King bed that is. Uruvan delivered my shipment yesterday morning as scheduled. They were on time and very professional. They put together the bed and desk without a hitch and unwrapped all the furniture. They offered to unpack as well but I just had them open all the boxes. Other than the three week delay from when the ship arrived in MVD and when I actually received my stuff, I’m very happy with Uruvan. I’d contribute most of the delay to the fact that the ship arrived in port on the Friday before Christmas. Considering that most everything here shuts down the week of Christmas and New Year a three-week delay is understandable.

This has been and continues to be a busy week. Wednesday was JP’s birthday. Elena, Shirley and I took him out to dinner in Ciudad Viaja. Coincidently it was also Golden Lotus’ birthday on Wednesday. She spent it in Chile with FuBarrio but now that they’re back in Montevideo the four of us will have to get together to celebrate the two birthdays and to hear all of the details of their adventure in Chile. Oh, another birthday coincidence. Elena and Shirley share the smae birthday as well. Theirs was a week ago Wednesday.

Tonight we’re having some friends over to continue celebrating all of these January births. The house is a mess with things half unpacked. Since I’m pressed for time I’ll cut this entry short. I have to clear enough space on the first floor for people to move around.

We had our first out of town visitors. My friends Mirlan and Oscar were vacationing in Argentina. For the last day of their trip they took the ferry from Buenos Aires to Montevido to hang with JP and me. Mirlan and I have known each other for almost five years. This was the first time I met Oscar but I’d definitely call him a friend now; he’s a cool dude.

As you may have guessed from the title of this post Mirlan and Oscar are Cuban. They both live in Miami now. After having lunch at Punta Carretas Shopping we took a walk across the street to the Punta Carretas light house. Afterwards we went to a restaurant in Parque Rodó for a beer. Coincidently our waitress, Ileana, is also from Cuba. She’s been here in Uruguay a year or two.

For dinner we went to Ciudad Vieja. Afterwards we took a walk through downtown and went to a casino. I walked in the place with US$20 and left with UY$732! A profit of about US$10. Not bad. A 50% return on investment after 90 minutes.

The next day Mirlan and Oscar caught the 1pm ferry back to B.A. and that night they flew home to Miami. It was nice spending time with them and showing off my new hometown of Montevideo. I think they enjoyed it. Maybe next time they’ll stay longer.

Here are a few photos of their whirlwind visit.

Three cool Cubans; Ilian, Mirlan and Oscar.

A Cuban sandwich. Oscar, JP and Mirlan.

Oscar and JP having a laughing attack.

Barney and Bamm-Bamm.

Mirlan with the Punta Carretas lighthouse.

View of downtown Montevideo from the tip of Punta Carretas.

Oscar and Mirlan with the luxury
apartments on the Rambla Gandhi in the background.

JP striking a pose.

Mirlan on the rocks (AKA Cuba Libre).

Oscar in Punta Carretas Shopping.

Mirlan summoning his flock.

Mirlan and JP

Mikey, Mirlan and Oscar

Mirlan and Oscar attempting a Tango.

Storms! They say that Uruguay is free of natural disasters. Lies, pure lies! I’m writing this offline since it’s storming outside like crazy. The wind is howling along with thunder and lightening. Now it’s raining but earlier it was pouring down rain. The ceiling above the stairs to the roof was leaking like a sieve. I used the dogs’ bowls along with a bucket to catch as much of the water as possible. In less than five minutes the bowls had about an inch of rain water in them.

This is the third storm like this since I arrived in Uruguay two months ago. Check out JP’s blog for an entry he wrote about Sudestadas. The last storm was about a week ago. It had 80 mile an hour winds coming off the Rio de la Plata, which happens to be across the street. During that one rain was coming through the windows in the bedroom. It looked like a pipe broke. Luckily a few days ago I took advantage of a dry day and sealed the bedroom windows. The sealing gun broke before I could finish but still I did enough that the bedroom remained relatively dry this time around. It’s still storming so I should say that so far the bedroom is doing okay.

The winds were more intense last time around. It sounds like a category 1 hurricane out there now. The last storm was more like a category 3 or 4. It was as bad as any hurricane I lived through in Miami. The day after my friends DT, LT, and I took a drive around Montevideo. In each neighborhood there were trees that lost branches and a few streets had lanes blocked completely. It reminded me of Miami after hurricane Andrew. (Miami, not Homestead, FL. Homestead was completely destroyed by Andrew.)

With any luck we’ll have a long stretch of dry weather when this clears up. I’m sure with Christmas and New Year’s Eve next week it’ll be next to impossible to get anybody to fix the roof.

As I post this it’s about eight hours since the storm ended. We survived okay. The lights never went out, the place dried up nicely, and the sun came out in the afternoon. Life Is Beautiful.

This blog is about me, Maverick (aka IBMike, Michael, or Mikey), and my odyssey. A maverick is “1 an unorthodox or independent-minded person” or “2 an unbranded calf or yearling” (according to Apple OS X’s dictionary). I prefer the first definition but I won’t be offended if you think the second is more appropriate. An odyssey is “a long and eventful or adventurous journey.” That seems to be a great way to describe my life, especially this past year. So here I am sharing my odyssey with whoever is interested in reading about it.

Here’s a little about me to get you started. Since this blog is going to be about my odyssey I won’t try to tell you everything in my first post. For now I’ll just write a little about the present; where I’m at in my life right now.

As I write this I’m living in the neighborhood of Punta Carretas in Montevideo, Uruguay. For those of you who don’t have a clue about Uruguay I’ll give you some basic info. Uruguay is a small country in South America with a population of about three and a half million people. It’s roughly the size of Washington State, USA, nestled between Argentina and Brazil. The eastern boarder is the Atlantic Ocean, the southern boarder is the Rio De La Plata (aka River Plate, or River of Silver), and the western boarder is the Uruguay River with Argentina on the other side of the river. The official name of the country is La Republica Oriental del Uruguay, which in English literally means The Republic on the Eastern Side of the Uruguay (River). The origin of the word “orient” is from the Latin word oriri, which means “to rise.” I guess you could translate the name of the country to be The Republic on the Side of the Uruguay River Where the Sun Rises. According to Wikipedia, the word Uruguay comes from the Guarani language and means “river of the painted birds.” In English, The Republic On The Side Of The River Of The Painted Birds That The Sun Rises. For sanity’s sake let’s agree to call it Uruguay.

A long time ago in a land far, far away I was born. Since my age is probably the only thing I will lie about I won’t tell you when I was born. (Hmm, if I’m willing to lie about my age can you really trust that that’s really the only thing I’ll lie about?) I was born in Westchester County, New York State, United States of America. I spent most of my childhood in a small town called Rocky Point, New York, which is located on the north shore of Long Island across the Long Island Sound from Connecticut. I’ll tackle how I found my way from this humble beginning to Montevideo in future posts.

Currently I share my life with JP (aka A-Philosophical) and two dogs, Barney and Bamm-Bamm. Barney, JP and I are gay; Bamm-Bamm is straight. I trust that that doesn’t offend anybody. We love Bamm-Bamm regardless of his sexual orientation. He’s a good soul. If you are offended then it’s probably best you don’t read any more of this blog.

That’s all for now. Hopefully this first entry whets your appetite and that you’ll come back to read my future entries about my odyssey!