Feliz Ano

The New Year’s celebration here in Uruguay was much like that of Christmas. We were all invited by Cesar, a biologist friend of Mati’s who lives in Tacuarembo and loves to talk biology, to his family’s house for the night. The first round was appetizers of chorizo and toasted bread with spreads but no little melted cheese cubes this time. The main course was cordero (lamb) from the parilla. There was plain cordero and cordero a la pizza (lamb parmeasan). I am happy to say that this time, I enjoyed the lamb. The first time I tried lamb was at our house a couple of weeks ago. It was, in a word, terrible. The meat was strong, musty flavored and very fatty. For me it was an awful experience to not enjoy the meat. Usually, I don’t eat much, if any, meat. When I do eat meat, I am thankful to the animal which gave its life so I could eat. Not being able to enjoy the meat, I felt ungrateful. After seeing the difference in size between the lamb at New Years and the “lamb” we prepared, I am sure we were given adult sheep the first time which would explain the difference in flavor and texture. Plus, the lamb at New Year’s had been cooking for five hours!! Five hours on the grill… Of course at midnight, there were fireworks in the neighborhood. And I participated in one more tradition. For travel in the New Year, Cesar’s family packs a suitcase with a few items and walks around the block. I only had my muchila from the field but went with this nonetheless. Since I was spending New Year’s already traveling in a foreign country, I figured this gave me a leg up on the tradition. After all of this, we went to a rave. At least, I think it was a rave. Just outside of town, there is a place called Rasta Revolution. I’m not sure what the usual function of it is but for New Year’s, Rasta Revolution was transformed into a giant dance hall. There were at least three covered pavilions, all with a different type of music blasting from speakers. Unfortunately, the music from one competed with the music from another and I often found myself in a void of mushy noise. It was packed (quite possibly with the entire population of Tacuarembo) and the people were dressed dresses reminiscent of high-school homecoming to the more casual jeans and t-shirt.