The MVD Mujeres (as the beautiful Ana has coined us) decided to treat ourselves to some good food and some good fun. We went to this restaurant two blocks from my house called La Perdiz. It is one of the delicious staples in Montevideo where you can get the traditional Uruguayan meal – from Asado to Pasta. We decided to share the bottles of wine and get several appetizers to pass around. We ordered garlic shrimp, chicken with cheese and sauteed onions, mushroom fries, and Uruguayan style cheese sticks. If you have not noticed, cheese is a really big thing here. However, it doesn’t really have a flavor. It doesn’t matter what it is on or what it looks like, the cheese all tastes the same here. As my new French friend said, “they do not know what real cheese is.” Regardless, the food was delicious, and I am so glad that I like only a few blocks away because it will be a frequented spot for me. I can’t wait to take my parents when they come and visit.

After our filling meal, we headed to a place called Vintage Pool – so simple, yet awesome! This is a multi-level building with a bar and some tables right inside the door and two floors of pool tables. Men and women of all ages sit around drinking great drinks and playing pool while nineties music videos play in the background. It was pretty crowed on a Saturday night, so the Mujeres grabbed some drinks and talked about boys. You know, the usual. After an hour or so, our table was open.

Unlike the states, you don’t put quarters into the tables. You pay for jagged coins that uniquely fit into the coin slot. Each coin (or game) is 50 pesos. The ladies split Americans vs Uruguayans. Now, I have a friend back in the states who is a pool queen. And being the competitive bitch that I am, I learned from her and therefore learned from the best! Andrea would have been super proud and I sunk the balls like a champ. PING! However, the Uruguayans like to make their own rules. For example, if you hit the other team’s ball first on a shot, the other team puts the white ball on starting dot and gets two shots regardless. Same goes for a scratch. But the rule that just curdled my milk was you must get the 8 ball into THE SAME pocket as the last ball you hit. What. The. F@#$. So of course, I was the one with the 8 ball shot. And it was perfectly lined up for a back corner pocket. But nooooo. I had to get it in the side left pocket to win Uruguayan style. So what did I do? I took a card out of the Uruguayan deck and made my own rule. I sunk that corner pocket shot with grace and style and took the Uruguayan loss, knowing that I had made my fellow American pool players proud. After all, Andrea was my teacher and I just couldn’t let her down.

The second game we played competitive people vs the non-competatives. Poor things didn’t even have a chance. Alejandra and I schooled the hell out of them in the span of 15 minutes. AND we won American style for real this time.

How’s my form, Andrea?