This morning dove living outside our Montevideo bedroom window was out exploring the world until life brought her to nest and hatch the new life of two little chicks. We were privileged enough to see the eggs then the chicks that couldn't hold up their heads. When I told Paul that the Mommy dove was sitting on top of the chicks, he commented that she had millions of years of experience in her genetic memory so probably knows what she is doing. She flew away briefly, maybe to find food, and the chicks were holding up their heads!
The baby doves are getting stronger and so are we. After our initial flurry of activity of getting settled and pushing ourselves to see as much as possible right away on foot and on hot exhausting bike rides, Paul and I both got big tummy aches that brought us to our Montevideo nest. Now we are a bit better with a new attitude of pacing ourselves and remembering to balance our VIDEOSyncracies work with our curiosity about our new surroundings.
Like emerging chicks we are now going for gentle walks and taking in our surroundings in our neighborhood of Ciudad Vieja, Montevideo. I'm excited to go to my new favorite health food store, La Molienda, on the beautiful and interesting walking street right near our apartment and say Como estas hoy to the cashier I've been seeing regularly. We've been practicing a combination of using the Spanish we have learned and getting quick with the Google translate app at home. Venturing out as an English speaker seems like enough of a challenge and an exploration.
For lunch, we thought it would be safe for our tummies to go to the highly recommended and cozy vegan restaurant, Soul, about 400 feet from our apartment. Paul had a house made seiten burger and I had a seiten bowl with dips. Two very yummy meals for about $20.00. The restaurant is owned by a very sweet young couple. The atmospheric music seemed to be a fusion of modern jazz, Spanish, traditional. I really enjoyed the food and ambience. Soul has live music on Thursday nights for us to try. Although Uruguay has a strong tradition of meat consumption, we are finding some of the best vegan food. The young people are hatching new ideas.