Arriving in Montevideo

Upon arriving at the house I first met my roommate Becci who is from Germany like me. She studies to become a teacher and spends a practical semester teaching at the German school in Montevideo. From my first impression I have a feeling that we’re gonna get along great. 

After getting to know each other a bit I hopped in the shower and we went to get some food. There is a little kiosk right outside our house but we found it a bit too small to get what we needed. So we went into a direction that we thought was right. On our way a butcher suggested we should buy some meat at his place. We weren’t in the mood for meat so we asked him where the next supermarket was. He gave us directions to go down the road and then turn into the second street to the left which we understood even though he mumbled a bit. So we went there and surprisingly we found the supermarket which was pretty well sorted.

Of course we didn’t have any idea of how much pesos are worth but we figured our money would be enough so we got all we needed and went to the cash register. Becci was going to pay since she had some pesos on her. I only brought a few dollars just in case. And of course that case happened. As it turned out she didn’t have enough pesos so we asked the girl at the register if we could pay half-half in pesos and dollars. Unfortunately Becci’s Spanish is even worse than mine so it took a while and many “lo siento”s to get what we wanted.

While waiting for the cashier to proceed our slightly inconvenient request of payment, I also met my other two roomates, Adrien and Eduardo, who came to buy some food just as we were about to leave the store.

After we got home Becci and I cooked the most basic food of all, Spaghetti and tomato sauce, and chatted a bit. Afterwards she had to do some homework for Spanish so I decided to join Adrien and Eduardo in the living room for the Arsenal-Munich game.

Whilst watching it I also found out that Adrien is from France but works in Chile since January. He came to Montevideo for a visit and will be leaving for Chile again soon. Eduardo is a civic engineer from Madrid but since jobs are hard to find in Spain right now he decided to go to Montevideo and try his luck here. They seemed pretty nice and tried their best to talk slow so I could understand them. I really liked that they never gave up on me when I didn’t understand something but they kept trying to explain until I finally got it. Which I admit, sometimes wasn’t so easy.

Later out landlord Martín came by to give me my keys and show me around. Of course Becci had already done that but I didn’t mind checking out the rooftop terrace again. As the house is pretty close to the Estadio Centenario, Montevideo’s biggest soccer stadium we got a view of it (but not a very spectacular one) from the terrace. There was a game going on and they lit fireworks which to me was pretty odd. It was too early for the game to be over so I asked Martín why they did it and he told me they lit fireworks at the beginning and end of every game and whenever they scored. Apparently we had just witnessed the beginning of the game Uruguay against Ecuador (or so I think).

Martín also seems very nice and helpful to me. He offered me to rent a bike from him and was also very patient when I didn’t understand something right away.  In contrast to Adrien and Eduardo, he talked a lot more English with Becci and me. I found it a little weird that he is still pretty young. From what he looks like I would guess he’s twenty-something which is a rather unusual age for a landlord. But he’s nice and very uncomplicated so I really don’t mind.

Since I haven’t really unpacked yet I didn’t have the chance to take pictures. The place isn't exactly the most luxurious and it would probably need a little refurbishing here and there but it will just fine for one semester. I’ll try and snap some pictures soon so you guys know what I am talking about.

Later today my plans are to meet Sebastian. Since I really don’t know my way around I would guess there might be some interesting stories to tell afterwards, so stay tuned!