Expat Travel Technology: VoIP Phone Solutions

Posted on May 25, 2009 by Brad

Lisa and I both need an inexpensive and simple way to speak with family and clients in North America and around the world. The fantastic thing about this is that we didn’t have to change anything to do it. We have been using Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for several years. It’s a phone system that uses the internet to carry conversation rather than regular phone lines. There are countless services available and they are geared to various audiences. All of these service work over a standard Uruguayan DSL connection (they don’t have cable internet here) and other foreign internet services (check the country you’re headed to in order to be certain the internet is stable enough). I will describe several of options here.

RingCentral

We currently have three VoIP services with our primary service being RingCentral. RingCentral offers a hosted plan. It’s very easy to set up and you don’t need any hardware other than a computer and a headset. RingCentral has a “softphone” panel that appears on your computer screen, looks like the face of a regular phone and operates in most ways like a regular phone. You can use the softphone from a laptop on the road over WiFi or 3G wireless card. It also allows you to send and receive faxes from your computer by either attaching a file such as a pdf or scanning your page right into the program to be sent off. Like many VoIP services, you receive your voice messages and faxes via email. I have tried Packet 8, Vonage, and efax. They are all fine service, but RingCentral blows all of these out of the water. It is comprehensive. You can route calls to various extensions if you have staff or contractors in other parts of the world and can all have US, Canadian, UK or other global phone numbers. It has a very simple interface and even works on your iPhone as a calling app. My clients can call me from anywhere in the world and have no idea that they’ve reached me in Uruguay unless I’ve told them. I called a client in Kazakhstan the other day on my RingCentral line to his Vonage line dialing a local US phone number. Call quality was great. I have yet to drop a call with anyone (I actually had more dropped calls in the States than I do here…weird).

There are many plan levels for RingCentral. The cheapest starting at US$9.99/mo. I have opted for a middle of road plan that includes a Linksys IP Phone. It’s a regular business class phone that sits on my desk. The call quality is excellent. It’s more stable than the softphone that I mentioned earlier. If you’d like to order the phone from RingCentral, you’ll pay anywhere from Free-$100 depending on which service plan you go with. They also have a plan that includes unlimited use and four business IP phones with individual numbers for $99/month.

RingCentral comes with my highest recommendation if you’re an expatriate that requires a business class solution. If you already have business numbers you’d like to keep, you can port them over no problem. Would you like an 800#? You can pick between 800, 866, 877 and 888 for free.

Skype

Of course many people know Skype. I use it regularly to call vendors and clients in other countries. If you’d like to give it a shot–you can download Skype. With Skype I can have video conferences or simply use it as a phone (again you need a headset with microphone or a WebCam for the video features). There are Skype Cordless WiFi phones that you can use in your house as well and can be purchased through various online and retail outlets. I’ve not purchased the cordless but had considered this option. Skype phones come in several versions. Some require a computer and some do not. Check the details.

Skype is a fee based service to call regular phone lines and a free service to have video calls and/or voice calls with other Skype users. If you never need to call a regular telephone–you won’t pay a cent for this service. Just get your family, friends and clients set up with a camera and show them where to download Skype and you will be up and running in no time. For the younger set this is very easy to set up. If you are not exactly best friends with your computer, you might need a hand from your 11 year grandson or granddaughter. I referred this to one gentleman that has 90+ year old family members in various parts of the United States. They can’t travel as easily anymore and Skype has allowed them to see family across the country and around the world with the free video chats.

MagicJack

Finally, now that I know the service, a MagicJack. The commercials and the website are really cheesey and it seems too good to be true, but this little thinga-ma-watchit really works and is a perfect solution for someone that needs a cheap solution that works great. You just plug MagicJack into your computer–it installs some software–you type in your confirmation info, and then plug in a standard corded or cordless phone and you’re set. It dials like a regular phone. Once you pay your initial $30 or $40 bucks you have free calling to anywhere in the US, with inexpensive calls around the globe. We opted for an additional 5 years of service so we paid about $100 in one shot. Now we have free calling to family and friends. We also use the MagicJack in case one of our other services not working. Your voice messages can be picked up from your phone or via email since a small VM file is emailed to you. I have also set up an email rule to forward to Lisa’s email as well so we both get messages on our computers. We treat the MagicJack like a land line with no payments in our case for 6 years. It’s free for family to call and they don’t need anything special to do it. Just your new phone number. At the time, I’m writing this you cannot move a current phone number to the MagicJack, but I understand that feature is coming.

There is so much more to say about phone and VoIP technology. I’m not covering many different other possibilities. Just know that you can communicate with just a little additional cost. In fact, you are probably going to pay less than you were at home, because you’ll be ditching your land line and expensive cell phone plan in favor of one of these simple and inexpensive services. VoIP is one of the greatest, and most important tools to any expat. Shoot me some questions for anything that you’d like me to expand on. I’ve tried to keep this simple.

“It’s The Little Differences”

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Lisa

Vincent: ”But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?”

Jules: ”What?”

Vincent: ”It’s the little differences. I mean, they got the same sh*t over there that we got here, but it’s just, just, there it’s a little different.

Pulp Fiction, 1994.

Well, that goes for just about anywhere in the world that you visit, whether it is Europe, or Asia, or South America. And it’s not that things are different as in “weird”, just different than what we are used to.

1.) Bugs. We come from a cold weather climate of MN. Sure, there are bugs there like mosquitoes, ticks, flies and spiders, but this is a little different. It is not like when we were in the Amazon in Peru, but here the creepy crawlies are still a lot bigger and scarier than MN. I’m generally not squeamish, but when I turn the light on and two “things” that are about an inch-and-a-half long go scurrying for the cover of darkness, I get a little freaked. Ewww.

2.) Other warm weather differences: There are indoor/outdoor spaces here. Our back courtyard is nearly an indoor space, except it is open above. Perfect for entertaining, for cooking on the large brick parilla, for the dogs and G to play in and for doing laundry. Our washer is out there (no frozen pipes!) and there is no clothes dryer so everything gets hung up on the line. Single pane glass on the windows is also different. Not wild about this because it lets in more noise, but hey, we’re used to noise. No window screens. I could go on…

3.) Food in bags. I’ve talked about the BioBolsa shopping bags from Disco grocery store, but food is also packaged in bags. Milk is in liter bags, mayonnaise is in bags and olives also come in little bags. Plastic and glass recycling is limited here, and food packaging bags take up a lot less space in the landfill than the alternative of glass or plastic containers, I suppose. Plus it would be less weight to transport. I still don’t like plastic bags one bit and I’m working on finding other options.

4.) “Industria Uruguaya” on almost everything. How can a country about the size and population of Oklahoma make so much of its own food/products? It is incredible that so many items display these two key words so prominently. It’s the full gamut of foods and products, too, including but not limited to: flour, fruit, coffee, beef, wine, beer. There are some imports as well and not surprisingly most are from from Argentina or Brazil.

5.) We really don’t need a car at all. We only had one car for the past several years in MN (the beloved MINI), but here we really have everything we need within walking distance so a car is completely unnecessary. I love that. If we need to go further, taxis are everywhere and the bus system is extensive. We can also rent a car if we need a weekend away.

Liter beer bottles next to a standard wine

6.) Smaller sizes of most products. The US is a bigger-is-better, bulk society. Here, you buy 4 rolls of TP at a time and 2 or 4 rolls of paper towels instead of 12 or more. I have not seen 24-packs of soda (although there are 1.5 and 2-liter bottles of the big brands). The only big sizes I have seen are beer (1 liter bottles are standard, at grocery stores and restaurants) and restaurant serving sizes are gigantic for nearly everything.

7.) Vets making house calls and most everything can be delivered. We had a vet visit Paloma when she was being boarded and Pablo’s medication dropped off for us once we got into the house. SO nice. Grocery stores also deliver, as do many restaurants, storefront fruit stands and food shops. We have yet to employ those services, though.

8.) Our microwave freakin talks to us! In Spanish or English. It is really cool and I’ll have to post a video sometime.

9.) Bidets. This is a bidet culture much like many parts of Europe and areas of the world. The US is not a bidet culture and in fact, in my years in the Interior Design industry, I have had only one request for a bidet and at the time had a giggle about it (This was 10 years ago, give me a break!) The bidet is an integral part of any main bathroom in UY and I am sure it would be viewed as odd here to not have a bidet as it is in the US to have one.

10.) Other things we’ve explained before: the late dinner hour, rental process, etc.

Really, though, these are all the things that make exploring a new country so much fun; Taking everything that you know and turning it on its head and finding different ways to accomplish the same thing. These are all priceless experiences.

Daycare Options

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Lisa

After much consideration and weighing the pros and cons, we have decided that we want Geneva in professional care outside the home instead of having a nanny. The advantages of a licensed caregiver, socialization, language skills and a stimulating environment won for us.

We checked out two Daycare/Early Learning centers today and were quite impressed. ”Snoopy” (I doubt the name and likeness is licensed) came highly recommended by several people and “Humanitos” (Little Humans) was nearby and we wanted to check it out. Both have highly trained personnel, great facilities indoor and outdoor play areas, and excellent pricing compared to what we are accustomed.

The rate for 4 hours per day, 5 days a week (80 hours per month) was between $110-150 per month. There are a few additional costs for materials and special activities, but considering we were paying over $800 per month for two full days per week (64 hours per month) of in-home care in MN, this is an incredible savings.

The two schools have a very similar format in that there are two sessions per day. Morning is from 8:30-12:30 and afternoon is 1:30-5:30. You could opt to attend both sessions, but the above pricing is for one session only.

Snoopy has been around for 30 years, and has this location and another one named Goody across town. It is a very popular program and as a result, very busy. The building is a renovated home (as is Humanitos) and was absolutely bustling with activity. I was amazed with how many instructors there were floating around. They also had an indoor “gym” (possibly a renovated sunroom?) which was nice and bright in the back of the building in case it was wet outside, like today.

Humanitos has been in existence for 15 years and was MUCH more calm, but with smaller facilities and fewer kids in each age group. Very professionally run, the staff was extremely warm and friendly for our drop-in visit. I loved their indoor play area as well, it was just within the interior of the building. Both buildings looked very safe with the proper child-proofing measures in place.

The integration process is incredible at both locations. It can take up to a week where you bring the child in for an hour (with parent present) and stay so that they can get accustomed to the new environment, knowing that you are there. The next day, you stay for a little longer. It will probably help the parents as well as the kids, although I think Geneva will start playing and think “Bye Mom, this place is GREAT!”

One thing that I was not wild about at first glance was the teacher-to-child ratio for the schools. At Geneva’s age group (she is almost 17 months), it is 1/6 at Humanitos and a possible 1/7 at Snoopy (but 1/6 with current enrollment). For toddlers, this seems like an awful lot of kids to one teacher, in my opinion. I looked up the MN childcare standards though, and much to my surprise, 1/7 is the limit for toddler care in daycare facilities back home.

I do have to mention the cutest thing in the world: The kids at both locations wear these sweet little “túnica” (smocks). They are just so sweet when you have a room full of little kids together wearing all of the same smocks. Can I get an “Aaawwwwwwwwww!”?

I have a referral from an Expat to one other center which I am definitely going to check out as well. I don’t know the exact location or format of the third center but I will add an update when I receive more info.

Expat Travel Technology: How do I get my mail?

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Brad

As we know there are many challenges to moving abroad. One of those is what to do with your postal mail. Should you have it forwarded to your new home in your far flung land? Maybe your 90-year-old mother will take care of it for you. Maybe that shifty-eyed cousin? For the most part, thanks to technology, you can eliminate most of your postal mail completely. Half of it is stuff you didn’t want when you were living in your home country anyway. Now that you’ve moved you really have no need for that junk mail. First tip: Sign up for online statements and online billing whenever you can. If you can navigate email and the Internet, there really is no need to receive the majority of your current mail.

So now you’ve eliminated the bulk of your mail. What to do with the rest? In our case we receive the remainder of our postal mail through an online scan and mail forwarding service. We started this about 6 months before we left with a company called Earth Class Mail (ECM). ECM receives your mail at a PO Box, then does an initial high resolution color scan of the front and back of the piece of mail. This scan is then emailed for you to take action. Scan what’s inside, Recycle, Shred or forward via FedEx to another location. The service is great for sorting mail. You have copies of all your mail in PDF form that you can save to your computer or it can be archived on ECM’s site.

We’re self employed as many expatriates are. We still received paper checks from clients and vendors, which is another issue. I wish everyone just did ACH/direct deposit, but they don’t. One of the many tools that ECM offers is “Deposit Check”. After scanning your mail you may deposit a check with a click of a button into a Wells Fargo account. I had to establish a new account with Wells Fargo to make this happen but it beat having to worry about sending checks to family for them to deposit on my behalf. For a small per check fee I can deposit online in just one step.

To be honest the set up process with Wells Fargo was long and painful. It took nearly two months for the account creation and testing. I believe this was due to it being a relatively new service at the time of my set up, but be prepared. Wells did cover the cost of my checks (which I may not use since I live in Uruguay, but still) and waived account fees for the first couple months.

I love ECM. I love receiving mail online. If I return to the States I will continue this service. It just simplifies things too much for me to give it up. They also license the technology throughout Europe with Swiss Post (addresses available throughout Europe). It’s great if you’re a road warrior traveling for business 4 of every 5 days of the business week or just don’t want to deal with all the junk. With Earth Class Mail, junk mail is almost all gone and if I do get it, I hit the recycle button. I’m kind of a hippie too and this is a fairly green way to deal with your mail. You’ll have a much higher percentage of your mail recycled and a much lower percentage of garbage mail making it to your virtual door.

With ECM, you still have a physical mailing address to select. There are many PO Box locations to choose from as well as several street locations. If you want to be virtually in Manhattan…bam! You’re there. (Or at least your mail is there). If you’re only receiving personal mail, a PO Box will location will probably work for you. Since we receive business mail, it complicates matters when vendors will accept nothing but a street address. We pay a small additional fee to have a street address in Seattle (instead of a PO Box). This still wasn’t ideal for us, though, and we decided to have an additional address set up with a UPS store in Minneapolis. Twice per month our UPS Store automatically forwards all of our personal and business mail that is not already directed to our ECM location in Seattle. ECM receives it and upon our instruction they open the Priority Package from UPS and “induct” all of the individual pieces of mail as though they had been sent directly. Many probably won’t require this extra step but ECM just didn’t have an address in Minny so we felt if was necessary for us to maintain our presence there. They have addresses in most major cities and are adding more all the time.

There are several other ways to get your mail. You can DHL or FedEx regularly to your new foreign locale. Or in the case of Uruguay, you can try a service like Miami-Box. Have your Amazon and other packages shipped right to the street address of Miami-Box and they in turn will bring to down to Uruguay and deliver right to your door very quickly. There are high fees and duty to worry about, as well as certain items that can’t be shipped but it’s a service that’s worth taking a look at. We also employ the minions that read our blog to courier items down to us. Not a bad practice! If you have family or friends coming down, have them take a trip to Target or Costco to grab some of your favorite items. But I digress…

Earth Class Mail : Receive PDF files of all your mail online. Sort, save, recycle. Very simple, very easy.

Posts to Come

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Lisa

We have a few projects in the works and wanted to let everyone know what will be coming in the next week, in no particular order:

X Expat Travel Technology Series, Part 2: “How do I get my mail?” Brad’s weekly update on our tech tools.

X Setting up Daycare: Two places that we’ve looked at, including our thoughts and prices for 5 half days per week in the post “Daycare Options”

X ”Furnished or Unfurnished?” and why we chose what we did for our new home.

X Creepy Crawlies: Post took the form of “It’s The Little Differences” to discuss lots of small things that are different in UY from those which we are accustomed.

Firing up the Parilla: Our first attempt at an pseudo-Uruguayan Asado (pseudo because it was vegetariano)
Photo/Video gallery via SmugMug

If there is anything you absolutely cannot wait to see, please send us a note. We can pull some strings.

We will be updating this list to link to the topics after they are posted.

Locks, Keys and Security

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Lisa

19 Keys I mentioned before that we received an insane number of keys upon move in. Well, we still don’t know where they all belong, but there is truly a key for everything (19 total). Our back windows have keyed locks (2) each with its own key. The back door as well, another key. The storage/servicio room outside, another key. Closet doors and bedroom doors lock, all with different keys. We have three keys needed just to get in the front gate and front door.

There are a few areas that do not have keys though. The windows in front that face the street front windows have wooden shutters that lock from the inside via a lever, so surprisingly, no key needed there (but there are also metal bars that are between the shutters and windows which is very common in Montevideo) . The mailbox which is located at our front gate also doesn’t have a key, at least not from the house side.

Here we also have three locks on the front door, a security system with motion detectors inside and out, and cameras in the front and back courtyards viewable from a special monitor. Pretty elaborate system and in terms of security, better to over-do it and be a bit excessive than the alternative!

And all this in a great part of town. Don’t read the above information wrong, this is a wonderful neighborhood with low crime. In all of Uruguay, violent crime is extremely rare and the overall crime rate is low but petty theft is viewed as common. If you leave something out, it may just find a new home. We don’t want that so we’re using all of our security features available to us!

When we lived in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis (not known as the best part of town) for 7 years, we had only one key that opened the front, back and garage-to-house door. The windows “locked” with a standard window latch, not a key. We also had a security system with glass break sensors but we never left windows open and never considered bars on the windows because of fire escape reasons. Different construction here. Different standards, as I have noted previously, make bars on the windows nearly a non-issue.

Half-closed shutters

As we’ve seen throughout our travels, the differences between the USA and the rest of the world are interesting. There is so much to learn in a culture. We are just taking a fingernail to the surface right now. Not everything can be judged from our USA eyes, nor should it be. The best lesson we’ve learned: It is what it is.

A Much Better Day

Posted on April 28, 2009 by Lisa

pugs-on-boxes

Great news that Pablo, our 8 year old male Pug, is on the mend. We had a vet visit yesterday, along with medication delivered today and all should be better soon. Brad can write more at some point about his vet adventures. I also have to mention that Paloma, out female Pug turned 7 today. Happy Birthday!! As you can tell by the photo above, the days festivities were exhausting and they found a comfy spot on a flattened box to rest.

This afternoon we had a bittersweet lunch with friends who will be leaving UY today to head back to MN. While they are planning to return here next year, we probably will not see them before then and miss them already. Jim and Mariellen had a wonderful experience here and are definitely planning UY as their retirement destination! Yippee!!

At the tail end of our lunch, I had to leave a bit early because Ms. G was in dire need of a nap. I took her back home (which was about a 1/2 block away) and put her to bed. I then prepared coffee for everyone to come back and enjoy once they were done with the bill and the last bit of wine at the restaurant. 15 minutes had passed. 30 minutes had passed. Still no sign of them. 40 minutes after I left the restaurant, they get back here. Turns out that the bill was paid and then the waitress brought two BIG carafes of wine, on the house. That was certainly unexpected and I was more than a bit envious that I missed out. We talked some more and had a quick 20 minute coffee (Record time in UY!) in our back courtyard before the landlord and Jorge were scheduled to arrive.

Jorge and the landlord get here. We say our goodbyes to Jim and Mariellen (who have to get to their hotel and then off to the airport ) and we are off to talk about the water issues. The landlord lived in this house for 4 years and is familiar with the systems. He says that the water pressure can build up in the system overnight and that causes leaks where there are not normally leaks. For the next few days, he is asking us to turn the water off at night until they can get the system repaired. Not a big deal and we are happy to do so if that will prevent more water. The kitchen cabinet need to be dried out (we have some stuff to absorb the moisture) and then bleached. I don’t like bleach, but if it can kill the nasties, I’m all for it. The atmosphere was all very comfortable and they came prepared to hang up a clothes line while here (we already did that a few days ago) and silicone the shower fixture as we had requested. We also got the assurance that all was going to be made right and received the landlords phone number and address (he lives right around the corner) and then an invitation to come to his house to pick up a tricycle. His daughter is 3 and had graduated to training wheels. He thought that we might like it. Geneva thinks it’s fun to push it and walk while straddling it, but hasn’t gotten the concept of riding get. It’ll come.

All in all, a much better day than yesterday. A vet visit (along with a husband who’s Spanish is good enough to handle a vet visit) great lunch with friends and a responsive and helpful landlord all make for a very happy Lisa!

Expat Travel Technology: An Introduction

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Brad

There are many challenges in moving abroad. One is technology. What do I bring? How will it work? Will it work at all? Do they sell that in Timbuktu? If yes, do I have to give up my first born to get it? The answer to that last one is…maybe. Technology abroad–for the most part–is expensive.

expat-technology-help Tech–as it’s always been–is a blessing and a curse. There are an incredible number of options, but at least we have options. I give Lisa’s mom a hard time for coming over on “the boat” in the ’50s from the Netherlands. They actually flew with several stops, including one in Greenland. Either way, it was no picnic. So even if my computer crashes or my VOIP goes down…I did not have to come over on “the boat”. Again, options. We can communicate locally and internationally even if that means I have to walk down to the nearest restaurant or McDonalds with WiFi (wireless internet) if my Internet crashes. WiFi is even available in the parks here in UY and some buses I’ll have to try that albeit discreetly –if that’s possible– as I don’t want my computer to be relieved from my possession. You can even sit down at the McCafe and have a “meeting” across the table via webcam. So you can continue those Starbucks-style meetings if you like.

One challenge involves staying in contact with your “home” country. For some this may not be an issue if they are severing ties to the homeland. In our case, we need to work with clients in the United States to allow us to maintain our expat lifestlye and keep up with family. Thankfully it has never been easier to maintain this connection as an expat. Even three or four years ago this transition was far harder than it is today.

There are many issues to consider: receiving postal /snail mail, personal and business phone, computer hardware, backing up your computer, power supplies, what technology to bring, watching your favorite TV shows from home, hiring developers or independant contractors. Fortunately there is a tool, a download, a website, or a physically piece of equipment that can address all of these issues. Even if you’re a baby boomer retiring abroad and technology is not your best friend, there are still many tools that are worth the small investment. I will provide information on several of the travel technology tools that I use everyday in Montevideo… many of these we were using well before the move because they’re just great services. The technology we use untethers us from a physical location and thereby is perfect for a traveler on the go or an expat…well…that’s flat out gone.

I’m sensitive to you Mac folks…I have not yet joined your ranks, but most of these tools play nice with Mac…probably better.

I will also talk about some of the challenges of limiting the interuption to my business while navigating the set up process in a foreign country. There have been pleasant surprises and of course headaches. I will share it all here. I may not be able to wait until Monday…there’s so much good stuff!!!

Stay Tuned: New Technology Feature

Posted on April 25, 2009 by Lisa

In the coming weeks, we will be featuring a new six part weekly technology series by Brad to be released on Mondays. This coming Monday will be the intro feature with the description of the topics to follow.

We’re also working on an extensive list of baby items that we brought with us- along with a few items that we wish we had. This will be released in the coming days.

A Day with Friends

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Lisa

Today turned out to be a pretty terrific Sunday. It actually started on Saturday evening when we were invited to a Sunday morning excursion to the park by someone we met here last year (all names are removed- try to keep up!). With his wife away for the weekend and two young daughters at home, a crisp fall morning at the park would do everyone good. Brad, Geneva and I had a nice breakfast at the hotel (although after 3 weeks here, it is getting a little boring) and then received the call at about 10:30 AM that they were headed to the park shortly. We packed and walked the 10 blocks to Parque Biarritz where there is a large play area. On such a great morning, it was packed. After about a half an hour there with a very clingy Geneva, it was time to move on. Before we left though, there was an invitation to stop by their house later this afternoon to socialize some more. Thanks, we just may do that!

Out next appointment at noon was meeting some visitors from MN. We had met a couple before leaving MN who are planning to purchase retirement property in Uruguay withing the next couple of years. It is a funny, random connection. The husband works with my cousin’s husband and really, how many people from MN are planning on moving to Uruguay? Well, at least a few of us and we were introduced. We met once for lunch in MN and have corresponded back and forth to plan a meeting while they are visiting Uruguay. Today was the day and it was great to see some familiar faces from home! I think we were a welcome sight for them as well because their first 24 hours in UY had been rough with missing luggage, a noisy hotel room leading to a sleepless night, etc. We talked and commiserated at Old Maz restaurant for a while before we were joined by many others there for the 1:00 Expat meetup.

Sunday at 1 PM there is a meeting of english speaking Expats at the Old Maz restaurant in the Pocitos neighborhood of Montevideo . They’ve been meeting every Sunday for three years, rain or shine, holiday or not (we were there on Easter Sunday). There are tourists, people investigating Uruguay for a future move, and those of us who are committed and are going to be here for a while. There is no formal meeting, it is just a group that gathers to socialize, share experiences and learn from each other. Today was absolutely packed! We stayed for a little while but with a baby that was growing more and more tired, we left at about 1:45.

Skip ahead through a late lunch, drama with a sleepy Geneva bumping her head and a long nap for all of us…. and 5 PM rolls around. We head out to see if the invitation to come by still sticks. It does and we apparently have perfect timing. Two little girls sit at the table, the older one who is 5 and is totally bilingual is doing homework (spelling and cursive) an in both languages. Let me say that again… 5 year old…. homework… both languages. I was stunned at the skill of this intelligent little girl. Very fun to watch. We all played and were invited for an impromptu meal. Wine was brought out, we talked, the girls played, the meal was amazing. It was really great to have a home cooked meal. It feels like it’s been so long! There are only a few people we know who can deliver such an incredible, non-scripted dinner and evening of entertainment. It was really a nice time. While we were there, the Mom of the family came home and joined us for dinner, and we made our exit not too long after, as all the girls needed to get to bed.

A long, busy, very fun day with friends. What a good day.

NOTE: I’m learning that I am really bad at planning photos for my posts. Sorry for the wordiness and nothing to look at. I can’t believe that a visual person like myself can’t seem to remember the to grab the camera. If I could only hook you up to my brain…no wait. Dangerous!

UR MOVING WHERE?!?!

Adventures of an Expat Family in Uruguay…err Bariloche, Argentina…um Córdoba.

Category Archives: Expat