Land Ho!

21 Jan 08

Montevideo, Uruguay


Well, like I have said before – this is what this job is all about! Who gets the chance to get to some of these places? And for ‘work’?? LOL Montevideo is a lovely little town – mostly the normal hustle and bustle of a city, but many of the alleys in between some of the blocks had the cutest marketplaces. Little shops, street vendors and restaurants. Had a nice lunch with Cat at Pedro Adore; had fried Provolone, a chicken ka-bob and a nice wine. Not to mention the delicious Profiteroles for dessert! Yummy!!

After lunch we shopped in the market for a bit; I got a lovely hand painted print of the actual street with the restaurants and the big marketplace buliding behind it, another painting of a sailboat on a beach that has “Montevideo” on the side of it, an adorable hand made frog with the funniest grin and a nice little beach/pool bag with the country on it. Everything here is cheap. The paintings were about $10US, the frog was only $14US. I was expecting a lot higher but I guess I am getting used to the pound to dollar ratio. Once we were finished, we started to walk back towards the ship since I had to work at 1600 and Cat had to work at 1700. It was a lovely day and was nice to finally be in a port where we can walk to the town. (Recife, Buenos Aires and Rio you had to take a taxi to go anywhere nice – the ports were industrial, so nothing good was nearby)

Prior to going ashore, I had some free time before Cat was done work; after the crew drills that is. We had full drills today; was interesting. I have always been on the pax end, so it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But it is on the crew side. Basically they show us a film after every ALL crew drill to scare us silly ~ that was a little stressful!! That was over around 1100, so I went up on Dec 9 ½ again for about 2 hrs till she was available. I am putting on plenty of sunblock and timing how long I am on one side or another before putting more on, so don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again! Iam shedding like a snake and I am leaving my trail of skin all over the cabin .. ewwwww. Our poor cabin steward has to Hoover everyday now. Thank goodness he loves me :) And thank goodness it is almost done – it is getting annoying! Its funny – I have peeled from head to toes .. in that order. First my face, then my chest, then my arms, now my thighs and my shins are next. Once they go, I am done! And the ankles are subsiding just a little and the Doc thinks I had a bad enough burn on my lower legs that any water I had was trying to re-hydrate my legs and instead was settling in my ankles just from gravity. They are starting to be a bit tender which (as my Mum knows) whenever you have a painful area, it seems everyone happens to bump into you in that spot! Right Mum? :)

We have just pulled out of port about 2 hours ago; we will have a Sea Day tomorrow as we head to Puerto Madryn, Argentina for Wednesday.

Here are the pics from today: (still working on trying to get the ones from Buenos Aires from the girls)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.88qfndzz&x=0&y=4wgtla

First pics are at the restaurant, then of the marketplace, then the ship and then ME! LOL The next ones are of the view from Deck 9 ½ pulling out of Montevideo and lastly the pics of the items I bought (the frog and the 2 painted prints)