At breakfast when I ordered my tortilla yesterday, the waiter was a bit confused about what I wanted and I had to point to the item. Elise then explained the Uruguayan (and Argentine) accent. All 'll,' or "y" sounds become "juh" sounds. Ella is pronounced "E-juh" instead of "Eya." That's probably a poor phonetic approximation but anyway, the words just aren't pronounced the way we were taught in school or the way the upper half of South America, Mexico, and probably Central America pronounces them. Because the normal names of fruits were just too boring, there are also new names for strawberries (frutillas instead of fresas) and pineapple (anana instead of piña). Here's a receta (recipe) for a version of a tutti-frutti licuado. Perhaps the word for pineapple is partially borrowed from the Portuguese abacaxi?
And to keep it exciting, there's a locally invented verb conjugation, 'vos' (not to be confused with the formal third person learned in school) that is used as a 'tu' form.
Dinner yesterday was delicious, we went to a parilla, which serves grilled meat (heaven!) First we had fresh baked bread with sides of chopped tomato and onion in olive oil as well as chopped parsley and onion to spoon on. We had a very tasty local wine (Uruguay makes a lot of wine) to accompany our steaks and salchicha (spicy sausage) and chorizo (more sausage). Quite tasty. The meats are all grilled on a huge rack over wood. I'll try to get a picture next time we go to one. A note about dining: Sides are ordered separately and although bread was brought to our table, we paid for it nonetheless. This was pretty common in nicer restaurants in Rio de Janeiro too.
The neighborhood we're in, Pocitos, reminds me a lot of Flamengo, where I lived in Rio. Lots of apartment buildings and little grocery marts and drug stores. Event the tiled sidewalks are similar. Montevideo is pretty cloud now and a little chilly. Elise says I brought the bad weather because it was sunny and 60 earlier in the week. Oops.
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