Title:forgot the title. (repost)

Our friend Gabriel demonstrates how to offer someone a Mate.

Consider yourself lucky if someone does. 

Mate is still king in Uruguay. 

Coffee may be the drink on the way up, but the cultural gatekeeper is this messy, inconvenient and bitter 'tea' like drink that most people still enjoy with alarming regularity.

It has a bit of stigma as of-the-previous-generation or a bit too country for the swank set, but I feel it's the benchmark for being Uruguayan. 

Still, the wife is a dyed in the wool Uruguaya and never aquired a taste for it and seems some of the younger generation will not fall in with this tradition. Sadly time marches on.

For the present, we take it, as we take life here in the ROU, easy.  And hope against hope that things can remain as they are for a bit longer.

Toma, dale.

 

Cops, chillin' just let the kids hop on. No problem.

 Things go easy around here. At first you find yourself resisting, then giving way to not-fighting-about-everything.

It's nice, you'll see.                                                

The 'ferias' or street markets are a big part of life here. This is Tristan Nervaja in city center and happens each Sunday, but smaller neighborhood ferias are in every neighborhood each week are where the smart buy as much as they can. Supermarkets are convenient and enticing, but too expensive for what most earn. Staying away as much as possible is the only way to fight back.

Remarkably, plenty of wealth on display in this modest city experiencing the same financial adjustments as the rest of the world.

No problem with that at all, but is everybody ready to pony up?

Let's see.






I still love the Ami 8 from Citroen. It's a flimsy antique powered by a squirrel, but I smile every time I see one.

That's worth something.