For the researchers among you, check out:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/uytoc.html
http://countrystudies.us/uruguay/

After living in the West Indies, former Yugoslavia and Costa Rica, Uruguay seems normal.  Montevideo is a city of about 1.5 million people.  It is a combination of old and new, rather like Florida's St. Augustine.

It is at the same relative latitude as the North Carolina Capes - the climate is perfect for me.

I was impressed! I was even more impressed when they had a big brawny man get behind my wheelchair and take me through immigration, baggage claim, customs and to a waiting van Copperhead, my business partner, had arranged for me. Usually they assign a 90 pound woman wo can't push the chair without me in it, much less the half-ton load I add. Immigration didn't ask me any questions, but did welcome me to Uruguay. The veterinary official looked at the dogs' health papers and cleared them both in less than a minute. Customs opened one bag - with my desktop computer - and then waved me through.  All of that was accomplished within 45 minutes of the plane touching down.

Contrary to my impressions from afar, a high percentage of people speak some English. Between their English and my limited Spanish, we do pretty well.  If it gets intricate, Copperhead comes to the rescue.  If he is not available, I break out my PDA with its Spanish-English dictionary and work my way through it. 

Copperhead had two vans organized.  One took Lucy the German Shepherd to a veterinarian for a few days, and the other took me, Harry, Copperhead and 5 big suitcases to the Pablo Figari Best Western Hotel on the beach in Carrasco.  The trip only took 15 minutes, but it gave me my first view of Montevideo's wide, wellkept and tree lined streets.

The hotel room was $70/night including breakfast.  The room was small, in the European style, but was well appointed and the bathroom was of a goodly size.  A huge "Milanesa", a steak breaded and covered with ham and cheese, was under U$S4.00 from room service.

Comment on currency symbols:  Uruguayans use the $ sign for their Uruguayan Pesos (UYU), which are about 24 to the US Dollar.  Consequently, when you see $ on UY websites, it means Pesos, not Dollars. Dollars are usually denominated as U$S.  Argentina is similar, but the exchange rate there is 3 Argentine Pesos per U$S1.

Buenos Aires in neighbouring  in next door Argentina  is a big city with about 13 million people in the metropolitan area.  It is 45 minutes by commuter plane, or 3 hours by fast Ferry, the Buquebus, from Montevideo.  As far as I can tell, the relationship between Buenos Aires and Montevideo is roughly similar to that of New York City and New Jersey, respectively.

After 4 nights in the hotel, we moved into the new house only two blocks away and just across the road from the beach.

March 4, 2006

Last night we had our first real taste of customer service in a semi-emergency. It was pouring rain when the  main circuit breaker shut off - and nothing we could do would make it turn back on.  So we got out the yellow pages and called the very first electrician listed at 11PM on Friday night.  Carlos answered. 

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