Hodlaw Modcloth (My brother's suggestion for the name of this blog)

My brother and sister came to Uruguay! And we went to Argentina! Although barely made it. Americans must pay a fee to enter Argentina (and then you can enter freely for ten years). I thought that you pay the fee upon entry to the country, but that was quite wrong. You must pay it online and print out proof of payment beforehand. 

We owe our trip to the good people of Colonia Express who let us get on their computers at the ticket counter to print ours out. I had a nice conversation who, upon hearing my Spanish accent (it won't go away), kept asking me about Spanish bands. We went through ten before he realized that I wasn't kidding, it had been awhile since I had been in Spain. And I'm glad we made it, Buenos Aires may be one of the coolest cities we had ever been. We don't have many photos, however, because apparently different countries use different adapters and our phones did not have enough battery.

Shannon and Brian also got the unique experience of seeing stand up comedy in a tiny Uruguayn bar. At one point, Brian was clapping after being instructed, in Spanish, not to clap. The emcee started making fun of him until an Uruguayan friend informed the emcee that Brian did not speak Spanish. He then started asking my brother a string of questions (why are you here? work? love? how old are you?) to which I secretly fed him answers. Brian became the callback joke of the night, and every subsequent comedian kept calling him out and saying, "Brian! What's going on? Brian! How are you?" He made it through the night, but he said it was a truly surreal experience. 

Ok, on to the good stuff, photos:

Pisco Sours in Buenos Aires

We were one of two tables at this restaurant, therefore we became best friends with the waitstaff: Nicolas and Mariana, Xavier, the owner, and Claudio, the chef who might also be a Pixar character. 

Second cafe in two hours. 

Enjoying some Urguayan Tannat on our balcony.

We've always wanted to ride a bus in Montevideo.

This is the exact site of the northwest corner of the governer's mansion in Colonia, Uruguay. We read it on a sign.

Anthony Bourdain approved Mercado del Puerto. Basically a bunch of bar s with huge grills in a covered market. 10/10 would eat again.

There's a cat in those scarves.

Not even Shannon can stand under her umbrella.

ella. ella.