Montevideo, Uruguay

We're back from our trip and here is the first installment of pics from Montevideo. We had a fantastic vacation!

Most of our time was spent walking around looking at stuff- Montevideo has some pretty architecture.
One day was nice enough to go to the beach- the other days were cool and cloudy. That one day was perfect. There is a lot of good meat in Uruguay. Here is a typical grill restaurant with every meat imaginable.

Even though we would almost never go to McDonald's in the states, we decided to go for it one night after shopping. I wasn't going to get anything since we had dinner a couple hours earlier, but one taste of Scotty's Big Mac and I was convinced...it had real pickles! Pickles are a luxury that they don't have here in Bolivia (not good tasting ones, at least). So, I ordered a hamburger...

Here's my dismay at finding out I accidently ordered the "Fiesta" burger which doesn't have pickles. This is me saying "there's no pickles!" What a disappointment...
We stayed in a super cute, artsy hostel with organic breakfasts- it was one of our favorite bits about the trip to Montevideo.We did a lot of reading after getting tired out from walking. We read outloud to each other from the complete Jane Austen novels. Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abby wre completed on this trip.We got a kick out of these contraptions- horses pulling huge loads of recyclable goods. Apparently there's a group of people who rummage through all the garbage in the city to find stuff that can be recycled- this horse has a hat on.

Everybody drinks mate in Uruguay- all day long. It's an herb that is put in fancy little cups with silver straws- you add boiling water and sometimes sugar and it gives you a nice little pic-me-up. Morning and night you could see locals walking with their thermos of hot water and their mug of mate.