visit in the United States.
Groceries in the U.S. display well groomed produce as you walk down waxed shiny floors,choose fruit and vegetables from clean bins with sprinklers that mist to make sure the product always looks fresh.There are plastic bags to wrap your choices and stocked product is carefully unpacked from boxes and inspected with blemished items thrown out. You would never suspect vegetables came out of the dirt, or fruits came off trees from the way they are lovingly presented.
In Montevideo, around the Port, there are small fruit and produce stands on the streets. Tourists and residents buy out of these wooden boxes under tarps that protect from too much sun and rain.
Uruguay is famous for wines and beef production, and has one of the world’s largest underground aquifers, but citrus, fruits, and other vegetables are shipped in from Central America, South America and beyond.
This stand has basics – cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, chili’s, lettuce, potatoes.
There is something comforting about buying bananas, apples, carrots and lettuce out of beaten up, chipped, scarred wooden boxes. The beauty is you only have to walk a block to buy what you need.
I’ve been told that you should, in foreign places, eat only things you can peel so I’m careful about my purchases.
Time, that moves too fast the older you get, slows to a more comfortable clip when you have to walk to do your shopping.
“We were in the eighties last week,” Jesper tells me, pouring us a Monday afternoon cup of coffee at his desk in a Ciudad Vieja office close to the Port. He talks about the old city versus the new city, how he and his wife are now moving into commercial sales in addition to property management.The studio where I stay for this journey is owned by one of his clients and Jesper manages it as a favor.
The old city of Montevideo, he says, is a hub of economic activity, a place where ships bring goods, government buildings abound, museums are on most every street and lawyers, accountants and young professionals snap up every place that is renovated. This Port area has been neglected but his investment group is bringing people and business back to the neighborhood.
“I am from Denmark,” he continues, “and my wife is from Argentina. She is in New York on business …”
The office is spacious. There is art on the wall and Gabriella told me, when I walked in, in English and Spanish and hand gestures,that a woman will be in to clean my rented studio on Friday, the 7th.
I pay my rent and settle in for this piece of my journey, get a receipt, and catch my bearings.
Travelling and weather hold hands like high school sweethearts.
” Call me if you have any problems, ” my new landlord says.
I leave feeling like he really means it.
Money might not make the world go round, but it provides lubrication .
Looking for an ATM to get cash to pay for my rented vacation studio in Ciudad Vieja, I have apprehension.
Banks and credit card companies have been told Scott will be out of the country. They have been given names of the countries I will be visiting and have authorized the cards to be used. ATM’s are blood transfusions to the withering traveler. If you don’t have money, you are going to the mat in a place where you have no friends, don’t speak the language, can’t read the street signs.
This machine asks what language I prefer, asks whether I want dollars or Pesos, asks whether funds are coming from savings, checking, or credit card.
I go through each step but the transaction is cancelled. People are in line behind me so I take my card and myself for a walk. Why is this not working?
It hits me like a brick that I wasn’t prompted to enter my card’s password.
This next try I punch in my password before I hit ” continuar ” and follow instructions, to the end.
It is the right solution because the machine spits out hundred dollar bills that are so crisp that Ben Franklin must be printing inside the ATM,as I wait.
ATM’s are a three letter word I like. It is amazing that a machine in a foreign country will give me money even though it doesn’t know me from Adam..
ATM’s are as close to a money tree as us guys are likely to get.
Recent Comments