Bienvenidos a Montevideo!

Sunrise over Buenos Aires as we say goodbye!

Hello everyone!

Montevideo's Ciudad Vieja

We are officially in a different country-- Uruguay!  We left early in the morning on Sunday (as in we watched the sun rise as we left), first in a large boat for about an hour and a half across the Rio de la Plata, then we transferred to a bus, which took us the rest of the way to Uruguay's capital of Montevideo.  Although many would say that Montevideo and Buenos Aires are very similar, we are think differently as of now!  Half of Uruguay's population lives in the capital city, but it still is only a city of about 1.5 million--still big for many of us, but significantly smaller than Buenos Aires with its 12 million inhabitants!  Since Montevideo is so much smaller, we have found it to be much more tranquil and less overwhelming than Buenos Aires.  The people have also been very kind to us!  We're enjoying the atmosphere!

School began this morning at 9:00.  It has a similar setup as the Buenos Aires school, but it also is smaller and is run by one family (from Spain and Ireland--how cultural!).  Our classes are a mix of cultural lessons about Uruguay and improving our Spanish, and so far we like them a lot!  We already have some new ideas for our future classrooms from our classes today!  After school we took a bus tour of the entire city of Montevideo, seeing everything from the Old Town (Ciudad Vieja) to the mansions in the wealthy neighborhoods to the beaches!  We especially liked seeing the sunset over the city at the end of the tour.

Sunset over Montevideo

Thanks for reading, everyone!  Until tomorrow!

-Erin