montevideo ... the city full of maps

i arrived in montevideo this morning to beautiful weather after sleeping most of the three hour ferry ride this morning. The ferry departed buenos aires at the early hour of 7 am, which translated into being at the ferry terminal and immigration at 6 am. by the time i boarded the ferry, i was ready for a nap/early morning ciesta. i had very little knowledge of montevideo before arriving here. there were very little online resources (particularly in english) that i could locate. my hope was that there would be lots of tourist information, such as maps, when i arrived.

on every street corner i was blessed with a large map of the city. maps were plastered to the sides of buildings, on billboards, and bus stops. there were two dilemmas in the maps. first, none of the maps indicated your location! they were all pretty maps but they didnt note where you currently were. the second (bigger) dilemma is that there are no street signs. some buildings adorn the street name, but not very few. this two factors made it very difficult to get any sense of direction for the first bit. eventually i was able to put the puzzle pieces together and figured out my location. after locating myself on a map, i am off to explore the city. the funny part is that i have no plan for my time in montevideo so figuring out the map and my location really wasnt essential. oh well.