On Sunday, we finally ventured out to the biggest street market, or "feria" in Montevideo, Tristan Narbaja. It is towards downtown, in the Parque Rodo neighborhood, which I have heard is the" up and coming" part of town that features art, restaurants and, like much of MVD, endless tagging on the buildings, which makes me sad.
The really great thing though about the day is that it felt like a "mini vacation" to a very different world from our sorta suburban life in Punta Gorda. It was like a vacation to the big city!
The Campbellgates LOVE a street market. We love unusual food, the knick knacks and the people watching. This market was massive, on par with our favorite market in St. Petersburg Russia. that we all have a favorite item and story from. That one, however, was partially permanent and this one is entirely a pop up market- people must get up really early to set up their wares (which for people that seem to eat dinner at 10pm is a big ask!
There was a lot of supplies for everyone's general needs- fruits and vegetables, kitchen supplies and clothing, which reminded us of the Jinshitan market near our house in China. But there were also lot of other treats like memorabilia (we did see an iron cross emblem with a swastika labelled 1939), lots of old silverware, used toys, old UY license plates and endless blankets with people's garage sale items for sale (used pots and pans, old phones, ugly decor...). There were endless blocks of stalls, blankets and food carts.
The stuffed animal on a trike made me laugh
If you zoom in, you can see the market goes for blocks and blocks
Colombian Arepas. YUM!
A wide selection of Obama pins
I like graffiti- it's interesting. Tagging is not interesting and ruins cool old buildings.
Just a random street we found outselves on with a man making a small fire. Some hard times around here.
In the end, we bought 2 new face masks, a ridiculously large bag of cheese puffs, a new winter parka for Marieka and 3 CD's for Rob. Oh, and "torta frita' which turns out is very much like Native American fry bread with sugar on top. I am a fan.
Turns out it was
Day of the Child in UY (see poster behind M) so we were glad we celebrated by buying her a new coat.
The most popular member of the Campbellgates today was most definitely MeiMei. Everyone wanted to meet her and commented on how "linda" she was.
Needless to say, she was exhausted after the expedition.
Time has been flying by and we are approaching our 5th week in country. We are getting into a rhythm, I can drive M to gymanstics without using the navigation instructions, we are puchasing a car (hoping to get it done this week- one hurdle here is that you have to hire a lawyer to review the past history of the title) and Rob found a pickup soccer game. Sights continue to confuse and inspire me:
Apparently slides are made out of wood. Which seems to defeat the purpose of sliding, but hey, I am not judging.
House mural. I love it. I don't understand it but I love it.
I found some outdoor swimmers! We swam about 50 minutes to "Seagull Island" out off the Malvin Beach. The water is cold- about 50f- and my feet get numb but it is fun to be with others in the water, taking on the challenge.
Cool old cars
Holy cow the sunsets are amazing. This is looking back toward the city
Most houses are surrounded by multiple fences, gates, barbed wire and barking dogs. Not my favorite aspect, but here is a very fluffy Chow Chow that didn't bark at us.
And, most exciting...we bought tickets home for Xmas!
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