30 days of Canal 7

Finally, we have officially moved from our "dorm room" to a really nice apartment in downtown Punta del Este.  In our first apartment, we were only able to get one channel on TV.  It was a local station, Canal 7, which was in Spanish.   We used rabbit ears to get that channel in and it constantly faded from black and white to color.  So reminiscient of our childhood! 

That is truly the beauty of Uruguay.  It is like the 1960's or earlier.  As I mentioned, the gas station attendands, elevator attendants, etc.  Kids play outside in the afternoon and into the evening.   I don't believe we have seen many hand held computers/phones, etc. in the hands of even high school age kids.  They are living a really normal childhood and loving it.  They wear uniforms to school and always have a big smile on their face.  Going to the bank is a treat, too!  They are so back in the dark ages with big black books of records, etc.  Their computers take forever to bring up info and I do believe they could single handedly put the lumber business into the black!

Today was a big day!  We got the internet into our apartment.  No more going to the free sites around town.  We can actually sit at the dining room table and do our emails.  Oh, the small pleasures of life.  It seems almost normal again.  We have cable TV and are watching US movies in English with Spanish subtitles.  Mark is in the kitchen cooking.  Tonite we had shrimp cocktail as an appetizer and Mark is making grilled squid for dinner with cooked beets.  This kitchen is much nicer than the old one which we drew straws on who had to cook in that beastly room....  And, you simply can't beat the meat here.  Totally grass fed.  But not just the meat, the pollo (chicken) and cerda (pork) is hard to beat, too.  We had chevitas today for lunch.  They are a hamburger patty, a fried egg, ham, cheese, tomatoes, mayo, and any other condiment you can dream up on a hamburger bun.   Their hot dogs aren't bad either.   They are foot longs on a regular bun with about 25 condiments to choose from for dressing.  Junk food at its finest.

Everywhere we go, we strike up conversations with people.  Some are from Europe and some from the US.  Or they are from Uruguay but have homes in the US or their kids are in the US and they are here.   You begin to realize more and more that our move is pretty normal in the whole scheme of things.  Everyone is more than willing to help with anything you need.

Hal and Ollie are enjoying the new digs.   We have a very large patio that they can sit out on and sun.   It is still a bit chilly here.  The wind and rain continue as it is still the very end of winter. 

We are working on another home purchase.   Will let you know how this one goes.  It is a 3 bedroom 2 bath, big kitchen and living room, nice backyard, 2 1/2 blocks from the beach.   It is brand new, not quite finished yet, all for $180,000.00.  I don't think we would find that in the states, but you never know.  We are giving up our gorgeous view we had for more space and one floor and a nice neighborhood.  Not a bad trade off.  This is our second stab at a home purchase.  Hopefully this one will take.....

Adios,  Mark and Janet