Tag Archives: Daily life

Not All Is Rosy

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Today I hit the wall. Not literally of course, but I hit the “I’m freaking-out-could-this-be-culture-shock” wall. I think it was more just general stress with lots of weird things compounding.  There were lots of tears involved, but fortunately a very supportive husband who along with Baby G gave me some much needed hugs. 

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. Baby swingThink 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!!

Chivito

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!

A Trip to the Supermercado

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Disco Supermercado I just went to the grocery store this afternoon. We’re always walking so I can’t buy too much each time I go to the store. I tend to go there almost every day for a little something but it’s two blocks away from us, so not a big deal. Today I wanted to have a “Te Completa”  (tea or coffee with croissants, cakes and little sandwiches) at home and needed some little bakery goodies to do that.

I thought I’d share my shopping list with you to give you an idea of some food costs here. Granted this was a trip of little items, including some frivolous items, but still should be worthwhile to see. Prices are based on an exchange rate of 24.5 UY pesos to $1 US and rounded up to the nearest cent. Price in pesos is listed first with no symbol (although they use both the $ and U$ here for pesos) and dollars listed second in parenthesis.

  • Olives- pitted in a clear plastic pack 360 g – 44.50 ($1.82)
  • Empanadas- Cheese and Onion, pack of 6 premade – 68.00 ($2.78)
  • 12 medialunas (mini croissants)- from the bakery sold by weight – 46.96 ($1.92)
  • Frozen Pizza- 3 cheese, onion and olive – 104.00 ($4.24)
  • Whole Milk- premium baby formula (nearly double the price of regular milk), two one-liter bags – $72.80 ($2.97)
  • Pilsen Stout Beer, large 960 mL size – 45.00 ($1.84)
  • Beer bottle deposit – 9.90 ($0.40)
  • Plastic food storage container, large 1.3 liter size – 69.90 ($2.83)
  • Plastic food storage container, small 0.6 liter size – 41.90 ($1.71)
  • Paper towels- 2 small rolls which are standard here, medium grade- 49.90 ($2.04)
  • Pepper- whole peppercorns with bottle grinder- 134.00 ($5.47)
  • Salt- 500 g box – 18.50 ($0.75)
  • Wheat crackers 200 g bag – $26.50 ($1.08)
  • Dozen Eggs – brown (side note: eggs are kept out on the shelf here. Really freaks me out.) – 42.50 ($1.74)
  • Refund of 19.80 for return of 2 beer bottles (- $0.81)

Total UY pesos 754.56 (or $30.79)

You can live inexpensively here but that really depends on how and what you eat, among other things of course. I bought no fresh fruit or veggies from the grocery store today because we purchased a few things yesterday at the Villa Biarritz feria market (not sure if this is really what it’s called) and we still have bananas, peppers, onions, sweet potatoes and tomatoes left from earlier in the week. I find the feria prices are less than the grocery stores and it’s so much more fun to go to the big open air markets!

We bought a few small zucchini at the feria yesterday, along with a kilo and a half of both apples and oranges (3.3 lbs each) for a total of about 85.00 ($3.47).  Fruits and vegetables are plentiful and can be quite inexpensive. Purchase locally produced and in season produce and it’s even better.  This is perfect since we are a strictly veggie family at home.

Now off to crack open that big bottle of beer!

One hint: Bring a few of your own reusable shopping bags.  We have two that fold up when not in use and they are used every day.  All of the grocery stores and markets use small plastic bags, and many multiple plastic bags for each trip there.  We have tried to avoid plastic bags as much as possible (“Sin bolsa, por favor”), but still have them all over from when we forgot the reusable ones. Kudos to the Disco chain of grocery stores that has “Bio Bolsas” that are still plastic, but are supposed to decompose in 2-3 years. 

Quick Water Update

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We have water again!  All that good karma you’ve been sending this way worked!  It was down to just about 10% of the city that didn’t have water this morning and all the city should be restored by tonight.  All the Uruguayos that we’ve spoke to can never remember this happening before.  So luckily we can’t say ‘Oh, this is how things work in Uruguay!”  Great that we still have the hotel room through Friday so after dinner and a walk, we were able to shower and get baby G in her PJ’s before coming home. 

Just think though, this was a 40 year old water main that burst to an city of 1.5 million.  New York has a water tunnel that is 114 years old that serves a city of 8 million.  That would really be bad!

Now we can really get to the work of cleaning and moving in.  With two pugs and a toddler underfoot (and falling hard on all this tile flooring), it should be interesting!!

Our Little House

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So today was the big day. We got the keys to the house. Easy enough. Sign some papers hand over the money and in return, a set a keys. Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that in Uruguay. All in all, really it’s not that hard, just very time consuming. The papers are very similar to the contracts that you might see in the States as a rental agreement. We also received a six page inventory addendum detailing absolutely every little thing included in the rental (since it is furnished and equipped) down the color and number of forks in the kitchen. In our case, we received this list in advance via email so we were able to review ahead of time.

The detailed addendum contained too many household items to know all of them in Spanish, even if your Spanish is quite good. We just pasted the text of the Word doc text into Google Translate. This site is a fantasitic tool. It will translate a word or entire websites while keeping you on the site. Want to read the local paper El Pais? Just pop the URL into Translate and it will almost comes across as though it were written in English. It’s not perfect, but if you know some Spanish you can clean up the translation afterward. Anyway, fantastic tool. Use it for all of your translating needs.

Armed with this inventory list, we were picked up by Jorge at the aparthotel at 12:40. An odd time you say? Not exactly. The banks in Uruguay open to the public at 1pm and most close at 5pm. (You thought bankers’ hours were nice in the States and elsewhere!) This gave us enough time to stop at the house where we were given the keys by the other rental agent, Andrea  and received a few additional details. Then off I went to the bank (Itaú) with Jorge while Lisa and Geneva stayed at the new house to review the checklist.  Andrea went to the Banco Hipotecario del Uruguay (BHU), where we’d be meeting her later.

The Banking:

Half the keys we received

Half the keys we received

 

Lisa detailed this the other day. We had wired money from our Credit Union in MN that posted to Jorge’s business account in 1 day. We’re were told it would take two or three days, but expected four or five. We expected the worst, but in the end very simple very easy.  Now it gets complicated. The process is well defined, but certainly different.  Try to keep up.

We had to withdraw a ridiculous sum of money for all of the different payments we had to make today, which of course had to be approved by several people at the bank. Thankfully, I was wearing my jeans (jeans = lots of good pockets). I ended up with a pocket for each sum. One pocket for the deposit (the equivalent of five months rent…again weird laws thus the strange practice.  I think we put down less when we closed on our house in MN!) to be held in escrow at the one bank in town that does this…BHU where Andrea was already waiting with the number that held our place in line (otherwise it would really take all day to complete the transaction). This main sum for the deposit had to be in pesos. Jorge had already called his friend at the bank while we were driving there. We were given a rate nearly a point better than that posted. Not bad. It pays to know someone.  In such a small country, everyone knows someone. So deposit money one pocket in Pesos. Second pocket the 1st month rent in US Dollars for Andrea. Third pocket the equivalent of 1 month’s rent plus the taxes of 22% for Jorge and all his work….and he deserves every penny. Then the little extra so I could buy a pack of gum in the final pocket. It was more than that but I was feeling a little house poor at that point.

So off  to the BHU to meet Andrea. Just a couple things to accomplish here. Sign the contracts which took about three minutes and place the deposit. This is the painful part….for everyone. It’s a huge bank. I envisioned about 500 people standing outside the door ready to rush in like like a store the day after thanksgiving or worse Filene’s Basement the day of the bridal dress sale.

I am pretty certain that each banker processes 4 to 5 transactions in the 4 hours that they are open to the public. We waited about 45 minutes to get from number 21 (the number we saw when Jorge and I arrived) to number 33–us. Mind you there are about 30 or 40 desks that–in theory–could help us. So we waited. Signed the papers and I gave Andrea the first month of rent. We chatted. We commiserated about this bank. It went fairly quickly. Andrea had already completed most of the form to create the deposit account. Yea! Finally 33! We go to one of the desks. They hand the banker the paperwork. Almost nothing is said. The gentleman types away while we chat. 20 minutes later. He’s done and prints off a form with our new account number. That’s wasn’t so bad. Oh, we’re not done?? We have to go to the teller (caja) to put in the money in the bank. 35 minutes in line and we’re at the counter. We deposit our funds less 2% for the bank for the priviledge of them holding our money. Jorge tells me it used to be interest bearing account but that practice had ended. BHU does however pay back the money at the end of the term at the rate of inflation. So one’s money is at least worth what it was when it went in. In pesos anyway. So money is in. Now we walk back over to the first desk where Andrea had been patiently waiting. They verifiy the details and we’re done. In all, about two hours were spent at the bank. Good times. Then back to the house to see how Lisa and Geneva made out go over a few more details and discuss the urgent need to grab a drink and celebrate. Whew!

Oh that’s right, we have to take care of Jorge. We give Jorge his agency’s fee plus the taxes and we’re set.

I’ll let Lisa describe some of the “fun” and “interesting” features of the new house in an upcoming edition, like the grasera, tiny propane range and the 200-some keys we were handed (not quite, but close!).

A Day with Friends

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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!

Walking, Then Walking Some More

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Since we arrived, I am both happy and embarrassed to say that I have not taken a cab or a bus and the only time I have been in a car is to see houses with our Inmobiliario (rental agent), Jorge.   I am happy to say that because we have done some pretty hard core walking and with the help of Brad’s GPS, figure that we do on average about 4 miles per day. I’m embarrassed because I have not seen as much of the city as I would have liked by this time.  

We will not have a car here and love it because it is such a walkable city with services and shops spread evenly throughout the neighborhoods.  Once we get settled, we’ll take you on a stroll down the street where we will be living. It is amazing that there is almost everything one could need within about 3 blocks. 

Ciudad Vieja fountainThere is certainly a limit on how far I will walk, though. Take this morning for example, we went to go see the dogs. It is a little over a mile in each direction.  By the time we got food and got back to the hotel, we estimate it was almost three miles round trip.  The plan was to eat, go to the hotel for Geneva’s nap then take a cab ride into Ciudad Vieja (Old Town).  Well, once we get back to the hotel Brad must have had a burst of post-empanada energy and suggests that we walk to Old Town.  We did this last year when we visited.  It was a beautiful walk along the water the whole way, but it is 5 miles in each direction with the curving coastline!  That is simply too much for today.  I don’t want to be a wuss, but I think my limit for walking without wining the whole way is about 6 miles per day tops.  We’ll take the cab to Ciudad Vieja today and leave the walking trip for another time when we can start earlier and haven’t already done 3 miles.  

If you want to read more about Ciudad Vieja/Old Town, Wikipedia has a nice short summary here.  It is the business and tourist center of MVD, the architecture is amazing (although can be found in varying states of decay) and the scene is completely different than Pocitos, the neighborhood where we’ve been staying.

Culinary Discoveries

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I had read in some of the Expat forums prior to arriving here that certain products are either hard to find, extremely expensive or even non-existent in Uruguay. Specific spices, nuts (expensive), Goat’s milk and prepared “ethnic” foods like Mexican are a few examples that come to mind. I am so very happy to report that while preparing for the worst, we have been very pleasantly surprised.

The most common foods found here are an Italian/Spanish hybrid along with what most outsiders consider the “Argentine” Asado. We’ve been to one Mexican restaurant, Roma Tijuana, were quite pleased and know of only one other by Montevideo Shopping. Contrary to what some Norteamericanos think, Uruguay is NOT Mexico!!!  It is easier to find a Heineken or Stella Artois here than a Corona!

 

We packed a few things with us that we’d use frequently, like fish oil and flax supplements along with a hefty sized bag of TVP (texturized vegetable protein).  We thought it was such a specialty item, there was no way that we’d be able to find some down here.  We use it as a filler instead of meat for stews, chili, etc.  Well, lo and behold, today I found it.  

Market at Berro and Marti

There is a street market or Feria that sets up every Friday just outside of our hotel door.  Stretches one block down calle José Martí and two blocks down Pedro Francisco Berro and is mostly fresh fruits and veggies with the occasional meet, cheese, clothing or housewares stand.  I was walking through with Geneva today and wanted to get some fruit (Now which one of the 40 fruit vendors do I go to??) when I happened upon a lone vendor of spices.  He was jammed in between a few busy fruit stands and with baby in tow, I coundn’t muscle my way in to the stand for a closer look, but my superior height allowed me to see the labels of the items, including bags of a chunky, recognizable, dried product labeled “Protein de Soya”.  Bingo!  It’s here.  It’s around. Our bag will probably last us a long while but it’s good to know that reserves exist!

The whole atmosphere surrounding the discovery was made more wonderful by the old accordian player sitting on the corner.  As he hunched over his well loved instrument, I dug for some change and put it in his tin.  I am a sucker for the accordian.   

Later today, long after the market packed up and traffic once again took over those streets, we found that the Mexican restaurant down calle José Martí in the other direction was open for business.  After several days of watching and waiting while they set up, we can’t wait to try it out.  It is more of a restaurant stall, with a vey small but cute storefront and outdoor seating (picture to come tomorrow).  No matter, I’m sure we’ll end up there tomorrow to try out their veggie burrito (Brad) and some wonderful meat option (me) all washed down by a few lovely Corona….

Language… Oh the Challenges!

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Learning a language while in a foreign land is a great way to do it because you’re immersed but extremely frustrating because you’re immersed. It is baptism by fire, being thrown to the wolves, complete trial and error.  

I ventured off today with the baby to visit the dogs at the house where they are being boarded.  Not a big deal.  I knew where they were and how to get there.  I had a few basic questions in mind that I needed to know: ‘Do they have enough food to last one more week?’  and ‘Have they gotten the flea/tick treatment?’ Both of these are pretty easy questions but to a person who doesn’t know much Spanish (Me) and another person who knows even less English (the lady who boards the dogs), the whole exchange was a challenge.  She ended up grabbing her daughter’s Spanish/English dictionary which helped immensely for a few key words.  ”How did Pablo get the scar on his leg?” I told her that he had surgery to remove a lump. “When will you be picking them up?” Next week Tuesday or Wednesday. “Where is the new house you’re renting?”, etc.  The visit ended after about a half hour and I was proud of the things that we were able to communicate.  We both tried really hard and had to resort to miming at points, but we got the point across.  Oh Marcel Marceau would be so proud!!

Empanada

On the walk home, I was hungry so I stopped by a panadería (bakery) to get something to snack on when I got back to the aparthotel.  It was late in the day but I hoped that they would still have some empanadas (meat or cheese filled pastries).  The veggie options are sometimes hard to find but necessary for my vegetarian husband.  I pushed the stroller in and took a look in the display cases.  One Cheese/Onion and one Cheese/Olive Empanada left.  Perfect!  I started by asking the lady for “Empanadas, por favor” and it all went down hill from there.  She started asking me how many I want total (in order to get the right sized bag to put them in) and I thought she was talking about how many I want of each kind.  We stood there for a moment, not knowing what to say because neither of us was being understood.  I eventually understood what she was asking and told her I needed 4 total, then proceeded to place my order.   We got them bagged and she passed them to the check-out lady who asked for “Ochenta Pesos”.   I know that means 80,  I had exact change and handed it to the lady.  She counted it out onto the counter and told me “Ochenta pesos” again along with a string of other words that I didn’t understand.  After a moment of talking to me, they ended up saying it’s all good (in Spanish) and handing me my bag.  I was so confused because I thought she was asking for more money, but I think she was just counting it and saying that I had exact change and to take my empanadas.  I HOPE that’s what it was! How a simple exchange can be so confusing!! 

That’s the way to learn, though.  As much as it’s painful and I want to avoid those uncomfortable situations, I also want to be immersed in the culture and have real experiences with the Uruguayan people.  Through my whole day and those interactions, I think there were only two words in English!   I’ll be happy when I can start my Spanish lessons as I’m sure my language skills will progress quickly.  One can hope!

Easter in Montevideo

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We really had no idea what to expect for Pascua (Easter) in Montevideo.  Brad and I were in Sevilla, Spain for Easter in 1997 and it was a wild celebration with everyone in their Sunday best and parades in the streets.  Uruguay is considered a secular country, unlike its giant neighbors of Brazil and Argentina and most of Latin America, so we figured that the Easter celebrations would be pretty calm here.  Calm is an understatement.  

People here see holy week as vacation week.  We were advised to get any business done before holy week started because shops would be closing down and people would be leaving town.  That was definitely true.  Some places were closed for the whole week, others just Thursday- Sunday.  What I was very surprised about is that the restaurants were business as usual, and in fact they seemed busier than most normal Sundays.  The beach and La Rambla were packed because it was another gorgeous day.  An short article talking about the “Vacation Week” tourism can be seen in Uruguay Daily News.

There were plenty of Conejo de Pascua (Easter Bunnies) in the stores, but it seems like the holiday is celebrated in name and with modern customs only, at least that’s all I could see as a tourist-outsider.  Hopefully I’ll have more insight into the Pascua holiday in Uruguay next year!

Pocitos Beach

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We went to Pocitos beach today, a block and a half away from our hotel.  Since it is the first time we have had a baby on the beach for any length of time, we overplanned and overpacked but were prepared.  

The beach was crowded with all sorts of people: those who have seen much sun in their many years,  those who just stopped for a moment of sunshine while biking or walking by and those who were enjoying great family moments like us.  What I love most about the beach here is that everyone is welcome (including pale foreigners) and it really doesn’t matter what you look like.  One piece suits on women are something of a rarity and body issues seem nonexistant.  I love that!

I like being in a country that doesn’t care if you have love handles or a bit of a spare tire  around the middle.  You’re out enjoying the sun and having a good time, just like everyone else.

Baby at the Beach