{HISTORIAS DE NEW YORK} ONCE UPON A TIME IN CENTRAL PARK...

Though it was spring, the day Grace, Millie and myself went to Central Park was a cloudy day. Almost a gloomy Sunday. 

It didn´t match at all the mood in Central Park. The flowers had a mind of their own and sided with the season instead of the weather. They were blooming! Blossoms were in every single corner and turn of the park.

But the tulips... well, the tulips believed it was summer already and they had the most vibrant and happy colors!

We walked over bridges, by the ponds, mindlessly wandering around, following no paths. Taking pictures, telling stories, laughing out loud remembering old memories, snacking on alfajores de maizena we had purchased at an Argentine bakery we had found in Queens, making plans to go visit Boston either in the early days of summer or on the late August. 

We had fun that quiet Sunday. Those are some of the things I terribly miss about my days in the States. 

It was always an adventure. Nothing fancy, nothing risky. Just plain old friends making new memories in a land far away from our birth place. 

A land we came to call home.

{OH BABY, THE PLACES YOU GO!} CABO POLONIO | TO INFINITY AND BEYOND! (part I)

Cabo Polonio is nearly 400 km away from Piriápolis and, as only a few of us wanted to go there, we took the 4 hours ride on a van. I don´t know if it was beacuse I wanted to get there or what, but the car ride was a neverending one! You can´t get to the cape by car or bus. The sand dunes make it impossible to access the region by ordinary transportation. You have to reach a 4x4 wheels station and once you depart this place, there´s still a 30 minutes ride to infamous Cabo Polonio. You rode by very thorny bushes and sand paths and it pretty much feels like riding a rollercoaster because of the irregular sandy formations.

Then, all of the sudden, you leave behind the bushes and your eyes meet this  huge beach. Kilometers and kilometers of the most wet and straight sand only disturbed by the occasional dogs footprints that the ocean waves erase quickly.

The truck makes a sharp turn and right there where the sky meets the earth, small houses appear out of nowhere. They get bigger and bigger and more detailed as we get closer and we noticed they are very simple constructions mostly painted in white with colorful roofs. They are built by the rocks and the salty ocean water is only a couple of meters away. We drive around them and then another cape scenario unfolds in front of our eyes. This time, the houses are not built far away from the next one and the mostly white walls are replaced for bright and funky colors. This is the poor and hippy side of the cape. The truck comes to a stop and we found ourself far from civilization (or, at least, that´s how I felt!) surrounded by wooden houses that have no power and the drinkable/usable water is extracted from the deeper layers of the ground. A brand new wooden construction caught my eyes: the "hospital", a very tiny room with a nurse in charge of it.

The cape is full of fishing and martime paraphernalia. Out of its regular population of 60, only two families remain as fishermen. There are fishing nets, boats and different colored flags everywhere.
If you follow a path around a couple of small cottages, through a vast yellow flowered field and a wired fence sporting a battered down sign of the Uruguayan army, you reach the lighthouse (my only main focus on reaching this place). The lighthouse is the only thing that has power. It stands tall and modest with its bright red top. It stands by rocky formations of a soft pinkish (brownish, orangy) color that are constantly hit by the riotous waves coming from the sea...

More on my Cabo Polonio´s adventures next week! Stay tuned!

{HISTORIAS DE NEW YORK} SANTA IS COMING TO TOWN!

Santa did come to town this year. Actually, he came last week and brought me something spectacular! A Nikon D5100!!! I´m so excited about it! I´ve wanted my own reflex for so long! Of course, now, I´m learning to use it. It has so many functions and things and features!

I´ve always said New York is a wonderful place. It´s, pretty much, one of a kind thing on Earth. But during the Christmas season it´s down right perfect. Not perfect in a fairytale-like kind of way. It´s perfect because even though it´s still a huge metropolis with its gigantic skyscrapers, busy life, cellphone-holders-walking-to-the-speed-of-light bussiness men and women, chaotic traffic and a million tourists... even though all that, you can still feel the Christmas spirit everywhere. And yes, I´m not going to say it´s all holding hands and singing carols under the lit up tree. I know it´s for commercial purposes mainly but who can fight all that beauty? Uh? Really.

Am I going to be walking down Fifth Avenue saying "Oh goodness, look at all they do for an extra dollar!"? Or, am I going to take in all the beauty and lights and snowy scenarios and Christmas trees and Santas in every corner and treasure it all in my mind?

Of course, you know what I did.

So, here it is. I´m sharing with you on Christmas Eve some of my happy  christmas-y memories of this merry place. I really hope that you can see it one day with your very own eyes, if you haven´t yet. If you have, then I hope you get to experience all the fuzzy feelings again.

♥ FELIZ NAVIDAD! ♥ MERRY CHRISTMAS! ♥ BUON NATALE! ♥ JOYEUX NOEL! ♥