First Week in Montevideo

I sat down to dinner with my host family around 9:00 Monday night to a spread of steak and potatoes, and Mauro the 17-year old son in the family filled my cup up with a brightly colored orange liquid. “Tang,” he said. The accent made the word hard to recognize, but the intense orange color of the liquid made it unmistakable; I was about to drink the same orange powder I downed as a little girl watching Sesame Street.

It was oddly familiar in a completely new world. Since arriving to Montevideo on Saturday afternoon, I have hit the ground running and am adjusting very easily to my new way of life here. Uruguay is in the Southern Hemisphere, which means it’s now the middle of summer and heading into fall. Montevideo sits on the coast of Rio de la Plata (right across the water from Buenos Aires), and the beaches get prettier as you head along the Uruguay’s coast toward the Atlantic Ocean.

My first view of Uruguay’s coast came Sunday when Roberto Bertoni, my Rotary Host Counselor in Montevideo--who has been incredibly helpful in everything from finding an apartment to getting a cell phone--invited me to accompany him to Punta del Este, Uruguay’s resort beach, where his family was waiting for him. Fortunately, I was ready for an adventure. As Roberto and I hopped on his motorcycle and zipped through city traffic for the 120 km trip, I held on for dear life and felt entirely too old for my age. When we finally arrived to Punta del Este, my cheeks tingled for minutes afterwards. Exilerated and surrounded by bright sand and blue waves, I quicky forgot any anxiety I felt during the trip.

Needless to say, the week was a bit calmer. I started Spanish classes at La Herradura (The Horseshoe), a Spanish Language school in Montevideo. I have three more weeks of Spanish class before beginning a Masters program in International Relations offered by the Law School of Universidad de la República (The semester in the South Hemisphere runs March - November).

I plan on having plenty of adventures to update you on between now and then (perhaps even a week long excursion to Buenos Aires . . .) so don´t forget to keep checking the website. For more Montevideo photos, click here.