My impressions of Uruguay

Blog entry No. 3

Holllaaa

This is probably how my blog entries will start from now on.

I love this word. Just like "YES".

Simple and always easy to understand. So just right for me.

I have noticed that so far I have mainly described what I have done, so now I will write about what I have noticed so far, the differences to Germany and so on.

1.

The people!

The people here, who I have met so far, are super nice and open.

I haven't even been here for a week and I have already been invited to the birthday party of two friends of a friend whom I had never seen before.

There we (a friend who is also doing a year abroad, also from Germany, and a friend who is also doing a year abroad from Belgium) were immediately welcomed and questioned in a friendly way.

Even the students in our class are really nice and try to talk to us, but only a few speak English really well and our Spanish is not good enough yet to have a proper conversation.

2.

The food!!!

The food here is very delicious in my opinion.

However, not very healthy.

There is a lot of sweet and fried food, which tastes great, but doesn't really pump you full of vitamins.

People eat a lot and gladly here. And of course I adapt to that.

Also, but I knew that before I came here, there is a lot of meat eaten here.

I think that so far in almost every meal I have eaten here in Salto there was meat in it.

There is so much delicious food here and I want to learn how to cook many dishes so that I can also eat them in Germany.

Then there are things like Dulce de Leche, translated it means something like sweet milk, a kind of caramel cream that you can spread on bread or eat pure (some people do, but it's too sweet for me) and that is used in many sweet dishes.

And of course the famous infamous MATE.

Mate is tea and here it is sort of the national drink.

It consists of the yerba plant and is drunk in a specific vessel, the mate, and through a metal straw, the bombilla.

(I really hope that all of this is true and that I'm not just making it up.)

There are many different types of yerba, but personally I can't really tell the difference. I would say mate tastes similar to green tea and is sometimes more, sometimes less bitter.

There is a certain way to make mate, but I think everyone does it a little differently.

When you walk around out here, you see people everywhere with their mate and a thermos under their arm.

I like the taste of mate, especially the lighter varieties that are not so bitter.

I will soon have my own mate. Yay.

What I also really like is that there are many orange, mandarin and lemon trees here that look beautiful and taste delicious.

Although I don't really like mandarins.

Also, there is not really dark bread here and generally not much selection of bread, which is a bit strange for me as a bread-loving German. But not a problem.

3.

The traffic!

The traffic here in Salto is really something to get used to.

I can't really describe it, but everyone drives kind of randomly and not really following any rules.

I don't think there is even a speed limit here.

Also, there are a lot of mopeds, scooters and motorcycles that drive very recklessly.

And the roads!

Some roads can no longer be called roads, they are actually just potholes and hills.

But I find it funny to drive over them, it always rocks so nicely, even if I know it's not good for the cars.

And there are dogs everywhere. They live on the streets and feed on the rubbish of the people. It's really sad to watch without being able to help.

! IMPORTANT !

If this sounds ungrateful or arrogant in any way.

It's not !!!

I love it here and all these things make up the city and I just want to show the differences and not say that one is better than the other.

! IMPORTANT !

Of course, there are many other things, but I will tell you about them another time.

Have a nice week,

Mara