a vacation from the vacation

There are few things I remember from the family vacations of my childhood. There was Paris (or that time we saw "Beauty and the Beast" at EuroDisney), Rome (that place with a lot of scooters), Muscat (aka a really long car ride) or Goa (the hotel with the life-size chess board).

There are some memories that don't belong to any particular vacation, rather to the idea of what it means to holiday with the Sousas.

First, and foremost, the walking. My dad is an energetic man with long strides. He is also possibly the only person to have powerwalked the Champs Elysees -- and enjoyed it. That's the lasting image of our travels: Mum, Daniel and I wondering why we couldn't just stroll like everyone else, Dad on a schedule all of his own.

Dad would probably be pretty bored with me and Julia. We sleep in, we take leisurely coffee breaks in the afternoons, we stop in at every other shop on our way anywhere. Buenos Aires is a big, busy city with plenty to see and do, and after three days we we ready for a vacation from our vacation.

And so we went to Uruguay.

On Thursday morning we hopped a ferry across the way to Colonial del Sacramento, a small town (reputadely the most pictoresque) in Uruguay. We spent two wonderful days doing nothing much -- meandering down cobblestone streets, taking in tiny museums and big lunches, napping and watching the water.

There's another thing about family vacations -- well, about my dad really. In Oman I can see him pointing out the royal coat of arms on the cannons outside the old Portuguese forts. In Goa, it's him attempting to speak Portuguese to anyone who looks like they might be old enough to remember those colonial days. Today he talks about going to Timor Leste or S. Tome e Principe off the West coast of Africa. It's a strange tendency, but a natural one -- no matter how far away he goes, he's always looking for pieces of home.

Colonia was founded by the Portuguese in the early 1700s. That's why there are narrow cobblestone streets to wander and azelujos (painted tiles) on the houses. The Portuguese weren't there that long (until about 1760 when they signed some peace treaty with the Spaniards) but they left their mark in the architecture of the old town. All of the museums are housed in well-restored manors of Portuguese governors and officials, including the Portuguese Museum (made possible by a generous grant from the Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkien interestingly enough).


That's me with my arm around a bust of Camoes, the Shakespeare of Portugal.

What can I say...

I am my father's daughter.