Expat Community > Uruguay

83xlx
Joined 2019
Posts: 11

One month on

5 years ago

Just an update (assuming anyone cares). Moved from the US to Uruguay on 1 May, moved into our chacra on 10 May. It has been a month and we have discovered the following, in no particular order of importance, interest or accuracy;

Uruguay is a very nice place to be, people here are very pleasant and do not seem too put out while we work our way through Spanish. We have met some absolutely first rate people that have been helping reclaim our house from years of maintenance neglect.

Some frustrations are inevitable. Tannat helps here. The biggest frustrations are trying to find out how things are done here. Our realtor Martina has been exceptional in helping us, however, the more simple the task the higher the frustration and the more Tannat required. Tannat and asado fixjust about everything.

It rains here. I think I skimmed over that section in the brochure but it "really" rains here, usually followed by a gorgeous day of sunshine.

The architectural drawings for this house (10 y.o.) are crap. We thought we had a water leak and got the piping drawings from the government office and they are inaccurate and meaningless. We found out that electrical drawings don't have to be filed at all. Fun times when a lightning storm kicked off the power to the well and it took two days to figure out how the pump was wired (and a freighting bit of business this was - this will be rewired as soon as it stops raining).

We planned for some modifications to a small 30 m2 building on the property to use as an office. Surprise! The estimate for a new roof, rearranged plumbing and some new windows came out to US$ 2,500 per m2. Yikes! We will have to shop around and get another quote if we want to do something here. Getting the "gringo price" was a little disappointing after all the positives we had experienced.

Marijuana is more difficult to obtain in the country than the city. I don't really want to smoke it, I just want to grow a couple big plants in the garden and try my hand at topiary to form them as a middle finger pointed at the mindless parochial hypocrites that govern the US. (and yes, I got busted in the late 70's when at college).

Most humorous is that until our marriage license is "regularized" in Uruguay my wife and I are not considered to be married. I wondered why they kept calling her my mistress. It seems that "concubine" has legal standing here. I think I will see where this is going for a while (I have never had a mistress before). The lady at UTE suggested to my wife that she look around to "trade up".

Best of all, the crippling emotional stress that hits you every morning when you wake up and realize that Donald Trump is president has dissipated - a wonderful feeling. I am content that this cretin could not pronounce Uruguay let alone find it on a map.

Cheers!

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