My first time in Uruguay! (lots of photos!!)

For a trip planned less than twenty-four hours before we embarked, I was amazed that we were able to see so much and avoid any catastrophes! My Norwegian friend Shirin and I set out from Buenos Aires on Saturday, taking a boat across the river to Colonia. We arrived at nighttime in the cold and rain, and immediately boarded a bus for Montevideo. We arrived in Montevideo around 9:30 PM. It was still cold and raining, but we had about an hour before we were supposed to check in to our Airbnb, so we wandered around the neighborhood for a bit, long enough for me to get drenched head-to-toe by a passing bus. We made it to a warm restaurant and had a beer and some whiskey then we reached our accommodations and dried off. Our housemates were two Uruguayan musicians and a traveler from Belgium, all of whom were friendly and interesting people. We shared some mate and a joint, then Shirin and I slept to rest up for the next day. Reluctantly we made ourselves get up and out of the house by eleven, and we walked to the bus station to buy our tickets back to Colonia.
The walk was very cool, as all of the neighborhoods were full of interesting street art and graffiti.

After we got our bus tickets, we spent the rest of the day walking along "La Rambla" and seeing the coast as well as a beautiful old cemetery. It was full of ornate tombs and stray cats that seemed almost supernatural in a way.

That evening we caught a bus back to Colonia. In Colonia we had no cell service or wifi, so we had a hell of a time finding our house for the night. When we finally arrived we were tired but glad to have found the place. The next morning we went out to explore the small historic city. It was truly gorgeous, and we felt like we had been transported back in time. We wandered around, ate at a quaint little restaurant, went to the world's tiniest aquarium, then went to a slot-machine casino to get rid of our remaining Uruguayan money. Somehow, we ended up doubling what we walked in with, so we went to another restaurant that happened to have a chess board and we got a game in. I was feeling all high-and-mighty from winning the game until the owner of the place challenged me, and he beat me in less than five minutes. We played again, and this one was slightly more competitive though he was never in danger of losing. By that time Shirin and I only had thirty minutes to reach our boat back to Buenos Aires, so we gathered our things and raced our way to the ferry port.

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, I was thoroughly exhausted, but we stumbled our way into the middle of a gigantic pro-choice protest and Shirin insisted that we don the green bandanas and join the march. I mustered the little energy I had left and was glad that I did, because the march ended up being an incredible experience. We didn't get home until much later that night, and the sleep was that much better for all that we had done in the days before.