The ANTEL skyscraper and a steam locomotive, or a decade and a century ago

In the vicinity of the old railroad station, the telephone company ANTEL built a giant skyscraper, designed by the Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott. This happened about 10 years ago.

The building is the highest in the city, and it took as much conversation as concrete to get it built. The idea was to develop the area nearby, which is full of old warehouses, next to the old, beautiful and abandoned railroad station. I'm not really sure it has worked as intended.







In any case I was lucky enough to see an old steam locomotive ready to start, in the small passenger train terminal nearby. I am pretty sure this is about the only passenger train running these days.





It is a tourist attraction now, but it was built as a very workmanlike machine a century ago in good old England, back when they run our railroads like clockwork.







I must come back fully equipped to get more shots of this shining, well restored machine and their crew.

The Oranje, and after

Downtown, before the game against the Netherlands, it was pure madness.

Well, we lost 3-2, but the game was incredible. Tabarez should have changed Forlan earlier, he could not run anymore. The team upsurged after the changes. In any case we may be proud of a well-played game, and two beautiful goals against one of the best teams in the World Cup. The Celeste is back! I can't stop thinking of Jaime Roos song about the team, it is so accurate.

Today the mood is more sedated. We all know that the third-position match is almost a friendly, but it would be nice to beat Germany and show that we are indeed back into the elite teams. Even top fashion stores are in the sky-blue mood.




Neptune is comfortably watching everything in Rodo park. He's probably wishing for a large screen to watch these games. After all he was already there in 1930, if I am not mistaken. This generation of players, along with Tabarez, are giving us back our past.







Sunday last, we lost to the young Nationalelf, but we did give them a good rattle! The second goal by Forlan was out of this world. No wonder the guy was voted Golden Ball last Sunday.

Photos taken with an old Minolta AL-F, Fuji Superia 400 film. The camera actually came from the Netherlands!

World Cup - Sky Blue into the best four!

No need to further comment the dramatic Uruguay-Ghana World Cup match. The city is sky-blue crazy.

This guy was selling national flags in the Harbor Market last Saturday, during the Uruguay-South Korea match. After he sold his stock, he kept these two for his family, and just watched the game.

The Ministry of Finance was decorated with two sky-blue stripes. This is the same building where Mario Benedetti worked for a short time in the 1940s, and where his "Office Poems" were born.





A large screen was set yesterday in the midst of Independence Square, where people were coming together just before the game, to watch, suffer a lot and eventually celebrate.







Next week, the Oranje! Whatever happens will be a gift from the team to this small, crazy, football-loving country. We needed this after 40 years.