Since we don’t have a car, we walk a minimum of 5 miles per day and about half of that with the stroller.  Our small umbrella stroller, which we loved, broke just before we left for the USA in December, so we brought another one here that we had in storage. Unfortunately with our daughter at the upper weight limit of this new stroller stroller, it is impossible to navigate these treacherous sidewalks and our daily travels are a pain, not to mention increasingly dangerous as the wheels like to get stuck.  Thankfully, we’ve found a great alternative and we’ve picked up a Mountain Buggy Urban Stroller holds kids up to 70 lbs (I will need serious help if I am trying to push a kid that big, bit it’s great for our 33 pound/15 kg 2 year old!). I am so excited!

One thing that we planned for perfectly is a car seat (~that unfortunately doesn’t get much use here). When our daughter grew out of her sweet little baby seat at 9 months, we graduated directly to the Sunshine Kids Radian80 Convertible Car Seat which is FAA approved for airline use, the only foldable car seat, and the only one with a steel (rather than plastic) frame. This amazing seat fits kids up to 80 lbs.  No need for a larger seat or a booster, which new studies are finding are not much help in a crash anyway.

Yes, we bring this car seat through airports and on the plane with us. It’s heavy, but it makes for a well-behaved kid in her own, familiar seat.  When not in use, we fold it and store it in a suitcase.  Can’t do that with any other car seat!

Surprising as it may seem, the Radian 80 also fit rear-facing into the back seat of our Mini Cooper when we were living in the USA.  I wasn’t sure that the combination of a tall car seat and a small car would work, but it did and at 5′-10″ tall,  I could still squeeze into the front passenger seat.

We learned our lesson with the stroller.  Montevideo sidewalks are a beast to navigate and very hard on strollers. Our first stroller had a good run of 9 hard months here.  Kids equipment to purchase new in Montevideo is expensive and many times not the best quality. Plan ahead and purchase in advance (before you get to MVD) when looking for the big items necessary to travel with babies, toddlers and even older kids.

For us, this answer was clear after a long list of considerations.  We wanted:

• High standard of living
• Relatively low cost of living
• Similar time zone to the USA
• Spanish speaking
• Safety
• Cultural opportunities/experiences
• Good infrastructure
• Good health care system
• Stable government
• Positive attitude towards foreigners

That list rules out our favorite place in the world, Spain, because of the time zones and cost of living.  It also rules out most of Central and South America for various reasons: either the infrastructure, standard of living, Portuguese language, governmental stability or safety concerns.

Here you have the opera, libraries and nice book stores (will be nice once I learn more Spanish!), the Louvre exhibit on La Rambla and those are just the few things that we know about.  There is also a dual public/private health care system which gets positive reviews and modern medical facilities.

There are a few things that we are not wild about Uruguay, but these are minor for our living here:

• Local wages are quite low.  It can be difficult for those who are coming here to make a good living without having some source of income from the US or elsewhere (or having multiple family members to pitch in for household income).
• What we have seen of Uruguay really isn’t ethnically diverse.  Lots of Italian and Spanish Immigrants and… well… white people. Not at all like the indigenous population that I was accustomed to in Peru and Bolivia.
• Along the same lines, there is a lack of international foods.  That is why we have been so excited to find good Mexican food and we know of one or two sushi places around the city (but careful, we’ve heard of some food-borne illness recently!)  We can’t wait to go to Buenos Aires in a couple weeks so we can scope out some Thai food.  I really miss it!!  (I used to have the phone number for Chang Mai Thai in Minneapolis on speed dial).

There is also a recent thread on the Uruguay Connection forum discussing a similar question, “Why Move to UY?”

And these are just our experiences in the three months that we’ve lived in UY.  It’ll be interesting to see how our perspective might change as we settle into life here and learn more about the country.

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.  

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.

Sorry for another list.  We’ve has a bunch lately— 

1.) Pablo is sick. I’m not going into the details but it has to deal with his bowels and said evacuation. We thought it may have just been a stress related issue for him, coming to yet another new environment, but since it continued through the weekend, we have to call the vet. So, sick dog. Gross. Lots of cleanup involved. Plus, dog who loves people and toddler who loves dogs are hard to keep apart.

2.) VERY willful toddler. That goes without saying, I guess. She’s our first, though, so we’ve just never been in this stage before. She is testing us like crazy and is still not extremely stable on her feet. A tall baby with a big Dutch head is just asking for trouble! It is taking constant vigilance to keep her safe. (Thanks Paul, you warned us!!) Not much unpacking, cleaning or cooking is being done. Email and blog posts are happening only during naptimes and after bedtime. I am full-time mommy, which I have never been before.

3.) Child safety standards are different here (I knew this before we arrived) and while I want to bring Geneva to the parks to blow off some steam, they scare the bejeebers out of me. Think wooden baby swings with no crotch rail that are 4.5′ off the pavers/concrete slab below. Or slides that have a small patch of sand at the bottom with a ring of bricks to keep the sand in. I envision kids cracking their head open at every turn. It is not unlike the types of playgrounds Brad and I remember from our childhood. My mommy instinct to keep my child free from harm is in overdrive. Thank god that Brad reminded me the life expectancy here is the same as the US. I was wondering how anyone made it to age 10.

4.) After the first two days of no water in the house at all, we now have water seeping from both sides of the plumbing wall, into the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom. We saw the water in the bathroom late last week and didn’t think too much of it (“Hey, maybe I left the shower door open a crack.”). But the water kept coming back at random times, from the area between the floor and baseboard. We couldn’t figure out what was causing it. We reported a small amount of water to our rental agent on Thursday via email, then called on Friday to follow up. Within minutes, the owners agent called us and told us that a plumber would be here on Monday. Cool. We could deal with that. Late Sunday night though, I walked into the kitchen at about 1:30 AM to find water dripping from the front edge of a base cabinet (from the wood above the toe kick) and the musty smell that I originally detected was overpowering. The sink pipes were fine. This water must be coming from the wall.

Everything I know about construction says this is no good at all and we could have a serious mold issue. But wait, this is poured concrete/block construction with plaster. There is no wood framing, no sheetrock and no insulation for mold to feed on. The only “food” for mold here is the cabinetry. It seems like there must have been water before to cause the original musty smell that I noticed upon move in. I shot short videos of the water and Brad got a hold of the rental agents this morning. A plumber was over at noon and checked all of the exposed pipes and then turned everything off and checked the water meter out front.  No movement at all, so no internal leaks. Then he turned on the spigot to a drip, the meter started spinning. He said that our water issue is actually from the building next door and not coming from our wall. He confirmed that this building has had a problem with the adjacent building’s water once before.  No more update as of yet as to the solution but the cabinets are still wet and the smell is horrible, so we are staying out of the kitchen until we have this resolved.

We’re pushing for new base cabinets and a full clean-up of that wall. We’ll keep you updated on the progress of that. We knew not everything was going to be rosy in paradise, but the last few days have been stressful indeed.

Thankfully the vet is two blocks away and is coming over tomorrow. One issue down. Yippee for small victories!!

So tonight I just had to go out.  We went for a short walk, then enjoyed an early dinner. I had a crazy-big Chivito and a glass of wine to decompress at “Chivitos Marcos” (Corner of Louis de La Torre and Sarmiento). While the photo is not my exact sandwich, it is close, except mine was goopier and included pickle and hot pepper and was without fries. It was excellent and I will definitely be back again. Nothing like comfort food after a rough day!

We have been recently corresponding with a couple who will be moving to MVD shortly with their daughter. They’ve asked great questions about traveling abroad with a baby and what to bring, and we’ve responded with our experiences thus far.  Another couple with a little girl just commented on this blog yesterday (what’s with all the baby girls? They’re the best, I know. But baby boys are portable too!) and I thought this would be a great time to publish our very extensive baby packing list.  

Whether you’re moving to Uruguay, the UK, Australia or UAE (or wherever in the world your journeys take you) this list should help to plan out your move with a child.  Appropriate for birth to 2+ with some minor modifications, this is what happened to make the journey with us. 

I had been planning this packing list since shortly after Little G’s birth.  We visited MVD to scope things out in March 2008, when Geneva was 3 months old) so I could really get a feel for what is available here and what is not. After talking to people here last year, I found that baby stuff in particular is not the quality that we are accustomed to in the US.  I wanted to bring as many things as I could that were portable, good quality and will grow with the baby.  I also brought a bunch of small stuff that I knew I could probably get here, but didn’t want to worry about going out and finding it right away. I regret absolutely nothing in this list. Here goes:

If you have traveled or moved abroad with young babies/toddlers, we’d love to hear your ideas and what has worked for you.  If we become friends via the blog and you’re coming in this direction, be warned. We just bay ask you to bring something from our wish list!

* Note: All of the links above are Amazon because in preparing for this move, we hopped on Amazon all the time when there was something that we needed. We heart Amazon and are “Prime” members so we got free shipping in 2 days on most items.  Plus, there are reviews of all the products so you know what you are getting.  Brad had a good time practicing his HTML skills placing code for all of those links!

We’re in the house.  A cute little furnished one level on the border of Pocitos/Punta Carretas.  There really is just about everything within 8 blocks.  For the last 24 hours though, that has not included running water.  What????  I said the same thing.  No running water. We got all the boxes and suitcases moved and we were starting to get things unpacked when the water in the kitchen sink slowed to a trickle…. and then stopped altogether.  I thought the water must be shut off to the building. No, all the lines were on.  What could be going on?  I called Jorge, he’ll know what to do (thankfully we have Jorge!) Well he tells me that half of the city is out.  A main burst and they don’t know when it’ll be restored.  Hmmmm.  Okay.  The Disco (supermarket) is 2 blocks away. We’ll get a few 5 L jugs of water, but no shower, no flushing toilet and no hard-core cleaning of this place before we unpack.  

Here it is 24 hours later and still no running water.  El Pais (newspaper) says they are working non-stop to fix the problem, but it was a 40 year old concrete main that is very deep.  They hope to have it repaired by the end of today.  All of the coastal and downtown neighborhoods are affected including: Buceo, Pocitos, Punta Carretas, Parque Rodó, Barrio Sur, Palermo, Cordón, La Blanqueada, La Unión, Parque Batlle, Tres Cruces, Centro, Maroñas, Flor de Maroñas, Cerrito, Villa Española, Pérez Castellano, Larrañaga, Bolivar, Brazo Oriental, Jacinto Vera, La Figurita, La Comercial, Villa Muñoz, Sayago, Peñarol y Retiro. 

Happy Earth day!  We’re conserving water!!

Other than the *minor* water issue, we are thrilled to be in the house.  It is working out really well for us, and we’re getting into our routine.  Internet was set up this morning and Brad will comment on that. I met with the security company who came by to make sure we understood the system. There was a technican with very good English as well as another “translator” that they sent with. They left a manual for the system in English and also gave us the phone and email information for an English speaking customer service agent in case we have additional questions.  I appreciate the English help but certainly didn’t expect it. Talk about service!  The technician also stopped by again this afternoon to make sure he got the monitoring setting correct.  After he left, he said that he was questioning himself if he did the final setting and he hadn’t.  At home, I would have expected a phone call to set up another time to come by a week from now or something.  Wow. 

Next thing to arrive this afternoon should be our two furry friends, Pablo and Paloma!  I am thrilled that after a month they will be part of the family again.  I should learn all of the Spanish commands that they have been hearing from their temporary family.  For a month stay for both dogs I think it ended up being 7000 pesos ($280 or so).  Plus we had a minor incident with a need for a vet visit  and antibiotic shot for Paloma’s bladder infection and a refill of her perscription food.  Still not nearly the cost it would be in the US, and the vets come to you instead of you carting a sick animal to them.  Seems more humane to me. 

So that covers the gamut:  House, water, technology, dogs.  There is so much more to say but I have to leave something for later.  

Please send good vibes this way that can fix water mains. We need water soon!!

For example:  

Egress:  Many bedroom windows, if there are windows at all, open up to other rooms or an interior courtyard with no exit other than through the house. Doors are also locked from the interior with a key and there are bars on the windows if you face the street.  

One upside is that the construction is all concrete/block withstucco over it so that there is little to burn if there is a fire.   Wood is used for finish carpentry for doors, cabinets and some flooring only. 

Railings: There are plenty of glass railings in the newer buildings.  The nice thing about this is that there are no gaps and there is an unobstructed view.  Older buildings may have vertical spindles on the balcony with wide spaces of 6″ or greater.  One new building that we saw had a gorgeous 12th story apartment with huge terrage and a railing with horizontal spindles that could be scaled like a ladder by a toddler.  Scary!  As you are walking through the city, you see mesh added to lots of balcony/patio areas to protect the small inhabitants inside from falling.  Excellent that things can be retrofitted but we are considering safety much more carefully as we look at potential home options.

Three horizontal railings, all with mesh installed over it.

Another example of railings with vertical or horizontal spindles.