Asado

In Uruguay, cows outnumber people three to one, and beef production is a key industry. People here are immensely proud of the top quality beef they produce. On Saturday night, Jen and I partook in a key Uruguayan tradition: asado. An asado is a cookout where friends get together and cook lots of beef over wood embers. The beef we ate was the most delicious I have ever tasted, and we ate until we could not take another bite. Take a look at some photos we took. At the end of the night, Jen took a spill when her plastic chair buckled and broke under the weight of the steak in her stomach. Ouch!

Carnaval in Montevideo

Little did we know, Montevideo is the Latin American capital of Carnaval for 2008-2010. Montevideo is known for having the longest Carnaval celebration in the world, lasting from September until February. Today Jen and I were lucky enough to stumble upon some full blown Carnaval parades downtown. These parades are all about Candombe, which is an Afro-Uruguayan musical tradition. Here is a photo album and video with a look at what we saw today:

Photos

Video

Tonight, Jen and I are attending a traditional Uruguayan Asado, or cookout. Uruguayans are crazy about beef and grill it by the kilos over wood fire. Tomorrow we will post an update with details on the gathering.

Montevideo Update

Here is a new picture album we compiled from the last couple of weeks here in Montevideo. A few weeks ago, Jen and I checked out the Tristan Narvaja market, which is the biggest in Montevideo. The vendors there sell just about anything, from peacocks to remote controls. Lots of remote controls. We also met Juan and Sandra, a nice young Colombian couple, while visiting the Cabildo museum downtown. They are also relatively new in Montevideo, and we have been hanging out with them and discovering this city together. They moved from Colombia to Uruguay to have a safer and more relaxed living environment and dream of one day living in Canada or Australia. Finally, we purchased a new Toshiba netbook (small laptop) and are very happy to now have our own computer! Anyone who wants to talk on Skype, just send us an e-mail.

Jobs Found

As soon as Jen and I got back from our second trip to Buenos Aires, we found solid work in Montevideo. We met with the International House London Institute and they gave us a variety of English teaching opportunities. The way this organization works is that they have classes in their institute and classes for private companies who want their employees to learn English. I give classes twice a week in Banco Republica, the main bank in Uruguay. This bank is a giant historic building and looks like a museum on the inside. I also give classes several times a week inside the institute. Jen is teaching in a special business park called Zonamerica which is located about 45 minutes outside of the city by bus. Zonamerica is a tax free zone where many multinational companies operate to take advantage of the well educated, cheap Uruguayan work force. The area where she teaches is connected to an old cathedral and is unbelievably nice. She is also giving classes in the instutute to a group of 11 year olds. Overall the teaching job has been a challenge, because Jen and I have only a little experience teaching, our online training was not that extensive, and the institute doens´t give too specific of a curriculum to follow. We are enjoying the challenge and learning more each day.
As far as our living situation goes, we moved in with one of our Couch surfing friends, Cecilia. She has a centrally located one bedroom apartment, and the space is cramped to say the least. Some uncommon amenities that we enjoy are a clothes dryer and hot showers that last more than five minutes. However, the computer situation is terrible, and I´m going to buy a laptop pretty soon. That´s all I have time to write for now, but Jen and I will be adding more shortly after this two week lag in updates.