Uruguay

I went to a regional Fulbright seminar in Montevideo, Uruguay recently, and not knowing very much about Uruguay, ashamedly not even really where it was located aside from in South America, I was fairly skeptical of visiting. I mean who decides of all places to go to Uruguay? (sorry Fulbighters who choose to go to Uruguay, nothing personal) And let's face it Uruguay is not exactly a must-see destination for a marine biologist. However, I was pleasantly surprised by my entire trip, leaving me to say GO TO URUGUAY. Anyone and everyone. It is awesome!

The coast in Uruguay, outside the hotel!

Uruguay is the Switzerland of South America. It's very neutral there. It's friendly. It feels safe. They take the following currencies, US Dollars, Brazilian Reais, Argentinian Pesos, and also Uruguan Pesos. The entire city has a very european feel to it. People dress nice (this is a shocker coming from the Northeast of Brazil). It's cold. Yes that's right, I spent a week with temperatures as a high in the 60's during the day and a low in the 40's at night and I loved the contrast from my day -to-day in Brazil. I got to wear my peruvian immigrant coat a lot.

(Brooke, studying environmental health, and Annalia, studying the management of monkeys, at a meat and wine restaurant in Montevideo). One of the things I had wanted to know about Uruguay was about their wine. Do they have wine in Uruguay? If so, is it good? Is there a national grape of Uruguay just like there's a national grape of Austria (Gruner Veltliner) or other places? Brazil-not known for it's wine, it is horrible. Argentina- well known for wine, delicious! Uruguay? Also good. And while it's no Argentina, the national grape/wine is Tannat and it was mighty tasty. They are also very proud of their beef, in more kind of a gaucho cowboy, let's raise all natural meat kind of way. It was delicious!

OOh but my favorite thing about Uruguay is that you can get really good croissants there! Yum! I had been dying for the last 3 weeks to have a croissant for breakfast, crispy, buttery, and alas being in NE Brazil there's none to be found. But they had them at the hotel for breakfast in Uruguay and it was like a dream come true! We saw the equivalent of the Brazilian White House (above), where the President works.

This is the main plaza, with a famous statue and nice looking buildlings.

Uruguai was filled with pretty parks in the city and a beautiful rambla (long bike path), along the beach.

We went to a famous Urugian poet's house.....

and even found a delicious Korean restaurant in downtown Montevideo!

Does this not look like a little european city street?

And book stores? AMAZING! These do not exist in northeast Brazil!

In between all the adventures of exploring Uruguay we gave presentations on our research to our fellow fulbrighters. Here you can see my buddy Ross giving his presentation on agr0-energy in Northeast Brazil. This meeting brought Fulbrighters together from Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. I was the only Fulbrighter studying ecology of any animal and the only marine biologist. Other people's projects were really interesting with one kid from Argentina studying cosmic rays and another from Chile studying traffic!

For a special end of the week treat, Fulbright Uruguay, took us to a Gaucho Ranch for a day of relaxing and fun. Read the next blog entry to see photos about the Gaucho Ranch.