Mercado Mercado Mercado

The first Sunday here in Montevideo started out with a 10am service at the church we are sharing a building with. The service was of course in Spanish and was just one of the continual reminders that I have to learn a lot of Spanish while I am here.
The day after my first blog post we went to Ciudad Vieja. Here there were many historical land markers and buildings that are important to Montevideo's establishment. Also, there is a large market that takes over the streets. We split into groups and were given the freedom to explore the Ciudad Vieja and the markets. My group (Heather, Hailey, Shelby and Tia) decided to go see the ocean. We walked down to the coast and strolled down the rambla. Once we ran into construction we started back into the city and of course ended up where we should not have been. While walking up a road a young boy came up from behind and snatched Tia's purse! She yelled and ran after him and I also ran after the boy. He turned on the next street and then ran into a doorway. I followed him and down the hall past  doorway and it came to a dead end. There were doorways to homes that elderly men were sitting in front of. Tia decided to ask around to see where the boy had gone. I went back out to check on the girls but I could not see them down either street. I stayed and waited for Tia and while I did, there were more kids on the street corner that watched me closely, but I stared back at them and they never tried to approach me. Eventually Tia came back out talking to an older man and he had her purse. Once he saw that I was with her he put it in her hands. He said that the boy had thrown it in the trash. The money and phone was gone, but the credit cards, license, and keys were still in the purse. We decided we had had enough for the day and took a long walk home. The girls, we found out later, had found another group and stayed with them for the afternoon.
Quite a crazy first full day in Montevideo, but we learned a few things: Teenagers and children have literally zero penalty for crime and their record is wiped clean at age 18. Sadly the ones we have to watch out for the most are 10-15 year-olds.
Since then we have been visiting mercados all over the city and just walking around looking at everything. We have been to the mercado in Ciudad Vieja, one near the beach, a mall (just like american malls) and a sunday market today. We met the youth from the church on Saturday and got to hang out with them again today in the market. I can tell that they will be a huge help in learning conversational Spanish.
Many more to come,
Ciao, Curtis