the big move!

So. I arrived in Punta del Este airport (PDP, for those of you planning to visit me) at 9:00pm Uruguay time, which is one hour ahead of Argentina time, which puts me four hours ahead of everyone in the central time zone. My new host mother and my charge, 9-year-old Vale, rushed into the tiny airport just as I had sat down to wait for them. We went to McDonald's, as the mom said she had nothing in the fridge. This made me a little bit nervous because, as you all should know by now, I like to eat.

We drove the thirty minutes to Jose Ignacio, and I was shown my room. It's sort of a multi-purpose room off of the patio, not actually connected to the house. The floor is tiled, the walls are painted yellow, and the ceiling has very rustic exposed white beams. I've got plenty of windows, and I can see to the ocean in two directions (there would be a third direction, but the house blocks that view).

So I got to bed around midnight or one my first night, and woke up at 6:30 the next morning so we could drop Vale off at school in Punta at eight. While he was there, I explored the shopping mall, where I used my powers of intuition to estimate that an Uruguayan peso was worth approximately five cents (yep, the signs at the exchange offices advertise 19.40 pesos per dollar) and took in the sights.

Then a very helpful security guard directed me to the beach. He was so helpful, in fact, that he not only walked me through the mall, but also through the parking lot, all the way to the street so that he could point me in the right direction.

I spent the rest of the morning wandering the beach, and enjoyed feasting my eyes upon the bounty of the sea, which included several apples, a couple of onions, and a dead bird. I still love it here.