Election Day!

Mike and I have been at Zoom, our local cyber cafe, for about 3 hours now, vicariously standing in snaking lines at the polls and enjoying the buzz. We're going to pack it in for a couple hours and then meet Annie and Michel's friends Pol and Rut downtown.

Since we got to Montevideo we've been searching for a festive place to watch election returns, naively believing that in all the towns in all the world there would always be American gin joints bursting with election day fervor. Not so much. Neither the Artigas-Washington Library's binational center nor the Sheraton is observing the occasion. The U.S. Embassy froze us out with repeated no's to queries sent to a multiplicity of officers and offices.

But we didn't reckon with the kindess of our friends of friends nor with the perseverance of our Spanish teacher. Pol and Rut offered to search out a cable station airing coverage at Rut's mother's house. Then Eddy came up with a cyber cafe that stays open until 5am. We can have a convivial bilingual TV session and then go hit the computers in the wee hours.

Looking forward to this evening!