Vacationing

See Argentine Congress, make dumb face

We danced!

   Hey, everyone; Matt here.  I meant to update last week, but hey, life happens.  We just got back from a vacation to Argentina and Uruguay for Sara's winter vacation from school; it was a ton of fun.  It was also nice to finally get to see the Andes from a plane; the range is huge!

That's a lot of sausage

Plaza UN's GIANT Flower

  We spent 7 days in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  From the apartment we rented, we made daily excursions to the city's many parks, cafes, museums, bars, restaurants, and neighborhoods.  Buenos Aires reminded both of us of NYC in many ways (big-city feel).  The Evita museum was really cool: intimate, lively, informative.  Of course, we also had the requisite massive meat-meal.  The dinner took over 2 hours to get through and we were dining the whole time.  Needless to say, I loved it.  Going to Teatro Colon to see the symphony was cool as well.  We had super-nosebleed, standing room tickets, but we had a perfect view and the acoustics in there were stellar.  Going out for delicious Argentine pizza after was definitely the right call.  One night we took some dancing lessons at a really cool space.  Sara's friend, Marita, was in Buenos Aires so we met up with her and went to a late-night disco.  When we were leaving at 4am on a Wednesday, people were still lining up to get in.

Not touristy in the least

Post-Symphony Pizzas

   From Buenos Aires we took a ferry across the Rio de la Plata to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay.  That was much nicer than bus/plane travel.  Colonia is a small place that used to be a Portuguese fort town.  We were able to adequately explore it in 1 day.  We did get to see a beautiful sunset over the Rio de la Plata though.  Sara was elated that there was a dirty sea dog there to watch the sunset with us.

Old and young ladies dancing at Bar Fun-Fun

One of the larger dog-walking groups we saw

   The next day we took the bus in to Montevideo.  It was their Constitution Day, which is a national holiday.  We were hoping for parades/fireworks/etc., but found a ghost town.  That was OK as I had accumulated a substantial stink by this point and needed to do laundry.  The hostel we were at (which was great!) didn't have a dryer, so we got to spend our first night drying socks and such by the stove (romantic!).  We spent the next two days in Montevideo seeing the sights and experiencing the life.  We had an awesome meal one night called chivito, which is a steak covered in a ham, covered in bacon, covered in eggs, covered in cheese, and served with french fries.  After taking the night to sleep that off, we rented bikes and toured the coastline boardwalk/beaches/parks.  At the Bar Fun-Fun (pronounced foon-foon) we saw a great band and had a bunch of grappamiel (honey and grappa), the national beverage.

Angry-Sexy Montevideo

    Since then it's been back to Santiago and working, ho hum.  It's Sara's birthday this Friday (the 3rd), so we're having a party.  I suppose after that there will be more to tell.  Maybe I'll just have to make something up.  Until then, we hope all is well with you and look forward to hearing from you or seeing you soon (whichever comes first).

Ah, memories.