Gran Premio Ramirez: A Day at the Uruguayan Derby

Por Una Cabeza, de un noble potrillo......

those are the lyrics to my favorite tango. Years ago, during my first visit to Uruguay, I heard that song at a friend's house. I thought (I did not listen to the lyrics with attention) that it was one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. The next day when I looked up the lyrics, I found out that the song was about love, but not for a human being! The person was singing his heart out for a noble horse, his admiration for gambling and the heartbreak at the end! Lovely isn't it.

Titi and I arrived in the hippodrome around 12, as she was going to work that day, dressed her up in a colonial outfit so that she will stroll around the excited gamblers and gauchos all day long. Gran Premio Ramirez (the Ramirez Prize) is the most important derby in this country and people all around the country were there, some cowboys, some ranch owners, gamblers, and loose people from the neighborhood who had nothing better to do than paying 2 dollars and hang out there for the whole day. I got a VIP pass thanks to Titi and with her new boyfriend, entered the VIP section where you could clearly tell all the Uruguyan upper class (especially from the country side, i.e. latifundistas) were there. Women were eating and drinking together at the restaurants where men were grouped around the podium, checking out the horses, and then betting on them on many registers available. Gambling is legal and almost promoted in this country, so even little boys were betting.

I have never gambled in my life before. I wanted to play baccarat in Monte Carlo when I was 12, but got caught and the security asked me kindly to leave the premises, because I was "too young". After that episode, I have been in casinos, only to leave immediatly because it made me feel bad to watch people (gamblers) so desperate looking in front of stupid machines. My fantasies about playing roulette or black jack, all dressed up in MC is way too nice than sitting next to a smelly midwesterner in Las Vegas, drinking and gambling himself to death!

I was ready this time. It was an important horse race and I thought: while losing heavily on love, I should win the biggest price in this derby! We waited till it was time for the most important race, getting buzzed with free drinks at the VIP room, and when it was time, I betted on the surprise horse, a beautiful Arabian black baby, number 5. Got my ticket and went closer to the finish line. The race started, people were screaming, jumping around, the whole hippodrome was on fire with energy like I have never felt in this country. I actually saw passion in their eyes. What a relief.

My horse was getting closer, and suddenly was at the first place! Yuppyyyyy..Then appeared number 12, getting closer, closer, and the race was over. I still had hope. We waited, holding our breathe until the final decision was posted on the billboard. Winner: Numero 12 !

Por una cabeza (with a head difference) I lost.

First 15 Days of January: I don't recommend being in Montevideo

Coming back from the beach is usually very hard for me, but this year, given the circumstances, I was almost running back to Montevideo!

I have not been in Montevideo last January, luckily I was at the beach the whole time. After my horrible christmas eve and then New Year's, I decided that I could not be in la Pedrera one more minute and came back home. Only to find out that I was the only person there! (Titi keeps smsing me: Only the dorks are in Montevideo, come back!)

My first morning in the city was almost surreal: noone at the streets but me! Montevideo is a city with few people to begin with and when those few leave, we were left with absolutely nobody--even my cleaning lady told me when I called her, that she was going to be out of town for the first two weeks of January, and excused herself from work! I was petrified. How can I recover from a horrible break-up, if all my friends are gone, and there is nothing to do in this city de mierda?

I worked non-stop for the first week. Writing, sleeping, eating, and sun bathing at the roof. I only left my apartment to get food and the paper. My favorite grocery store was closed, for god's sake!

Towards the end of the week, I was even cleaning the bathroom so that the time goes by, somehow. Titi's call saying she is coming to the city for the biggest Derby in Uruguay made my day! I have not been in a derby before, plus it was the only activity in the city that weekend.

So I bought a hat and waited for her.

December 31st: Celebrating New Year in 4 different time zones!

I rushed to the grocery store (el Mono's. Even after the better super market opened, I kept shopping from him because he was the only place in La Pedre during the off season and had quality service) and got some peaches. It was 31st of December and I felt like noone but me had the "new year fiesta mood" but me! Orhan Abi was still feeling sick and Yasemin too, how Omer felt was not really my concern at that point, and I was feeling defeated! One should not feel defeated on the last of the year. I thought of all my achievements during 2006. Not bad, it was a good year over all, a great year. The stuff that made me sad last year were kidstuff comparing to the year before that one@! How ever, a week before closing the book, this stupid punk had to ruin it for me, a week before today! How insensitive! I was going to feel like, "I got a great career, great circle of friends, globe-trotting party life style, and a place to live. And on top of everything, I have a great boyfriend! --At least on paper! I wanted to feel what did the "happiliy ever after" mean. How much of it was true and how much of it was lies? The only way to understand it was to have it and he ruined it, by breaking up with me first on the christmas eve!

I entered the new year with my people--at Turkish time--with Orhan Abi and Yasemin, drinking frozen peach daiquiris (after 3 weeks at the beach one becomes familiar with how to make good drinks), Orhan had whisky actually, looking at the sun set and moon rise at the same time! Incredible view, and strong south american sun, even though atlantic's winds were chilling still was heating our backs--Orhan decided to take a picture and send it over there to the people! That's when the photo on top was taken.

Three more of those daiquiris, a shower and getting into my tight dress (a notch away from being a corset), putting make-up and getting gorgeous later I was ready to celebrate the new year in Uruguay--again! That is a big surprise to a lot of people who know me. They thought I would not stay there more than 6 months but I managed to almost finish my second year. I like it here, it is enigmatic yet easy. I needed being like this to get to where I think i should be going. A gut feeling, but resulted positively, even to my surprise.

We entered the restaurant with a minus one (Omer managed to get lost, noone made a big deal because by that night we all knew he was doing it to get attention or to be with at least one person. co-dependent) our host welcomed us, I had to kiss the whole wait staff and some of the sous-chefs (as I am the ex of the boss, and friend, and in friendly Uruguay, one has to do that I guess) and sat at the end of the table. My friend Mercedes and her husband Javier and Herb came all the way to spend the new year with us (what a great feeling) so we were a bunch. Our "cute" waitress Sonia (who seems like we are friends only because I smiled at her back twice!) came and explained the menu (6 courses) and then Juan came for the wine order. I wanted to drink white wine and hoped he will bring me a glass of Terrunyo, but no, even though he acted as if he knew exactly what I want (it is so arrogant for him to think he knows me well, he has absolutely no idea what I like) and brought me another wine, a whole bottle of it, and said "it's new year's you shall finish the bottle by yourself" (such a bad influence this chico). I did finish it at the end of the night, needless to say.

I entered the new Year in Uruguay, with a little bit mala onda (I tend to enter any new year with a great joy, and tons of hope, yet this time, I actually had this feeling that I was going to have a horrible night but the year is going to bring me everything I want!). By that time, I was annoyed by Omer's hypocritical attitude and Juan was ignoring me, and I did not give any of them a hug for the new year! I had tears in my eyes, I was mad, so mad that I could not finish the year the way I expected to do. Recovering from defeat is very hard. My ego feels so crushed (I am yet to understand how come I am entering the year all alone while so many imbeciles manage not to??) But realizing that this is the most infantile feeling a 29-year old woman can feel, in retrospective, I was ashamed. Tears were unstopeble for a good 15 minutes. Then they went away, Juan's brother came next to me and poor me more champagne and smiled, there was welcome in his smile, I felt that he was my friend.

After the 40 minute long fireworks (argentine upper class who resides in La Pedrera love to show off. One of them, Jorge Acevedo, the king of steel, competed with Maitena, the famous argentine caroonist/feminist, for this year's best fireworks. I calculated that at least 20 thousand dollars worth of fireworks was shot, for our pleasure to their expense) we were back at the table to finish the last course. The food was really bad this year, Alejo's absence was felt deeply. Omer, again, started to bitch about staying there and I could not stand it anymore so I stand up and said if he wanted to leave he was more than welcome! I managed to drove him nuts this time and finally we all saw the real Omer, histerical, screaming at me (Mom is right, I am definetely capable of driving people crazy, I guess). Orhan interfered and defended me and things cool down a bit. I entered the new year according to NY time by then!

Traditionally in La Pedre, the biggest New Year's party is thrown by Paz, an trust fund baby who lives ravishly with her husband Julio in this small town--at this mansion which looks like someone brought it from Fiji or something. They seem down to earth yet I have a feeling that they feel like they are more special than the rest of the world a little bit! Anyways, we were invited to the party and went there all together. The bar was open (little bottles of Argentina's own Chandon champagne and whisky was abundant) and horrible electronic music was banging all night long. Everybody looked like they were high out of their minds (another La Pedrera tradition), we must be the only ones who did not pop exctacy that night (or chrytstal meth as I heard someone was giving away!) At one point our group--an hour later Juan's team joined us too-- were dancing and drinking energy drinks to stay up. I was determined this year to stay up (last year I slept through the same party, comfortably at a sunbed next to their pool!) and lasted to celebrate the New Year in Los Angeles time as well. Around 7:30 I was so tired I left the party, walked my fabulous self to the hotel, changed and took a dip in the ocean before crashing! What a New Year!!!!

High Times

I left for Buenos Aires right after the night of the blackout. After 3 months in Montevideo, I was longing for a big city, I needed to work there for a bit and ofcourse I had to pick up one of my best friend's from college, Jack, who decided to spend his only vacation in a year with me, here in the South Cone.

The trip with the cheap Buquebus was as painful as usual, but I arrived in Corina's house in one piece, woke her up and took her out to breakfast at our favorite little cafe in Boedo, Cafe Margot! Later that day, we participated in a protest, together with 50 thousand argentines who are asking for the release of a political prisoner, then a quick nap, and went out. Weekend passed by pretty fast and early monday morning I took a bus to the airport to get my dearest friend from the airport. It was a stressfull trip, it took me 2 hours to get there, but luckily as I entered the terminal, Jack was recently getting out of the customs, his face said: I need to smoke a cigarrette desperately!

We spend a couple of days in Buenos Aires, very casual days let's say. Jack is the kind of visitor that I dream of having, he is not the usual tourist, he enjoys just hanging out as if he lives there the whole time.

We took the morning Buquebus back to Montevideo: I recommend that trip during sunny summer days: boat has a deck, where everybody lays down and sun bathes, smokes, drinks, it was awesome! Jack loves smoking and he is good at it (approximately 2 packs a day!), he was so happy that we had the possibility of travelling without limitations!

He liked Montevideo, even more than Buenos Aires, he said, I guess because it is more of an easygoing city for people who like to relax during their vacations. Our days in Montevideo were usually quiet: I left for work early in the morning, he stayed home and read and rested. There were a couple of parties, like Herb's Thanksgiving event, we went there with Titi and of course my beau du moment, Juan (a.k.a. the hot owner of the restaurant) and we celebrated my 1st year at the cupula with an Asado at the roof of my building.

We decided over night to go to the coast of Uruguay, to my favorite balneario, La Pedrera, and took the first bus there one morning. We woke up and we were there. It was so empty and beautiful. I remembered last summer, and thought thank god so much has changed since then. I was grateful for all that led me to the present. I was full of hope with this new summer to begin with and it felt so good to have it all to my self, I did not have to share it with no one except Jack. I fell in love with the place even more during its off season, even though there was so little to do there, with Jack we managed to entertain ourselves, watching frogs, observing the preparations for the season, swiming in the cold water (he did not, I did) and talking (he did not, I did!)

Unfortunately I could not stay there as much as Jack, and left for Montevideo to prepare myself for the most important interview of 2006 (I managed to get an interview from Eduardo Galeano, it is worth writing about it in a seperate entry!)

After a day or two in Montevideo, we packed again for Buenos Aires. He was leaving and Orhan Abi was arriving for the season! We spend his last days partying and discovering the city a bit more, and high times were soon over. Saying good bye was really hard, even though I did not want to admit to my self, I was getting used to having a great friend with me, here in this foreign land. I had to walk away from his warm hug fast as I can, and he did the same thing. High times were over, three weeks passed by so fast. What they say is true, time goes by so fast when you are having fun!