The Eagle and John

I Love visitors! I appreciate them coming to visit because it forces me into high gear. First there is the mad scramble to do an extra "super duper" house cleaning job. I mean, you never know when a visitor might faint in your bathroom, and wake up staring at the under side of your sink! Of course you have to clean that back bolt!  I always feel like everyone will want the grand tour of my house and be scrutinizing everything like a state side restaurant health inspector. Still I am coming to the conclusion that guy visitors just don't really care or don't even see the difference in dirt and household wear and tear, whew! Now I do the extra bit of cleaning just for myself. The second benefit from visitors coming is we get to play tour guide and that forces us to visit places and view them thru new appreciative eyes. How many of you have lived your whole lives in a place and said Wow! I never knew that place existed, or I never got around to see that?

So it is with pleasure that I am finally and belatedly am sharing John's visit, last month. All the photos used in today's blog are his. That's John on the left standing with Wally. (Yeah we still have to finish our fireplace surround). John K. is from our old stomping grounds of Hollywood, California USA. John was wanting to check out Uruguay because of the ease in obtaining residency and acquiring property here. Many people are trying to keep a plan B in their back pocket just in case they want to retire to a place other than in the US. John came to visit in our winter so of course it rained for days! Next our "Krispy Kreme" was under repair so we thought we couldn't show him anything. Finally we had a dry day. John was good enough, to come to us by bus about an hours ride from MVD. I met him wandering down the lane and walked him first to our nearby beach.

Our "Krispy Kreme" finally had a little life in her so we said we could go on a short trip. Atlantida is about 5 Kms away but right before that city is the little suburb of Villa Argentina. It is famous for it's landmark El Águila (The Eagle)

Built in 1945 for the Italian millionaire, Natalio Michelizza. It was first going to be built as a shrine to the Virgin Mary but it's Contractor, Juan Torres overbuilt it and seeing the possibilities of using it as a painting and reading spot with it's cliff views overlooking the playa, Mr. Michelizza decided to use it for his own pursuits. On a whim the top was built resembling an eagles head. It is covered in stone to look like feathers. Up a steep flight of stairs is a tiny room in the head. It has a small window on each side of the head representing eyes. The view from each tiny square window is lovely. The beak is a tiny outside balcony. Downstairs there are two little rooms with some paintings on the walls. It's open from 9am - 6pm. Entrance is free.

We next drove along the Rambla, a road that fronts the water and dunes, to Parque del Plata. It was Saturday so that town had its Feria (Farmers market) going on. Wally was excited to see a few extra stalls there beside our known ones from Salinas. The ferias go to different towns on different days so if we miss our Thursday one we can go to one on Friday or Saturday in the next few towns either up or below us depending on the day.

 Parque del Plata is not as polished a place as Atlantida but is a real community with day to day living going on. There is a nice beach town feel to it. We have a favorite (read bargain) restaurant with good food that we go to there. So when John said he would treat us to lunch we suggested it. It was right across from the feria.  As a side note, Uruguay doesn't have junk mail! Too expensive to waste paper. Instead, they have sound cars or in this case motorcycles with electric megaphones blasting messages at you. So here is a picture courtesy of John showing one of those sound bikes in front of the restaurant we ate in.

We had a great time with John and I believe he will be back for further exploratory trips. We hope to see him again. He was nice enough to bring me a state quarter that I was missing from the picture series. My Denver mint collection is complete. I'm still in need of a few Philadelphia minted state quarters (hint, hint). So any other visitors, especially from the East coast are welcome. In about another month, I'll need my house cleaned and sparkly again!