Goodbye Montevideo

18.01.2018

So, now the time has come. Surprisingly, our ship, the Grande Brasil, arrived 'already' today. Tomorrow morning we can pick up the stamped 'bill of landing', Eduardo can take care of the customs formalities for us - and in the afternoon we can pick up Dubs from the port. And we had already planned the weekend in Montevideo! We were involuntarily in this city for two weeks - and enjoyed every minute. Here are some more pictures - of the buildings of this city, of the Carnival museum, of the impressive cemetery of monuments, of street art and street scenes, of our favorite porter at the Balmoral Hotel and the nice waiter from the organic bar.

We will miss the shady spots of this city,

our long walks through the neighborhoods,

the shoe shiner who greeted us with a smile at every meeting - even if we wear sandals that don't need to be polished,

the young student from the Goethe Institute who distributes advertisements for a bio restaurant in the old town and tests his German skills on us every day while we study Spanish on the park bench (we can already order our daily ice cream - 'dos conos mixtos con dulce de leche, por favor' - fluently in Spanish)

and much more.

We were surprised by the number of bookstores and antique shops in Montevideo, by the pictures on walls and people (are people really tattoed more than in Europe or do they just show more skin?), the many street cleaners and police officers. The offensive education and health campaigns that were everywhere, as well as the apparently effortless coexistence of Jesus, Che Guevara and Coca Cola, of magnificent residential buildings from the last century and ugly, modern functional buildings.

And what really surprised us was the fact that as tourists we didn't have to pay more than the locals, as is often the case. On the contrary. When we pay with a credit card in restaurants, we get the 18% VAT waived. A tourism promotion program. We don't know yet what to make of it...

Sometimes the noise annoyed us - every garage warns with a loud siren when someone comes out - the smell of the many cars and buses and the occasionally aggressive beggars.

Today, all the Christmas decorations were removed everywhere and replaced by just as brightly colored carnival decorations. Now it's time for us to move on.

We say 'ciao' Montevideo and look forward to new adventures