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Montevideo Days

Rhymer1
2005-03-26 19:30:18

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To my complete unsurprise, the day after we decided to leave Montevideo the weather turned beautiful and Montevideo became a charming city again. It's funny like that: European cities - and even Buenos Aires - are OK if the weather's crap. But little Montevideo is, as it were, as changeable as the weather. So again, we had some of the best food on the continent and enjoyed this funny little place. In a way, I suspect Montevideo is a better place to live in than visit. I said earlier it's a two day city. Well, either that or a two year city as it has difficult-to-find charm squirreled away in abundance.

It also unusual in that it has almost no brandscape to speak of: for some reason, there are virtually none of the corporate semiotics we know and love. The familiar Fast food joints, the banks, the crappy chains are largely absent. You should check it out - it makes you realize how lost you are without the fine urban furniture designed by the likes of the Colonel Saunders and the Burger King. Actually, what it really makes you realize is how much better - in every single imaginable way - local coffee shops are than Starbucks. Montevideo is an anti-globalisation protestors dream. Though I suppose if a load of disaffected 20-somethings recognized this and moved there, a Starbucks would open pretty sharpish.

Still, leaving somewhere when it's improving meant means you leave it with good memories. And, in our case pretty appalling hangovers as we'd managed to stay out until 4 the previous morning. We were pretty impressed by this effort but, as I we never saw a Uruguayan announce that he or she was calling it a night, I guess it's still pretty limp by local standards.

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