MOBY DICK
While in Punta Del Este, we became regulars at a bar, appropriately named Moby Dick. The name was so fitting as it was full of old sailors, with long white beards… and eye patches… (Well actually not the latter, but I wish). Anyhow, the mix of sailors and young hostel dwellers was enough entertainment to fill any night. Cameron was on the constant mission to find anyone with a sailboat who would take us out… she is always scheming… or shall we say, networking. She worked her magic and found one old sailor who was out drinking with his thirty-something son. He was interested in talking boat-talk until… she brought him back to a table with two boys (Zach and Preston). Where he promptly lost interest, but not before describing in detail his very own whale story. Supposedly his boat once hit a huge whale, sending the whole crew flying…if I only understood Spanish a bit better, I think I would have gotten a very interesting story. The son later informed us that his father tends to exaggerate; either way, I appreciated the enthusiasm. Besides looking for old men with boats, we also perfected the game Kings without cards… we later realized how we probably looked really funny playing a card game, first with little pieces of paper that represented cards and later scraping the paper, and just going in order from A-K around the table. For those of you who are too old to know how kings works, don’t worry, it’s not that exciting, you really aren’t missing out (Mom). Anyhow we spent every night at Moby Dicks and on the second night, we were “picked-up” by a Uruguayan girl who could tell we were speaking English. She invited us all over to her table to have some drinks and talk with her and her friends. They wanted to practice English. Apparently Zach and I were the only ones who wanted to practice Spanish, because at this point Preston and Cameron decided to head back to the hostel. Zach and I ended up spending the rest of the evening with Augustina, her baby’s daddy and his brother. They were the MOST KIND people I have ever ever meet. A little voice in my head kept saying… “No one is this nice… I they are going to mug us” luckily I didn’t listen to that part of my brain, and instead decided to blindly follow these strangers. Sometimes people are actually genuinely kind! They paid for our drinks, took us on walk along the boardwalk and showed us their favorite places to sit near the ocean, away from the public eye. It was a beautiful space and since we were so far away from the city, the stars were amazing; I didn’t know how much I had missed seeing the stars…. Big cities do have some drawbacks.
Overall Moby Dick really came through, Firs of all it provided drinks… a place to play games… old men who had run-ins with whales, and native Uruguayans.
This is what happens to you at Moby Dick…
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| Moby Dick |
