Porquerias de Uruguay

Or, translated, odds and ends from Uruguay.

Oh baby, I went SHOPPING before I left Montevideo. I went to one of the malls with a PLAN. First stop, the anchor store - Tienda Inglesa. Yep, they have a reasonably priced suitcase. Good. Tienda Inglesa is my last stop and I'm gonna fill that bag on the way to the cab.

I look to see what Tienda Inglesa has in the way of alarm clocks. Yeah I've got this weird idea in my head that I want an alarm clock that displays in 24-hour time. They have one possible item but I decide to look around in the mall a bit more.

Dinner. I get a chicken milanesa, french fries and some tomato salad with oregano. Yum. Diet coke and sparkling mineral water to drink.

Thus refreshed I go to Urban Outfitters. Yeah, same name but certainly not a franchise, just using the same name. Reasonably hip cheap clothing. Hard to find in my size but Augustin, the sales rep, helps me as best he can insisting on speaking English. I'd rather he talked in Spanish but I understand he wants to practice. I bought a pair of jeans and two shirts. They gave me a murse to carry it all in.. Nice. Never owned a murse. Not sure how I feel about it really.

Then I went to Mistral. Mistral is an Argentine clothing company. I bought a pair of shoes and a polo shirt.

Then chasing after that damn alarm clock. The Britania brand (brazilian made) runs on 127v and 220v. Chances are good it will work in the USA but its not displaying 24 hour time. Punktal is an Uruguayan brand. The clock is 220v only but displays 24 hour time. I figure, ok, will just get a transformer that will be that. There's no possible way it could be deriving the time from the AC power, not in this day and age..... So $15 spent on that.

Tienda Inglesa. Pre-packaged salamis. Adobo. Yerba. Alfajores of several different types. And - why not - a couple of small ultraviolet light bug attractors with high voltage grids to fry the little bastards. Yeah they are 220v but are rated at 1 watt.

I pay nearly USD$100 for the suitcase, the spices, the meat, oh yeah and a fucking "Pan Dulce" (fruitcake)... Done. I stuff it all in the suitcase outside the store and realize that I don't have any more Uruguayan cash on me. I hit a banred machine and get a thousand pesos. Now I have a new problem. Ain't no cab going to make change for a 1000 pesos note. Not gonna happen. So I walk up to the Ancap station north of the mall to the minimart and buy diet coke and sparkling water. Given the price they charge for gasoline (USD$6 per gallon) they damn right well will have change for 1000 pesos. Walk back to the cab stand and get back to the hotel.

At the hotel - message from Alejandra. Pizza at her house? It's 23:30 by this time but I call her back and get the address of the new house. Cab ride over and back plus my share of the pizza depletes that 1000 pesos jiffy-quick.