Dentists, Ambassadors, Parties and Casinos

We recently pulled out of Montevideo, Uruguay. We were there for about 45 hours, and 24 of those I was on duty, so I made up for it with my off time. My trip to Uruguay started out by getting a trip to the dentist. A couple of weeks ago, I bit down on something hard and my tooth started to hurt. I didn’t think much of it until a few days later when it was still hurting, so we scheduled a trip to the dentist. Turns out it essentially created a hole in my tooth, so he filled it the same way they do with cavities. I was worried about the quality of Uruguayan dentistry, but I can say for sure that this place was even more high tech than the states—they had cameras in my mouth and fancy tools I’d never seen… It was impressive. The long drive through the city to the dentist showed me what a great city it was. It was much more relaxed than Rio, with a much larger European influence. I’d love to go back some day.
Later on that evening, I came back to the ship and changed to go to a reception on our sister ship, USS Boone. (Boone is making the whole deployment with us—she’s a Mayport, FL based Frigate.) The reception was amazing—lots of beer and drink, ice sculptures, beef wellington, crab-stuffed shrimp, as well as about a dozen other equally-delicious foods. As I was standing at a table talking with some ensigns from other ships, a man came over to join us. Turns out, he was the American Ambassador to Uruguay. We talked a lot about foreign policy and economic policy as well, because he previously served in the state department in that capacity. Amazing guy.
After he left, another man showed up who was the regional director of affairs in South America—he explained to us the Russian and Chinese influence on Uruguay and how they were competing with local countries for sway within Uruguay and for their resources. It was really interesting stuff. I also talked with a Chinese general and some Chilean admirals. After getting our fill of dignitaries and drinks, we went to a casino to meet up with another contingent of sailors. We played some blackjack and won a good amount of money. Then I played some roulette and decided to put 50 on red and 50 on odd. Of course, it rolled a zero, so I lost all of that. I decided it was time to stop.
The city was a whirlwind trip—I had duty the next day and, despite one of the worst hangovers of my life, had watch at 7:30 in the morning followed by showing around members of the American embassy for 3 hours after that. It was interesting to see these people so far away from the states with their families, eager to interact with other Americans outside of their own little world.
We set sail today to head south to Chile, where there will be a little bit more time in port and a lot more events with foreign navies. One of our longer time periods out at sea (still under a week!) we will use the time to catch up on work and recouperate. I recently received 18 baseballs in the mail (thank you to the Wildas and Nana/Poppy!) so I’ll be sure to bundle up and go play some catch outside when I get some free time.