Punta del Este's Avenida Gorlero is Uruguay's Champs-Elysées or Fifth Avenue, its most famous and chic avenue. In cafés, such as El Greco or La Pasiva, you'll actually be charged as much as in Paris for coffee! (Shhhhhh, don't tell my grandma I patronize these places or I'll be lectured on my shameful wastefulness). At the end of the little streets that run perpendicularly to Golero is my beloved Atlantic Ocean. Among fabulous ice-cream parlors and fancy shoe stores (together with meat, leather is the foundation of Uruguay's economy), are several super-well-stocked bookstores. Latin American literature became dear to me when I was in junior high in Hong Kong (!) and a Peruvian Spanish teacher introduced me to Cortázar (arguably my favorite short-story writer), Borges, García Marquez, Onetti, and many more. I love having a frothy cortado with some good reading... This week, I bought volumes by authors whose works I have yet to discover: Argentina's Silvina Ocampo, and Chile's Roberto Bolaño (whose novel Los detectivos salvajes was enthusiastically covered in American papers when it was translated into English a few months ago). Check them out! (Shhhhhh, don't tell my grandma I spend money on books or I'll be lectured on my shameful wastefulness.)
I was delighted to find out that
Fashion Ivy had awarded me an Excellent Blogger distinction!
Thank you so much, she said, blushing...
Emily Dickinson
Take the Quiz here!
16 comments:
Your previous post on Maldonado and this one on Gorlero describe two different worlds in the same tiny country.
so nice to hear about other voices!! love the way you bring grandma into the post... shhhh ... she knows exactly who you are (and loves you)...!
I love discovering new authors. I promise not to share your purchases with your grandmother.
All those different forms of coffee look delicious! Congratulations on the award, Mary-Laure...it is well deserved :)
Books are never a waste of money or time, tell your gramma ;)
Have a great trip, it sounds wonderful!
felicitations! you deserve it! its okay to spluge every now and then no? im dying to buy some books..but due to the 20kg baggage allowance ill have to somehow manage, im trying not to buy anything (i guess ill have a little extra money to spend when i arrive!)
books and coffee a shameful waste?
but they both make the world go round!
Gramma is right : women with books are dangerous! but that's why some men love them.
The pictures look really interesting and yeah, books, it's hard not to buy them...our cupboard is getting too small.
enjoy your time there and I will visit you soon again,
Solange
Well, lucky you!
There are very few things I enjoy more than a cortado and some good reading!
xx
Dear all,
I´m glad to hear I´m not the only one who splurges on books.
My grandma thinks that a woman´s life goal must be to find "un marido" (a husband), and the way she sees it, men run away from female bookworms, who´d be betetr advised to spend their time learning how to sew and cook... Plus I´ve read so many books, why bother to read more, she asks...
Ay, abuela...
Pierre, I wonder what men you mean?
oooh, thanks for the recommendations. books, coffee, sunshine and travel....did i mention i am living vicariously!?
I EXIGE that you bring back whatever that drink next to the blue book by Roberto Bolano is.
Make it a double!!!
Time for another award, back at my blog, waiting for you to pick. :)
Au fait fait-il beau ?
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