After two redeye flights with zero sleep (because of an ear worm of the “Hallelujah Chorus” stuck in my head!), a 12-hour layover in Houston, plus another 9 hour layover in Buenos Aires, we finally arrived in Montevideo. We were met at the airport by our Spanish teacher, Ignacio “Nacho” Medina and went out for pizza.

By “we,” I mean my friends from Cada Día Spanish, my daily online Zoom Spanish class, Marsha Walker, Janice Hayden and her husband, Elliot Quint. Marsha, Janice and I have a Spanish Conversation Club, along with Cindy Scheinert and Sue Haas, in which we talk only in Spanish for 45 minutes, Monday through Friday.

It’s no wonder that after I was awakened by my 5:30 am alarm (are you kidding me! I should have turned it off!), I went back to sleep, since we weren’t planning to meet until 9:30 am for breakfast. I was pretty much dead to the world, and despite messages to my phone (“Where are you? We are worried about you!”), and even knocks on the door, I never woke up! Finally my friends went to the hotel management and had them open the door to my hotel room. Was I embarrassed to come to the door in my pajamas, and it was after 10:00 am!

We met Nacho in La Ciudad Vieja (the Old City), where we had a walking tour. Most impressive was the statue and tomb of Jose Artigas, considered the “George Washington” of Uruguay. The underground crypt was huge, as you can see by the photos below.

Next stop was at a bookstore with a grand staircase, and El Cabildo, a historical museum, where we saw an exhibition of drawings by Leonardo Gonzalez and I played a square piano. Yes, they said it was okay! It was horribly out of tune and sounded a whole step down from A=440. Yikes!

Our next stop was at the Museo de Artes Decorativos (Museum of Decorative Arts) which formerly was a grand home for a nobleman which had three pianos. My friends urged me to play, and when Nacho asked permission, they said yes!

Here is a link to hear part of my attempt to play the piano from memory: (I might add that I’ve NEVER played this from memory before!)

Before Nacho left us (to go home to a new baby boy!), we had typical Uruguayan asado, grilled meat.

The afternoon ended with alfajores, a traditional confection typically made of flour, honey, and nuts. Yummy!