What a day it has been here on the sun-washed peninsular town of Colonia. We tackled some actual touristy adventures today, visiting the seven small museums sprinkled throughout what used to be an old Portuguese fort. The most interesting thing we saw was an enormous shell from a gliptodont, a dinosaur which is a mash up of all things turtle and armadillo-like in one ugly package.
We also took a super long walk down the coastline in an attempt to find a very expensive (and utterly failed) mega entertainment complex which cost millions to build in the 1900's and had a race track, bull fighting ring, and probably lots of stalls selling wooden hoops and sticks for children to chase around. The bullring still stands, and though we eventually found it and followed local kids into it through a hole in the fence, it was a shambly carcass of a building and we did not linger much longer than it took to snap this picture. After leaving, we somehow got very, very lost (still don't know how it happened) but eventually relocated the ocean and made our way back.
My most pressing issue at the moment is that I'm experiencing a book shortage. No can find books in AINGLISH here.
My reading list for the trip so far has consisted of a couple novels:
"The Hummingbird's Daughter" (magic realist light, not bad)
"Travels with my Aunt" and "the Human Factor" (Both by Graham Greene-I'd heard that he'd written in Argentina- both were great)
"Let the Great World Spin" by Colin McCann. On sale at target. Treacly but fast.
And a few non-fiction books that YWL picked up- "Freakonomics" and "Blink" Both were entertaining in the way that NY Times magazine articles are entertaining, but I prefer meaty fiction.
So, I've got one novel, "Anathem" by Neil Stephenson who I like based on "Zodiac" and "Cryptonomicon", but I should have perused this one closer at the used bookstore. Its HEAVY sci-fi; the kind where you have to learn a whole twee new language system and a billion other details before the story even begins, and after 30 pages, I just don't think I can do it. Young also has another non-fiction left- "The Omnivores Dilemma" but after glancing at that one, it's also a no-go because it is all about food. Specific details about very lovely, diverse, interesting sounding food, while my current diet is a cycle of pasta w. red sauce, pizza, grilled chicken, salad (lettuce tomato onion) over and over. (Note: As of last night Young has finally lost interest in steak. Apocalypse nigh?). The following picture is the face I make after eating chicken for 3 out of four meals in a row (the one
non-chicken meal was pizza).
So laugh all you want Kindle owners- I now see the wisdom of your purchase. In about seven days I've got a 24 hour plus travel day and without books to keep me sane...oooh. No bueno.
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