Pants in the Bidet

For a hot second my original blog title (Tine Abroad) is again relevant. I am in Uruguay. Does this seem random? It is. Henry is here for work and I am fulfilling my life long destiny to be someone's traveling companion. Today is our first day here, after over 20 hours of traveling. Honestly, I didn't even know where Uruguay was before this trip. I had it pegged as South America, but just assumed it was skimming the top of the continent with Colombia or Venezuela. Totally wrong. Uruguay is nestled underneath Brazil, very far south, on the east side of the continent, and very far from Seattle. The time change isn't too bad, only fours different, but a night of three hours of sleep on a plane makes me pretty tired.


Some early observations: traveling abroad is always an interesting juxtaposition of foreign and familiar, especially coming from the US. Our culture is omnipresent, it seems, and it can be interesting to see what gets out. We were greeted with adverts for ice road truckers and a dubbed version of Pawn Stars. Something definitely got lost in the translation of that one. On the more foreign end of my experience so far: ordering food. My German skills have only allowed me to identify ham (jamon) and mushrooms (some version of champion) on menus.  Henry and I have a Spanish dictionary along, but even with that, ordering often comes down to identifying the animal and knowing no more. For supper tonight, I knew I was getting pork. After that, it was anyone's guess. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Also foreign: coming back to our hotel room to find the maid had put my pants in the bidet. No joke. I had left them on the bathroom floor after my shower. The maid had obviously cleaned up elsewhere by moving shoes to the side of the room, etc. Still, this seems like a bit of a leap. Am I missing some important cultural information about cleanliness/hygiene/use of toilets? Fortunately (?), the bidet is dry. Please cast your votes as to whether or not these pants are wearable again without being washed. We are assuming the bidet was cleaned before we came, and it has not been used since checking in.

Henry and I arrived at the hotel around noon today. We showed off our travel grime and then headed out for a walk around town and some lunch. The walk was a spicy adventure in dodging dog poop, but the weather was absolutely lovely and we had a gorgeous view. Technically, we are told the town is on the river, but it sure looks like the ocean to me. There is 22 km of sidewalk that winds around the outside of the city on the coast, with occasional beaches among rocky outcrops. We thought it was warm enough for short sleeves, but the locals all seem to be wearing winter coats. It's definitely in the 60's and may get into the 70's one day we are here. Something else for us to learn about perhaps.

Some pics so far:

Walking along the "rambla", the sidewalk along the coast.

Beautiful sunset over Montevideo.

Dinner: Pick your animal!