Christmas Eve Fireworks

It often seems to me that one of the greatest wastes of film comes from efforts to capture awesome fireworks displays so, being the very bright, logical person that I am, I have chosen to finally update our blog with photos of incredible Christmas Eve fireworks that in the transition from memories and real life will likely bore everyone else to tears! At least Bonnie and I (along with our fellow spectators) will have the pleasure of reliving an experience that, for us, truly merited the full and literal definitions of the adjectives "unbelievable" and "incredible". 

On Christmas Eve, after a little beach time with Aaron, Shannalee, Kit & Kayda (Akaydia), Hansen (from Idaho), Suzie Archer (from Tasmania, Australia), 

 

Kristie (daughter), Chris Dawson (from Krypton), and Kaori (seven year-old granddaughter)

we had a little dinner at our apartment and then went to the Hansen's because we had heard there would be lots of fireworks on Christmas Eve and the Hansens have a corner apartment on the 11th floor (according to the USA method of counting floors) which not only has a great view of the beach and the skyline from the front, but also on the side overlooks the little plaza in front of our apartment. 

About 11:30 we went out on their balcony to watch what we considered an amazing display of fireworks.  Here's all of us out on their balcony with the city skyline in the background.

Here is a shot of the city skyline behind us looking across the bay.

 

We were very impressed with the fireworks we were seeing...

And then at about five minutes before midnight we transitioned from "amazing" to "incredible" and "unbelievable".

It was, and still is, very difficult to accept the fact that all these fireworks were launched by individuals.

There were no organized fireworks displays.  The government spent $0 on purchasing, organizing, securing, or whatever other costs are associated with public firework displays.

 It reminded me of a city being mercilessly bombarded in a night scene of a war movie- only 100 times more impressive! .

     

 Seemingly, there are no illegal fireworks in Uruguay. They are launched from roof tops, sidewalks, streets, or where ever anyone wants, including the plaza just below us.  Here are a few photos of those that occasionally detonated in the air right beside us on the 12th floor balcony!

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Things that stood out to me:

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  It went on and on and on and finally began subsiding around 12:30 AM.
  
  
  

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  Since we were looking out to sea we were only privy to a very small portion of the city skyline. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be up high in the center of the city. I know, for a fact, I cannot imagine it because there was absolutely no way I could have ever imagined what we witnessed if I had not seen it for myself.
  
  
  

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  The sounds coming from all the ground level fireworks and the fireworks behind us which we could not see! 
  
  
  
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  The car alarms that were going off!
  
  
  

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  The fireworks launched from the plaza beside us that exploded right beside, above, or below us- we felt like we were IN the fireworks. In fact, with the first unexpected and astonishingly close explosions, there was a small stampede towards the door back into the apartment (except Bonnie who simply hunkered down and peeked over the balcony wall). Of course, being enthralled with the view and the sounds we quickly put ourselves back into harms way. Luckily no one lost an eye or had their hair catch on fire!
  
  
  

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  The assessment of the elevator attendant (Hansen's apartment building, originally, was a posh hotel and still has elevators with attendants to run the controls that look like the circular speed-control lever on old ships (you know- Full Speed Ahead, All Stop, All Reverse, etc).  Upon our departure we were attempting to express how impressive the fireworks had been to us and the attendant's response was simply, "Poco, muy poco, este año (small, very small, this year)," and he was dead serious.  It seems the economic crisis has impacted the quantity of fireworks being detonated!
  
  
  

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  The observation of some life guards at the beach the following day that, for some unknown reason (to them), North Americans are usually overly impressed by the Christmas and New Year's Eve fireworks displays! 
  
  
  

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  The assurances everyone gives us that the fireworks on my birthday (oh yeah, some people also celebrate New Year's Eve that night) are even more impressive! I'm going to hate to miss that, but we are celebrating New Year's Eve with our Uruguayan friends, Gerardo & Rosario and Jorge & Andrea who have rented a house at a beach outside the city. It is summer vacation time here (school is out) and, by law, everyone gets a minimum of three weeks of vacation.  Although Bonnie is supposed to have the entire month of January off, she does have to attend a conference and make a presentation in Costa Rica the last week of January so she only gets the minimum three-week vacation! 
  
  
  

Anyway, we will make sure we purchase some fireworks of our own to take with us and I expect we will still see quite a show from everyone else who is in the vicinity of where ever we will be!

OK, so now we have added our testaments to the facts that film and small screens cannot do justice to fireworks, a tripod should always be used for night pictures, photos always make things look so much farther away than they are in real life, and you will never believe how close we were to the close up fireworks (no zoom function was used)!

That's a "wrap" for now.  Merry Christmas to all and

to all a good night!

If you are a glutton for punishment check out Kristie's video clips of the fireworks at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d_XNfU6mJE  (the close up detonations occur at 6:00 and 8:30 minutes)

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzo79og6nhw  (the close up detonations occur at 0:00 3:15, 4:20 [1], 5:30, and 7:30 minutes)

I especially like the recorded comments and the sounds of the ambulances in the background!

Getting Ahead of Ourselves

I've been so far behind in our Blog I thought this week I would get ahead by dealing with things before they happen!


 

This is the Plaza of independence, probably the most significant and well known of all the plazas in Montevideo (other than our little front yard personal plazita, of course!). At the top of the tower of the very ornate building in the foreground you can see two side-by-side tall buildings in the background which are actually located in the far right exit of the plaza. It is difficult to make out, but the lower building next to the tall building on the right is the building where Bonnie works.

The Old City is the historical center of Montevideo and covers the peninsula part of Montevideo.  Originally it was surrounded by a protective wall. A replica of the door to the Old City stands in it's original position at the top center of the plaza.

The old city is a really interesting place- lots of contrast from the past to the present.  Amazing buildings and architecture in all sorts of conditions.  Above is an interesting building we photographed on a stroll through the old city.

This is the front of the building and it looks beautiful.

However on the other side of this beautiful building you can see crumbling and deterioration which seems to be the constant companion of old cities and buildings, especially in the Old City section.


 

Back to the Plaza of Independence.  From the Plaza side, this is the view of the aforementioned "ornate building" (Salvo Palace) which was originally built as a ritzy hotel and is now an apartment building.  I guess not enough people knew about Uruguay to generate enough business to make the hotel a success, and it appears Uruguay continues as a very unknown country to the rest of the world.

SIDE NOTE:  Originally a dance hall, La Giralda Gran Cafe y Confiteria, occupied the site where the hotel was constructed and it was at that same dance hall where the most famous Tango melody (La Cumparsita, composed by an Uruguayan) was first played (1917).


Here’s a link to listen to "La Cumparsita" (you will immediately recognize the tune) which also shows early 1900’s pictures of Montevideo, including the cited dance hall (the 9th photo at 0:38 seconds).      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkfzK_nX-QM

 
 

Down to the other end of the plaza...  At the left far exit between the two monster modern office buildings in the first photo of the Plaza, surprisingly, can be found one of the most beautiful theaters in the world, The Solis Theater. 

 

For those who care, it is a beautiful example of 18th century neo-classical architecture (which to me, simply means it is fancy as all get-out!).

The theatre was built from 1842 to 1856 (those mean old Argentine bullies had the city besieged from 1843 to 1852). While the Solis is not the oldest theater in the Americas, it does claim the high-brow title of the oldest functioning great opera house in all of the Americas.

The theater was named after Juan del Solis, who discovered the Rio de la Plata River in 1516 and that was the last of Senor Solis' accomplishments

SIDE NOTE: Shortly after his discovery of the River, Rio de la Plata, Juan del Solis noted, while sailing up the river, there were many houses and people on the shore watching their ship. Solis led a party of nine people to shore to find out who these people were (they were Guarani) and, if possible, to kidnap a man to bring back to Spain.

However, once on land, the tables were turned. In plain sight of the ship and crew, the entire party was ambushed, killed, butchered, and cannibalized, except for Francisco del Puerto, a 14 year old cabin boy (It was the custom to eat parts of enemy warriors, but not children or women; I guess they had to draw the line somewhere). The crew sailed back to Spain abandoning Francisco to his fate.

11 years later, Conquistador Sabastián Gaboto visited the Rio de la Plata and recorded he saw "a huge native making signals and yelling." The native turned out to be Francisco del Puerto.

Francisco was brought aboard where he served as Gaboto's translator until, feeling Gaboto was cheating him, Francisco plotted revenge. In a deal with local Indians Francisco organized and launched a surprise attack inflicting heavy casualties and driving the Spanish away. Nothing more was ever known of Francisco del Puerto.

Bonnie and I took a tour of Solis and it was how we would imagine being in a beautiful, high-class European theater would be like.  This is part of the foyer which is filled with these beautiful marble columns. 

I had to include a picture of this chandelier because our guide made a really big deal about chandeliers being manufactured by an old company that was destroyed during Uruguay's 13 year-long civil war (1838 - 1851) and in all the world only seven chandeliers created by this company survive today.  Three of them are found in the Solis.  The one above is the smallest of the three.

SIDE NOTE:  One day a week the tours are free, which is the day we took our tour.  We signed up for the Spanish tour, but when the tour began we noticed that while we had about 20 people in our group there was only two people in the English group, so we switched, only to be informed the foreign language tours were not free because they were "harder to do."  I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why a company would charge more to have an employee speak in a different tongue other than Spanish.

This is the second chandelier, which although it is hard to tell from the photo, was surprisingly larger than the first (and no, the couple is not dancing- they are just caught in a funny transition mode). The theater has other halls (like the one above), theaters, and a museum which are in constant use for plays, readings, ballet (and other dances), opera, concerts, expositions, and other artsy stuff (of which the great art patrons, Roger and Joanne [Bonnie’s parents], would know more of than I!) all through the week.

We have been told that due to Montevideo's location between Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo, the Solis Theater hosts many famous and quality international acts because since the acts are already in the region, they feel they may as well perform in Montevideo, as well.  Bonnie and I are looking forward to taking advantage of these opportunities.

 

  Inside the main auditorium I caught Bonnie admiring the third chandalier and ceiling paintings.

 My photo of the third chandalier was a bust, so here is a shot of part of the ceiling next to the chandalier!  The third chandalier is in the main auditorium and is very impressive, you know, if you were into chandaliers like our guide was!

 This is looking towards the back of the hall from the stage. The sides of the auditorium are surrounded by private boxes.

 Here is a better shot showing the five levels.  The two main boxes in the center of the second and third levels are the Presidential boxes.

 On the tour we learned Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, will be playing and since the theater is owned by the government, the production is being subsidized and all seats in the hall are the same price. Bonnie and I reserved our own private box on the first level.  It is the second one from the stairs on the left.  We invited our good friends Gerardo and Rosario Galvez and our Bishop and wife, Daniel and Gabriela Collato to join us this Saturday night. Bonnie is going to make us dress to the nines, so we will be transported back in time to truly enjoy the experience!

I'm being totally irresponsible and Monday I'm going to ignore all the "to-dos" and spend the day at this little oasis- The Uruguay Golf Club!

And Monday night for our Family Home Evening activity we are going to go watch our friend, Kyle Lamonte, lead the Aguada team to another victory!  After starting 0-5 they had eight straight wins (until the last game) and are now 8-6!  After this game the season will be half over but it looks like Aguada will have a chance for the playoffs, which seemed totally impossible after the first five games. 

 

Tuesday is farmer's market day and in the evening we are going to a classical guitar concert by our new friend and guitarist, Ulises Pena, whom we met this weekend in the town of Minas, about 120 miles from here.  We've really enjoyed listening to his CD.

 

Wednesday we go to a school to speak English with the students.  In the town of Minas I was impressed because the kids spend four hours a day in immersion English. 

Notice the cool computer that every Uruguay elementary public school student has!  You won't find that in any other country in the world.

Thursday is Tango class and probably my day to work at the Bishop's storehouse.  I didn't know this couple was watching us, but they seem to have our moves down pretty good!

 

 Friday is our ward's adult dinner.  The ward rented a restaurant and everybody brings their own meat to have it cooked on the "parilla" (grill) which is a wonderful part of Uruguayan culture.  Parillas are wood fired grills; no gas, charcoal, or anything else that isn't "good" firewood.  The fire is started hours before the cooking starts and then the coals are spread underneath the parilla.  It is hard to imagine how many wood fires are going every evening in this modern city (and how good it smells!). We have invited our friends Gerardo and Rosario to come with us so it should be very fun.

SIDE NOTE:  We keep mentioning that the night life is a very late night life here.  We called up to order pizza to be delivered to our friend,s, Aaron and Shannalee Hansen, house  but found out they don't start deliveries until 7:00 (or 19:00, as they say it here).  We asked if we "Sure," the voice on the phone responded, "When do you want it ready?"  "As quick as you can," says I, only to be told in a "what-are you- some-kind-of-dummy voice " that they don't start the oven until 19:00!  What was I thinking?  Who in their right mind would want to eat before 7:30 (at which time the food might be ready) at night?

Saturday is another farmer's market day and, of course, in the evening we will be attending the play, Macbeth.  Somewhere in this week, there will be a High Priest leadership meeting, a temple trip, exercise and running, and probably another dozen things I have forgotten!

I Can't Stand it Anymore, I Have to Post Something New to Our Blog

Perhaps you have noticed I added the date of our most recent blog update to my email automatic signature. I thought it might be helpful to some people, but it is really irritating to me because it serves as a constant reminder of how far behind I am! I figure why should I be the only one feeling irritated and aggravate? Since misery loves company, I will invite you to join me by writing a long-winded boring blog!!!

We really do have lots to say, but as they say, "pictures are worth a thousand words" and with our camera balking at recording anything interesting, the only pictures we end up with are really dumb pics or photos I dare not publish under threat (by my sweet, adorable wife) of a miserable life for what may be a severely abbreviated amount of time.

Last Saturday we started the day with a church service project where we pruned, painted, and cleaned the outside of a school for orphans. Bonnie and I considered not going for a very silly reason; We obviously committed a major oversight by failing to pack and transport for 12,000 miles the type of clothes we wouldn't mind getting paint splattered on! I don't know what we were thinking! Lucky for me I had caught a new pair of jeans on a nail at the livestock show and ripped a hole in them, so the idea of punishing them by getting them splattered with bright red, yellow, green, or blue paint definitely appealed to me!

Our student friends, Aaron & Shannalee Hansen from Idaho (imagine a picture here of some really, really nice people with two adorable, very, very platinum blonde little girls [a 2 year-old and a six month-old]) host a lunch each Saturday for international students at the University Aaron attends. You can tell Aaron and Shannalee are really nice people because they even invite us to attend, so after the service project I made a quick visit in order to not miss out on Shannalee's wonderful pancakes with delicious home-made buttermilk and strawberry syrup. Pancakes are available in restaurants here, but only for dinner and as a dessert. At one restaurant we had to make sure we arrived after 3:00 at which time pancakes become available.  Similar to a fast food restaurant changing their morning menu to their normal daily menu- just advanced by four hours.
 
Daily activities start much later in the day here and end early in the morning. Recently I tried to make reservations at a restaurant with a big screen TV so we could watch the important World Cup qualifying soccer game between Uruguay and Argentina.  I think the hostess actually laughed out loud when I asked for a 7:00 reservation. Silly boy, we don't start taking reservations until 8:00 when the kitchen opens up!!!  Again, what was I thinking?!!

OK, back to my original plan of making you question your sanity by wondering why you are voluntarily spending all this time being irritated by lots of words without any pictures...

After lunch with the international students we hustled off to a 10K race with Aaron and Shannalee.  They were cross country runners at ISU (nope, I'm not going to tell you which University it is- BWA-HA-HA-HA!) where they met each other.  Shannalee told us she hasn't been on a long run since her first pregnancy over two years ago.  However, her credibility is now suspect because out of 5,000 runners she was the eighth female to cross the finish line (including the elite runners). Bonnie watched their two girls for the few minutes it took them to cover the 6 mile course.  The girls, Kayda and Kit, are so cute, Bonnie felt like a celebrity- everyone wanted to talk to the girls and lots of people took their picture. The double wide stroller the girls were in may also have contributed to their popularity, since it is probably the only such stroller in the country, but I doubt it.  Yesterday when I borrowed Kayda to accompany me on an extended cross-city bus trip I had many opportunities to practice my Spanish with the many friendly people who talked to me because Kayda was with me.  On the street people walking their dogs would approach to see if Kayda wanted to pet their dog.  I took her to the swings in the park in our plaza and discovered she was already quite well known by many of the parents and kids who were present.

I had to speak in church last Sunday (in Spanish, of course). Instead of leaving me with 10 minutes, the first two speakers left me with more than twice that amount. In the states, my ego would have taken a beating because the Bishop would have had to employ some strategem to retrieve his congregation from the dreamland I would have sent them to! Now I wonder why I didn't make myself popular by simply finishing early?  Hindsight is so omniscient.  I discovered an advantage to having an accent.  It was a major ego-boost to see everyone concentrating and hanging on my every word.  I choose to ignore the fact they were listening so hard in order to make sense out of every mutilated and scarred word I served up!

National elections are currently in process and have been since long before we arrived two months ago. From our observations it appears there are many people who believe that the bigger the caravan you can form out of horn-honking, flag-sporting autos the more people that will be convinced to vote for your party. In spite of the noisy racket, I did admire the creativity of the guy who had figured out how to make his car security alarm keep playing in an eternal loop. I hope he equally admired my creativity in the way I pelted his car with eggs, lettuce, apples, tomatoes, carrots, lemons, and water bottles! I am so excited the elections are this Sunday because the law says the campaigning must end as of midnight, three hours ago!!! I seriously doubt, however, that the horn honking addicts will be deterred.

After the 10K race arrived home to discover one of the many political parties was holding a rally in our little plaza.

This is Pedro, their candidate for President. Contrasting to our election process we were struck by the total lack of security and available access to the candidates.  We have also noticed we have yet to see a candidate dressed in a suit or tie. Someone told us all the candidates are trying to appear to be "one of the people" so the standard dress is slacks, a long sleeve shirt, and a sweater.  Of course, they also pointed out that it is only their party's candidate who really qualifies as "one of the people".  Today Uruguay is a very democratic republic, for 12 years from 1973 to 1985 the country suffered undera repressive dictatorship which freely employed tactics of torture and murder.  The aforementioned "one of the people" candidate, Pepe Mujica, was imprisoned and tortured for 11 years during that terrible period of time.

Anyway, when Pedro finished his speech, Bonnie commented it would certainly sound funny in the States to have a politician end his speech with "Hugs for everyone!" 

Hugs and kisses are part of the culture here as it is the way people meet and greet one another rather than shaking hands. It is rare to say "Hi" to an acquainance without a hug and kiss on the cheek.  I'm sure I have kissed more women in the last two months than I have in my entire life (only on the cheek, though)! I think if I were a young buck and lived here, I would troll the Rambla and pretend to know every pretty girl I saw! 

The traffic jam in the far traffic lane was caused by a different political party rally going on half a mile away.  I have seen a lot of streets made impassable because of these political  rallies.

Hey, here's a photo our camera deemed worthy to take- our washer and dryer.  All I can say is the washer is very eco-friendly because it is only big enough to hold about a quart of water!  The top one is the dryer and although I didn't think there could be many things smaller than our washer, the dryer seems to be one of those things!

Hey, wow, check out this great artistic shot.  Look at the symbolism and read between the lines.  There is a greater meeting here than meets the eye.  At least our camera seemed to think so.  If you can figure out what our camera saw in this scene, please let us know!

This is our "burning made easy" stove.  Gas cooking really is great- it does heat things up very quickly.  We can boil water faster on the stove than in the microwave.  Sadly, there are no temperature markers.  You must guess at the temperature by looking at the size of the flame.  Lucky for us, Aaron Hansen served a mission in Brazil and was familiar with these type of stoves.  He confirmed my suspicions we had a gas leak and repaired it in the missionary way-  with bubble gum!

This is our Mate cup gifted to us by our wonderful friends, Gerardo and Rosario Gonzalez.  It is made from a hollowed out gourd.  I am determined I am going to learn to tolerate this drink.  I need to do it quick, though, because in Uruguay (Vs. Argentina) it is the custom to drink it very hot and the summer is just around the corner!

I guess our camera thought our kids might get a chuckle out of seeing the largest box of oatmeal we have seen.  Many things seem to exist on a much smaller scale here.  This picture actually makes the box look much larger than it is (very similar to all the photos of me- it must be a defect in our camera).  I don't think there is enough cereal in this box to have been able to feed all of our family for one breakfast!

If you are beginning to resent me for making you join me in my misery, remember, it took me a lot longer to write this tripe than it did for you to read it!  It is now 4:00 in the morning but I retire to my bed satisfied in the knowledge that soon I will not be alone in my misery.  BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA (again)!

Colonia

Above are our new good friends from Uruguay, Gerardo and Rosario Galvez.  We spent a lovely weekend in the oldest town in Uruguay, a place called Colonia.  They drove up the three hours from Montevideo to spend Saturday with us exploring this interesting little town.  Colonia was first settled by the Portuguese in 1680, but since it was just across the river (Rio de la Plata) from Buenos Aires, the Spanish would come across, conquer ,and sack the city.  Eventually the Portuguese would get it back and rebuild it and the cycle would repeat itself.  There are still buildings and streets from those old days and even though it is a small town of only 20,000 people, it has been taken over by artisans and is filled with all sorts of hand crafted, painted, sculpted, etc. pieces of art and is filled with little boutiques to sell the art stuff or other touristy stuff.  I got Bonnie a hand crafted necklace and earring by the amazing and wonderful artist, Mario!

This is the wall and bridge entrance (they built a moat) to the original old city (it was built as a fortress, although from reading the history books, it didn't seem to help much!).  I don't recognize the big, fat guy in the funny hat that is with Bonnie and Gerardo & Rosario.  The hat is something the people or gauchos from the country often wear.  I thought it might help me "blend in" with the locals.  However, Uruguay is a place where we gringos do not stand out.  Bonnie and I often get asked directions from people on the street, so we must look like the locals.  I say locals rather than natives because there are no natives.  The indigenous Charrua Amerindians were virtually wiped out in the colonial era.  As such, nearly 90% of the population is Caucasian, mostly from Italy and Spain.  The Italian heritage must explain the outstanding pizza they have here.  Once you get away from downtown to where there are individual houses (instead of high-rise apartment buildings), it seems like every house has a brick barbecue grill and a pizza oven built in the back yard.  Grilling here is done with wood and many restaurants have interior, wood-fired grills.

Since our camera gives us fits and rarely takes pictures, you will have to settle for the few it did decide to take, like this one of Bonnie on an old Spanish cobble-stoned street peering down an original Portuguese street.  The Portuguese used larger rocks and pieced the streets together rather than use cobble stones so it was easy to tell who built which street.  As we looked at all these 300 year old homes and streets we couldn't help but wonder how many or our modern day buildings will still be in existence when the same amount of time has passed.

Some silly people coming down one of the streets that radiate out from the old main plaza.

Bonnie has just grabbed some of the blooms from this tree and placed them in her billfold because tradition has it if you place the petals in you billfold you will never want for money. 

This is the old main church and pigeons and swallows use all those visible holes in the outer wall as nests.  There were lots of birds (we enjoyed sitting on that bench in the background and listening to all the different birds) including many green headed loros (like parrots).  Above you can see a beautiful lora (female loro), which we learned is the word applied to people who talk all the time!

We saw our first Mexican restaurant here and we also saw a restaurant that offered "Arroz a la Cubana" (kids- that should bring back some memories; good for some and otherwise for others!).  We are being very good with our budget, however, so we couldn't afford to eat at those places.  Bummer!  Nevertheless, our budget led us to another new experience- we stayed in a hostel.  We had our own humble and simple room with shared bathrooms down the hall.  It turned out so well, we joined Hostelling International so we can do the same in other cities.

Buenos Aires is on the other bank of the river (and it truly is a river here) only 25 miles away so you can see the tops of the skyscrapers from Montevideo.  We climbed the light house and were able to see a little more of Buenos Aires from that vantage point as well as all of the city. 

Interestingly, the only bullfighting ring in Uruguay is in this city.  It was built by an entrepreneurial Argentine in 1920 as a place for wealthy Argentines from Buenos Aires to come to gamble.  After only eight bullfights the Uruguay government outlawed bull fighting.  Not all entrepreneurs are meant to be successful!

You can wake up now, I'm done.