What a night!

Wish all of my readers could have been here! The fireworks were
spectacular as usual. The huge bottle rockets that my colleague had
purchased were something else! They really hurt my ears when they
launched, that loud! They went up several hundred yards in the sky and
exploded just as in anything you would see at a fireworks show. Thank
goodness no duds! I could have only imagined what that would have been
like. Some of the other fireworks were partial duds, as they weer
supposed to shoot out of a multiple luncher, key word shoot, instead
some just kind of plopped out and exploded, but nothing to loud.

The band was great and played lots of classic rock tunes. My ears were
ringing when I got home.

Buen ano!

Tonights the big night! Montevideo will be ablaze in fireworks, wish
everyone could be here and see it! I see a cruise ship that I had seen
on a travel show pull into port today. During the show the ship was at
Punta del Este for New Years eve, looks like this time it's Montevideo.

I am going to the same place for a party and fireworks from the
rooftop. The lady hosting the party showed me her arsenal and wow! She
has these rockets that look like 40 ounce beer bottles attached to 3
foot sticks! I asked if I could contribute but she said no, just bring
more fireworks! So I went around the corner and bought a couple
packages of smaller bottle rockets.

Wish I had someway of videotaping the mayhem tonight, but alas I am
without a camera.

Till next year!

Another long walk and refreshing rain

Took another long walk to Mercado del Puerto, really don't know exactly
how far it is. Hot, sunny, I should have worn sunscreen. The city was
a ghost town compared to the last time I did the walk. Why? Everyone
took Friday off and went to Punta del Este, the beach resort.

We had a short rain shower today, nice, cooled off the temperature and
there was this nice clean smelling breeze that came through the apartment.

Just relaxing now.

Christmas in Montevideo

Feliz Navidad! It's 10:30am local time (GMT -2) and it's 77 degrees and
cloudy. Last night went to a Christmas party complete with great
international food, fireworks and a potato gun, huh?

I had never seen a potato gun myself, here are the directions
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Original-Potato-Cannon/
We went to the beach, loaded up the spuds, sprayed in the hairspray and
screwed in the igniter, FIRE IN THE HOLE! goes the cry, plop, goes the
spud. The someone shouts, "It's Uruguayan hair spray!", LOL, didn't
have enough flammable content. Swapping to some better hair spray and
the spud flew several hundred yards to the water! It was very funny.
Eventually the igniter gave out on us and the fun was over.

The fireworks were funny as well, we called them "Chinese knock offs of
Chinese fireworks", some of them just did the most crazy things.

Come midnight the entire city erupted in fireworks, we walked to the
beach and we could see the fireworks at Punta del Este almost 50 miles away!

The Southern Cross was visible last night over the water. It was a nice
night, mostly.