another Florida/ Cita Florida

vecā stacija, jaunā stacija, pats vilciens un piesvīdis, režģots vilciena logs un mans izbrīns

Laipni lūgti Floridā, senatnes dvesma te atrodama it visur...

Deva mierpilnās realitātes

It turns out there are trains in Uruguay! So one weekend we decided to try them out! I already knew that there is a huge, beautiful old train station building close to the port -it doesn't work anymore, people hope they gonna restore it someday, but meanwhile they build a small new station. There are only few destinations from Montevideo to the closest interior towns - one of them is Florida, about 100 km ride - it took us 3h :) The trains are old, but the seats are comfy, there is no heating however, let me remind you I still have the winter season here, so we were freezing...., brrrr it was cold!!!

It was a cold, gray day, but we were so excited to have train ride and so determined to enjoy the day that we ignored our frozen toes and running noses. We have discovered by now that all the towns look the same, more or less – there is the main square with a church, police station, municipality, a bakery, a bar and a man shopping street. The towns are formed in blocks, the houses are very low and if I had been brought to a town with my eyes closed and then opened them, I wouldn’t be able to tell which town I’m in.

We spent a big part of the day searching for a coffee shop, which was rather difficult, because most bars don’t serve coffee, we were explained that they are simple bars where you can get a drink – what else do you need, now seriously! But the walk was good, it took us trough out the town, to a bakery with delicious pastry, to a burger stand and a nearby square to have lunch until finally we found a place to worm up and have a hot drink :).

Afterwards we decided to search for the river we had seen in the map and the town park. And what a joy, the sun came up and wormed up the day and made us smile. We went through the little streets, and saw a bit the reality of small town living, got to the river on the town border and saw a nice view – water, trees, horses and everything covered in plastic bags – sad, but true, they still working on the THINK GREEN thing here! 

Then we realised that our train leaves in an hour and had to go through the whole town to get to the station. Had no choice but to move fast – we got on the train 10 min before departure – good job!!!  The sun had wormed up the train to, the ride back was quite enjoyable and we had a Saturday well spent!