Saturday the first of May was Día de Los Trabajores here in Uruguay also known as Labor Day. This doesn´t happen in the US until the first Monday of September, but it´s the exact same holiday (feriados in Spanish). If I´m not mistaken it started in Chicago and is now celebrated all over the world. It started Friday night with a lot of businesses shutting down early and went through Sunday. I, unfortunately, wasn´t able to see the city shut down for the weekend since I was held up in my apartment studying for mid-terms. If you want to read a blurb about it on the Exploring Uruguay blog here is a link. The blog also offers another link to see more about labor day and it just links to the Wikipedia page for the holiday.
Mother's day is today... in the States. Usually it occurs on the same day in Uruguay, but today was election day! They voted for their intendente or city council. The reason I bring this election up is because I found out a very interesting fact about voting in Uruguay. As a citizen, you have to vote. Those that don´t vote will be penalized a fee. I think it's funny because they say Uruguay is passionate about politics and naturally you assume that they don´t have incentive to be this way. Wrong. And I´m guessing that the tax is not a light one either with how "passionate" these Uruguayans are about politics. I joke about it, but I really think they do care. If you're going to vote, you might as well make sure it's someone you can support. Uruguay, also, has an interesting political past that involved a dictatorship that actually ended not too long ago. I can´t give you dates or names just yet, but in my Uruguayan history class we´ll get to this at some point and I can tell you all about it. Once again Wikipedia offers a great synopsis of politics in Uruguay. It talks about the structure of politics and a little history as well. Just scroll down to see the few paragraphs to see the section.
I, also, found another blog I liked a lot. This guy Seth (NY, USA) is traveling around South America and managed to stop in Montevideo for three weeks and it looks like he had fun! I haven't read the entire thing yet, but his talks of fútbol and especially the voseo were better written than my accounts of them. He was in Uruguay from February 10th, 2010 to March 2nd (so you can find the posts more easily). He traveled throughout the rest of South America too, if you´re interested in viewing the rest of his blogs.
I saw my first traffic accident here. It was unfortunate as it involved a guy on the motorcycle, but he was laying on the ground talking on his cell phone, so I don´t think he was too badly hurt. This incident made me realize something. Despite how crazy they drive here, Uruguayans are pretty good drivers (ignoring the blocking of intersections outside of Tres Cruces today that involved excessive leaning on car horns). Surprisingly, there are not always lines on the roads here in the city so sometimes at an intersection there will be two lanes of traffic and other times three. Even with all the close calls of people indecisively floating between lanes and cutting through three lanes of traffic while turning in an intersection I havent seen or heard of a single accident. I'm, also, excluding when cars bump into each other while trying to parallel park as it happens all the time and doesn´'t really cause any harm to either cars. I guess they need to hit the car behind them sometimes to make sure they can't back up anymore. Also, I think this is the reason so many car alarms go off here. Go figure.
Speaking of transportation I am leaving by bus on Friday for Colonia (del Sacramento), Uruguay. I'm very excited since this will be my first trip by myself and because I walked into Tres Cruces today and bought my tickets on the spot. I felt so spontaneous and whimsical. I´m going for two and a half days which I think is plenty to explore this colonial place. I decided not to go to Buenos Aires mostly because tickets are more expensive than I would like when you try to buy them less than a week in advance and I want to try traveling by myself in a more low-key, safer place. We´ll see how it goes.
And, I got lectured briefly by Lorrenia again for slipping up and refering to the citizens of the US as Americans. I´m starting to realize that she is the one with the big problem with it and not Uruguay. Still I wouldn't say American though. It´s not politically correct and us people from the United States love to be politically correct. See how that was just a mouthful? I just say America when she's not around.
Random: May 1, 2010 in Uruguay is written as 1/5/10. The date and month switch places compared to the US version. And, tacos means heels on shoes here. Did you get a look at those huge tacos!?
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