It's known today because mid-1800s the mountebanks/street sellers came up with this bit of confectionery wrapped in fancy printed paper with a little scrap of poetry included, the perfect interested gift for the various pompous wenchlets all about London. You'd trade a twopence for a kiss through that token, lest someone could accuse them of selling out. Unsurprisingly, it was called a motto-kiss, and so motto entered the otherwise rather limited vocabulary of the psychotic young man, the unemployable young "gents" with grocery debts and "hopes of social mobility" roundly resting on public expenditure.

Whole thing's pretty illustrative of the coy contortions, and their impact on deplorable society, really.

Many building are painted too for however long that lasts. Others go bare concrete. Usually only the facades of buildings get any maintenance attention. The sides are either bare concrete or paint that the weather will fade to bare concrete over time.

It is not unknown for chunks of building to fall. It is sufficiently uncommon enough to make the news when there are casualties, but otherwise... The city has a lot of Art Deco ruins occupied despite their rightful status as ruins.

Now I wonder - how do you make the difference between street signs (advertisement!) and police car (motto!)?

Come to think of it I wasn't certain. Merriam-Webster says of "motto":

1 : a sentence, phrase, or word inscribed on something as appropriate to or indicative of its character or use

2 : a short expression of a guiding principle

Whether "for life and coexistence" qualifies as appropriate, indicative or guiding for police, I could indeed see it in the same category as "your best plan" for a cell provider.

why tense/compressed in the first place, I half-wonder.

The question of whether my bags made it was part of it (not that I was fretting about that the whole flight or anything, but the moment of truth was at the end). But I also find flying stressful generally - not the flying itself so much as the logistics and restrictive environment.

Glad you liked the photos.

@BingoBoingo: thanks for filling that in!

What a weird thing to have a tax on painting/maintenance though - in saner places there is usually a *rebate* on such things since well, do they want balconies/buildings to fall on the pavement or what?

Anyways, the things I learn from a picture!

@Diana Coman - The "Proud to be White" thing is a political slogan. It's how the locals that don't do the socialism identify themselves as apart from the old Red socialist party and the new Red socialist coalition. The closest similar thing in the English language space is probably "Redneck Pride" or more loosely the "Don't tread on Me" Gasden flag. One variant of the Blanco party flag features the face of Juan Antonio Lavalleja topped with a Sombrero de Vaquero. After the Red General Rivera won a presidential election (Uruguay's population in that time ~60,000 persons) Lavalleja did the open rebellion thing until he was integrated into a triumverate. He died shortly there after. The wikipedo bio of Lavalleja neglects that during this time Uruguay had seperate capitals of Montevideo (limited to the present old city) and Cerrito de la Victory a short walk away which controlled the rest of Uruguay.

But somehow elections matter or something. Dumas has a very Pantsuit hearsay based agiprop piece on the dispute, thus popular histories misrepresent the hungry derps holed up by the bay as having been "The Government of Uruguay" while the rest of the country lead by men controlling the national wealth didn't particularly need them at all. Then the Empire of Brasil intervened in favor of the port crowd and against the landed whereafter everything started going to shit.

"Orgullosamente blanco" - from the picture it might even refer to the building itself - certainly whiter than its neighbour!

"I found myself tired but alert and relieved." - why tense/compressed in the first place, I half-wonder.

Thank you for the photos!