Lunch at the Port – means this place – the Mercado del Puerto. Actually down in the port area, opposite the imposing art deco building office of the National Fleet – (which I will show another time – one of my favs.) Walking in from the street you find yourself in this cavernous place which feels like an ancient railway station, which it is. Destined for possibly Paraguay or Bolivia, at the time the prefabricated parts for this station arrived in Montevideo by ship from ?UK? whoever ordered it was not able to pay for it, the country involved being actively engaged in one of the many civil wars that went on in this region in the mid nineteenth century. So it was off-loaded here, and erected as a market – there is no station attached – in time port workers came here to eat at cafes and bars which multiplied and grew, today it is open days and some nights, there are twenty or more restaurants, several bars, a few galleries, lots of craft vendors and several artists, one or two of which are very good. It is THE place to lunch on the weekends, very crowded, noisy, lots of entertainment planned and incidental – from a urugauayan brass band playing brasilian music, to the drumming troup that always come through, a very old guy with a guitar who sings not so well (Virginia says she and her friends have always paid for him to take a rest, telling him he has been siniging so hard he must be exhausted, ie go away….) Every time we go there is always the guy I call The Birdman – who makes and sells beautifully crafted plywood flying geese mobiles, of which I must have bought at least 10 down the years for prices ranging from US$20 – $40… depending… I bought one on my very frist visit way back in 1988. Then there is a ventriloquist who sings risque songs, loudly and awfully, and wheels his cd player and large amps around on a cart – real noise pollution. We haven’t seen the imposing man in a grey overcoat who sings opera, for some time. Each week we try to wear at least one pair of shoes between us that need cleaning – this wonderful service is performed by an itinerant shoe cleaner who has been there for years, too. There’s a particular policeman, always there, now you see him now you don’t, always looking, just always working his way through the crowd, avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, gun on hip – national security says my friend Virginia, who clearly knows him quite well…. he stoppped by our table the other day for a chat with her, and let loose a smile we had never seen before.