Sunset in Montevideo
After a lot of anticipation, planning, anxiety, packing, hugs and tears (my mom's not mine), I arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay on Sunday afternoon. I flew out of D.C. on Saturday night and caught a connecting flight from Miami to Montevideo. There were at least 15 other Remotes on my flight and I met a few of them standing in line to board the plane. After a two-hour delay on the runway to deal with some mechanical issues, we were finally off. Except for waking up to eat, I slept almost the entire eight and a half hours to Montevideo (which I never do), thanks in large part to the mere three hours of sleep I got after my going away party at home on Friday night.
When we landed in Montevideo and walked through the doors out of customs, members of the Remote Year team were there to greet us by name (they had clearly done their homework AKA a little pre-arrival stalking) with huge smiles and awesome welcome signs. I got some pesos out of the ATM and started meeting and greeting the people that I’ll be spending the next year of my life with. This first week is bound to be an endless series of answering the basics: “What do you do?”, “Where are you from?”, “Where’d you go to school?”, etcetera, etcetera. We’re also supposed to put together a slide with our name and pictures of ourselves that represent our personalities to share with the group at our official orientation this Saturday. However, we’ve glossed over many formalities in the “getting to know you” process that typically come when you meet someone at school or at work. Our dinner conversations the past few nights have included answering questions like “What’s your greatest weakness in a relationship?”, “What’s your greatest fear about this trip?” and “What’s your ‘type’ when dating?”. We all expect that traveling with one another for a year will bring us together in ways that we can’t begin to anticipate, so why not skip the small talk?
Montevideo itself is still somewhat of a mystery to me. I’ve only been here a few days but am already in a rush to learn the city’s secrets. The beauty of having a month here, though, is that I have time to explore and really learn the different neighborhoods and the city’s culture.
We’re staying in the center of Montevideo, right on Cagancha Square. Our co-working space, Sinergia, and the beach(!), are both about a 20-minute walk away. When I arrived on Monday morning I initially passed right by the door, but when I entered the building I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m used to having an office all to myself, so adjusting to the shared space has been an interesting, but positive change. The fact that Sinergia is an established co-working space for local freelancers and entrepreneurs definitely helps with the transition because we automatically became part of “la comunidad”. On our first day here we had a meet and greet happy hour on the roof deck followed by dinner and drinks with a number of the locals who work in the office. Sitting next to them at tables that seat up to six means I get to learn about what it is they’re working on (including by trying out some pretty cool virtual reality glasses) and practice my rusty Spanish.
Week one is not yet done and, while I've met most of our group, it is definitely going to take us all some time to learn one another's names and backgrounds. In the meantime, I think we're all trying to settle into Montevideo and get used to the fact that, yes, this is our new normal.