Changing Travel Blogs
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Introduction:
This mostly non-musical page will include adventures that we experienced over the course of many years, as we traveled to various places on five continents. In each instance, we wrote the material either during or very shortly after the travels ended. The locations are mostly, but not exclusively, in the Czech Republic or Brazil, where our families and relatives are located. These blogs or write-ups were written in the years indicated and may from time to time include some musical interludes or vocal commentaries just to make things more interesting. The write-ups will appear sporadically, but hopefully at intervals of two to four weeks. Hopefully! These write-ups focus on incidents, often humorous, that actually occurred during our various trips abroad. Enjoy. We’ll begin in 2003.
A BRIEF VISIT TO URUGUAY
Part 1 of 2
Last Sunday I chose to take an early morning walk along the promenade, which runs parallel to the normally busy four-lane boulevard between our hotel and the bay. The water is not the Atlantic Ocean but rather what the Uruguayans proudly term the widest river in the world. It’s the Plate River, which flows into the Atlantic, and feeds so little fresh water compared with the salt water from the ocean that the river is actually salty. You can’t even see land on the other side, which is Argentina. If you look at a map, the river looks like an estuary or bay, since this wide portion is below the river delta. No matter, it is termed a river. Anyway, as I was walking at a brisk pace along this promenade against a very stiff breeze, smiling and greeting the few walkers and joggers I met en route, the peaceful bliss of the morning was suddenly broken by a prolonged squealing of tires behind me. I did not turn around for a long time, as the car seemed to be traveling away from me. Besides, I figured it was just another show-off speedster. Finally, as the sound did not stop, I turned around just in time to see a car careening into a wall next to the promenade and completely flipped over on its roof. The crash site was only about three minutes from where I had just been walking. After a while someone got out of the car and waved his arms above his head, whereupon a couple of people ran towards the car to help. Quite soon several people had gathered and a police car also passed me by on the way to the scene. Bad start to someone’s day, I thought.
As I continued to walk back to the hotel, I fell into a philosophic state of mind and began to ask myself: “What would I have done if I had been at the exact location of the crash when it occurred?” Aren’t such questions the real questions we always need to be asking ourselves? We never know from minute to minute how our fragile life will continue to unfold or if, in fact, we are near the end.
Soon after my arrival back to the hotel, our tour bus was ready to take us to see the sights on the way to the city of Punto del Este and then drop us off at our timeshare resort Solanes. The tour guide was to me the most interesting part of the tour. She was rather young and though the tour was to be in both Spanish and English, the explanations were predominantly in Spanish. The predominant topics she centered upon throughout the tour were geographical facts including an emphasis on distances from one town to another and how certain rivers in the country flowed. The other thing that seemed to catch her fancy was the array of hotels along the way. She knew how much per night it cost to stay in all the five-star hotels and even some of the four-star hotels. In the small city of Punto del Este, the bus drove us through the ritzy part of town where movie stars such as Marlin Brando either had lived or had visited. The house owned by former President Menes of Argentina was pointed out as well as a home owned by two Brazilian presidents (Sarney and one other one). Even Bush Senior was said to have visited one of the homes in the neighborhood.
Midpoint of the tour, we stopped for lunch at a relatively nice restaurant. A man by the name of Paul had befriended us earlier on tour. He was traveling alone and spoke English. I detected a rather pronounced accent in his speech and learned he was a former gymnast and coach from Hungary living in New York. When I mentioned to him that Helena was from former Czechoslovakia, he began talking with her and mentioned that he was associated with the “real gymnastics”. It wasn’t long before he began to broach the subject of politics and denounce everything relating to socialism. He castigated people who were of a lower class who deserved to be there and in the same breath denounced President Lula of Brazil and his leftist tendencies. Lower class people, he claimed, were basically lazy and if they were given money would simply squander it. He said people need to speak out for democracy in the US, since it is being taken away by “someone” (he could not say by whom – I kept quiet on the subject, not wanting to get into a needless argument). Though he does not watch TV and has no computer, we were able to agree that people like Jerry Springer and all others of that ilk were bringing the US society down. His language began to include sprinklings of four-letter words in his denunciations (which I consider typical of people of little tolerance whose minds are already made up). I could go on, but this encounter just typifies how one meets people from all walks of life on this planet, in various circumstances. One often meets such reactionary people in the immigrant crowd, who safely fled earlier regimes or circumstances and still see threats all around them from people who represent what they previously hated.
At lunch Paul asked if he could join us at a table. We agreed, whereupon the same topics resurfaced again and again. When the waiter made a mistake in bringing us ice tea instead of hot tea, Paul pointed out the mistake that “lower class” people make by saying “See how they perform.” Later after lunch, we were all dropped off in the town of Punto del Este to do some shopping, and our guide said for us to be back no later than 4:55 in front of the shop called “Magdalena.” There I was able to buy a tee shirt. Helena and I then diligently went on to inquire how to buy Christmas cards, as Mark had discovered we had not brought enough with us on our trip to be able to send to all of our friends back home. When we finally found the proper store and selected our cards for purchase, I discovered that I had lost my Visa card. How shocked we both were! I knew I had used the card earlier at Magdalena’s, so after paying cash for the cards, Helena and I rushed back to the previous store. There was our saleslady, who seemed to be expecting us. She explained in halting English that my lost card was given to our guide. How relieved we both were! When the tour continued (quite a bit later than 4:55, I’m afraid), I asked our guide if she had my card, and she soon gave it to me. Helena and I gave her a nice tip (as well as the bus driver) when they dropped us off at our timeshare reception office. It was a memorable day.
A BRIEF VISIT TO URUGUAY
Part 2 of 2
The main thing I can say about our stay in Solanes is that punctuality is not so important here as in the US. Some examples will perhaps suffice. We were not able to light the oven on our stove, so I called the reception office and asked to speak to someone who speaks English. I was told someone would come to fix it in ten minutes. No one came for the rest of the day, so we called the next day. Someone came within half an hour of the second call, and told us how to light the oven.
One day I went to catch a bus to the nearest town to visit the post office. The bus was to arrive at 9:55. However, when it did pass by (yes, it did not stop), the driver held up two fingers in a “V,” which I interpreted to mean there would be a second bus following. However, none came until about 10:20, when the next bus was scheduled to arrive (the schedule said 10:15, but no matter). That bus stopped.
On another occasion the guests staying here were given a written notice of a reception party to start at 8:00 p.m. on Monday. We arrived at 8:00 and were the first people there. There must have been two hundred chairs in the room. Gradually by 8:30 the room filled up with guests and drinks were passed out. It was not until 8:40 until things began to happen – a master of ceremonies with a microphone came and began to talk to the crowd. We left after five minutes, because everything was spoken in Spanish.
It’s time to say a few things in summary about our stay in Uruguay. First of all, in no way do we have any deeper insights into the culture other than superficial observations. This is markedly different than how things are, when we visit European countries where we can communicate well or where we have friends or relatives. But there are definite things we can say with some degree of confidence. One is the overwhelming feeling we have that people in Uruguay are sincere, compassionate people. I base this upon observations from riding buses, buying groceries, making purchases in various stores and in bus stations and post offices, and watching how people interact among each other in the post office, on the sidewalks, while driving cars, bus drivers, etc. I know we are guests in a foreign country, and often people are especially helpful to such people. Nevertheless, this sensitivity seems to pervade society as a whole.
Uruguayans seem to like to really enjoy life in the moment. The reception we left, which I described above, continued until late into the evening and, as we could observe from our room, it turned into a dance. The floor was cleared of chairs and the lights dimmed.
Uruguayans also seem to respect people at all levels of society. In the airport at Montevideo, while waiting for Helena to do an errand, I saw cleaning ladies treated with cordiality by other people in the waiting area. They weren’t looked down at like lower class citizens. I cannot say with certainty that the same is true in reverse. Our guide on the tour talked quite openly about corruption in her government.
Uruguayans celebrate the sun and the body. I think I could easily extend this generalization to include all Latin Americans. Whether on the beach or around the pool at Solanas, tiny bikinis are the norm. When the sun shines, people blossom. There is no extraordinary ogling of the females, since the beautiful body is seen as a natural and healthy part of life.
As we left for the airport to take our leave of Uruguay, the taxi drove first through the city from our hotel. There were businesses called “Perfect Group”, and “Better Life”. There was also a billboard with a Merrill Lynch maxim: “Bringing the opportunities of the world to the possibilities of the individual”, or something similar. Oh, well.
The taxi sped down the boulevard at high speed, conjuring up the sensation of being on a racetrack. There were times when there were no lines dividing the two lanes in each direction, so one just had to be careful not to bump the car adjacent.
At the airport I ordered coffee, and after placing the order I noticed a woman at a nearby table smiling at me as if to say: “You obviously are not from here.” I couldn’t help but ask her if she was from here, and she said that she is native Brazilian but has lived for over twenty years in Washington, D.C. I asked her how, if I wanted to order a large cup of coffee in the future in Brazil, how I would do that. She continued to think that I wanted to return here the next day and order a cup of coffee. It soon became obvious that the years of living in the US of A had not taught her the subjunctive case. “If I came here tomorrow and wanted to order a large cup of coffee, how would I indicate that?” “Oh, you are coming here tomorrow to order coffee?” Finally I gave up, and after some brief conversation, left to get Helena to go to the gate.