UruguayLiving.com

I started by living in Carrasco, but after 10 months decided I want to be closer into the heart of the city.  So, I moved to Buceo and spent two years there.  Now I have decided to try los suburbios–the suburbs.

My new home is in El Pinar Sur in Departamento Canelones.  (Have you ever noticed that a couple of the departamentos are named for food?  Canelones, Durazno (peach), and in San Jose the capital is San Jose de Mayo (hmm, maybe that’s the month and not the condiment).

El Pinar Sur is 15km East of Carrasco and is at the eastern end of the local municipality “Ciudad de la Costa”–that part of Canelones along the shore that is outside of Montevideo and inside the first peaje (toll-both) on the Interbalnearia (intercoastal highway).

Read the rest of this entry »

Geography, Living in Coastal Uruguay, Living in Uruguay, interior of UY | 2 Comments »

For those of you debating whether or not it is a good time to leave the US, I suggest you read the article and download the report you can find online at:  BBC NEWS
Not interested?  Here are the first three paragraphs, they may change your mind:

US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends.

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence.

It also says the dollar may no longer be the world’s major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.

If that isn’t enough, remember this:  the US Dollar is going to drop precipitously in the next few years due to the huge amount of money the government is printing to finance bailouts.

Expats, Living in Uruguay, News, foreign affairs | 4 Comments »

As many of you know, I am moving my house and offices away from our home for the last two years.  The Customer Service operation for my “real” business will move to Centro while I will move to the suburbs.

Because of the distance, it will be impractical to continue the Open Houses at my home outside the city, and we will not have our own appropriate facility inside Montevideo.

Therefore, we have a few options:

1. We can rent a location and sponsor a gathering once or twice per month in Montevideo;
2. We can find a suitable bar or restaurant where we could meet, since they are not likely to be busy Thursday evenings from 6-10PM.

In either case, we would be willing to sponsor the gatherings once, or may twice per month.

If other companies were willing to sponsor the meetings, AND other people were willing to act as hosts, then the meetings could continue on a weekly basis.

My hope is that our non-profit, Sociedad Southron AC, might be able to get sponsorships and website advertising to help pay for some of these activities.

Frankly, after bearing the entire financial and logistical burden for two years, my staff and I are worn out.

You can cast your vote on the poll on www.SociedadSouthron.net.

Living in Uruguay | 1 Comment »

I love small businesses! While some can be very bad, many are extremely good, and almost all are distinctive.

In the last few weeks I had the opportunity to visit a small business that was so friendly and helpful that I decided to give them a plug here.  The business is Meerhoff Optica at the corner of España and Saramiento.

The manager waited on me personally, and spoke a goodly amount of English.  I purchased 4 sets of new lenses and one pair of new frames.  Without asking, he offered me a discount  because of the size of my purchase.  He also gave me without charge a new temple for my main pair of glasses as I had managed to break them for the second time.

I left all but one pair with them and he promised to call me when everything was ready.  Amazingly he did, about a week later.

When I went it to pick up the glasses I was given the same care and greeted with the same friendliness as before.  Additionally, the quality of the lenses was excellent (I am really picky about that because I use progressive bifocals and photogrey lenses)!

One of the very best things about living in Uruguay is the friendliness of its people–and the people at Meerhoff were an excellent example.

Everyday Life, Living in Uruguay | Comments Off

I’m not sure the old Thanksgiving some really “works” as amended, and I sure as heck haven’t figured out how to work in the part about the sleigh–somehow a carrito just conjures up the wrong image.

Nevertheless, Thanksgiving is coming again and we will be celebrating it in our new tradtional fashion just like last year (when about 90 people participated).

Everyone has something for which to be thankful:  for me those things include friends, better health, 40kg less weight, and lots of good business.  On this day of craziness which ends the “silly season” in the US, I am especially thankful to be here and not there.
The Southron’s gang will provide some turkeys and asado (I’m not sure if either the Pilgrims or the Gauchos would really approve of the mix), and we ask everyone else to bring along a side dish and anything else they would like to add to the feast.

As before, Clara Lundquist has been appointed Grand High Menu organizer because of her ability to badger, wheedle and otherwise keep everyone in line.  And because she did such a great job, I volunteered her again this year.  Please cooperate as Clara organizes the menu and tries to get a head count so we know how much food to buy.

Since this is going to be the very last of the weekly Thursday night Open House gatherings here in Buceo (more about that later) I hope that everyone will try to attend.

Food, Holidays, Living in Uruguay | Comments Off

Sometimes I really HATE technology.

For months I have not been getting emails at my southron@UruguayLÑiving.com account.  I just figured that everyone was bored with me and no longer bothered to write,  I admit that I was a little surprised that no one evn bother to spam me as well, but being incredibly busy, in between being sick, hospitalized, having body parts removed, etc., I really didn’t spend much time on it…

Until yesterday when i realized that my UruguayLiving.com email was not getting through because one kind person sent me a private message on www.SociedadSouthron.net asking if I had gotten their email.

I think my computer needs to be exorcised–for no conceivable reason, I have not been getting my email since 11 April 2008.

In the words of Gomer Pyle:  “surprise, surprise, surprise”.  I just downloaded 16.531 emails totalling 21.MB of space.  The Spam catcher is still sorting through them and the number to which I must respond is dropping steadily.

So, to all those who have written me, I humbly apologize for not responding–sometimes it takes me a while, but I try to respond to every legitimate email I get…

After Epiphany (Tres Reyes) I am going to bring a priest here to bless the house and office AND exorcise the computer and exchange server–I wonder if metal can blister?

Maybe snail mail is faster?

Internet, Technology, blog business | 3 Comments »

Is anyone visiting Uruguay in the next few weeks who would be willing to bring along a new laptop that I need?  If you can do so, please email me at southron@uruguayling.com.

Thank you kindly.

blog business | 2 Comments »

After only 18 months, Sociedad Southron Asociacion Civil (SSAC) has been approved as a non-profit organization here in Uruguay.

The purposes and programs for which the organization was founded are those noted on the main page of this website, which I will reprint here:

The Sociedad Southron is a non-profit society the purposes of which are:

1.    to encourage qualified foreign retirees, investors and entrepreneurs to relocate to Uruguay, in order to further the economic and social development of Uruguay; and

2.    to facilitate social and business contacts between these newcomers and both native and naturalized Uruguayans, in order to expedite the assimilation of the newcomers into Uruguayan society; and

3.    to arrange group discounts and other benefit programs for members of the Sociedad; and

4.    to unite both groups to work together for their mutual advancement and for the advancement of Uruguay economically, culturally and socially, while balancing any advancement against the imperative of preserving Uruguay’s quality of life.

The Sociedad Southron will support programs and engage in activities which will:

5.    help and encourage newcomers to learn the Spanish language; and

6.    promote the spread of English as a business language in order to assist in the development of Uruguay’s economy; and

7.    work to make Uruguay more accessible for handicapped members of the community; and

8.    support effective consumer rights; whenever possible, through dialog with the business community, but when necessary, through direct consumer advocacy against the most egregious offenders, and

9.    sponsor and subsidize charitable works in Uruguay for the benefit of deserving disadvantaged persons; and

10.    discourage the immigration of persons who would be detrimental to Uruguay’s wellbeing.
The law requires that dues are charged for membership, but they are being set as low as allowed.

To get things started, I am transferring ownership of this website, UruguayDailyNews.com and UruguayConnection.com to SSAC.  I am also transferring the ownership of the artwork proper to those sites.

One of my hopes is to now turn UruguayDailyNews.com into a much bigger enterprise.  I hope to solicit advertising or corporate sponsorships, or even grants.  I have refused to do so prior to this time because I did not want to accept one penny into my company’s accounts in order to keep the separation complete and the books spotless.

Capital Conservator will continue to sponsor the activities of the projects, now to be owned by SSAC, but I hope that other sources will help bear the burden as well.

I would appreciate your ideas regarding the things SSAC should do, and the way those things can be implemented.  Please email me at Southron@UruguayLiving.com, rather than sending PM’s here.

Sociedad Southron | Comments Off

By now, most everyone knows that in Real Life (if you can call it that) I work in the offshore banking industry.  We do no banking in Uruguay–because it is slow, expensive and difficult–but we do have am administration office here.

As a normal part of our  business we open financial accounts with various institutions around the world.  Mostl of them require a notarized account opening document or signature card.  In most places, even including the two islands on which I lived in the Caribbean, this is a piece of cake–here it is an indigestible lump of something I prefer not to describe in a family blog.

One cannot simply get one’s signature notarized here.  The Government won’t allow.  Instead, one must jump through a series of ever more expensive and difficult hoops in order to accomplish this erstwhile simple task.

We have been trying to open an account at a Bank in Poland to more easily load a new Visa card product we are getting ready to offer.  ALL we need to complete it is to have two signatures notarized.  But it CAN’T be done here.  Escibranos, the local name for civil law notaries (although the law isn’t very civil at all) can’t just notarize a signature, they have to notarize the whole document.

And God-forbid that the document is in any language other than Spanish (like Polish and English maybe), the document has to be translated into Spanish.  This means that I have the privilege of paying a public translator to translate an English-Polish bank account opening form into Spanish.  I don’t yet know if they translate BOTH the English and the Polish–(probably they do so they can charge twice for the same translation).

Then the document can be notarized.

End of story; right?  Wrong!  Because Uruguay is one of a handfull of countries that to not subscribe the the International Convention on the Legalisation of Documents, Uruguay does not issue Apostilles, which are basically an internationally recognized super-notarization.  Some other countries that do not have the Apostille include some important business centers as North Korea, Cuba, and Libya.

This means that the document has to be legalized before it can be sent to Poland.

So, after it is translated, and notarized, it must be sent to a court for review.

But we’re still not finished!  Then it goes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to finally be legalized.

But we’re not done yet.  Now, it has to be taken to the Polish Embassy in Buenos Aires (because the Polish Embassy here is now closed), after which it can finally be sent to the Polish Bank.

Easy:  US$500 and a month later, we have the document….

EXCEPT that the Court didn’t like two or three words in the notarization, so we had to start the process all over again.

NB:  For those of you who might think that I missed the obvious solution of going to the US Embassy to get the signatures notarized, I didn’t.  The Yankee Embassy will ONLY notarize documents intended for the US.  And espite the grandiose ambitions of King Georeg II, Poland is not yet considered a part of the US (except in some parts of Chicago–or maybe it is the other way around? Chicago is considered a part of Poland…).

For those who want to know more about the Apostille, see:  http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=conventions.status&cid=41#nonmem

Banking, Business, Everyday Life, Law, Living in Uruguay, foreign affairs | 2 Comments »

From time to time I have wished that I had studied Spanish in school instead of German.  After all, my opportunities for saying, “Guten Tag! Wie geht es Ihnen.” are very limited here–and my German is not good enough to pass myself off as a long lost member of Odessa in Brazil.

Nevertheless, in moments of clarity, I realize that taking Spanish in school would have been of little utility here in Montevideo, because, despite what they may say, they don’t speak Español here; they speak Rioplatense Uruguayo, which is NOT to be confused with either Rioplatense Porteño, or Español del interior.

Spanish-speakers are very picky about their language.  (Does anybody know the word for Spanish-speakers that is parallel to “Francophone” or “Anglophone”?  I can’t find it and I have looked high and low…) For example, in school they taught Castellano Español (Castillian Spanish).  But when I once used the word “Español” to a Cubano friend in Florida to describe his native tongue, he was insulted and told me that “only Mexican migrant workers speak Español, I speak Castellano”.  So I started using the word Castellano instead…

…Until I was in Gibraltar and used the word Castellano when speaking to a local Gibraltarian (all of whom are amazingly totally bilingual).  He went into a tirade and explained to me, in what can best be described as indignant and excited utterances that “Castellano was the language of the damned Madrid centralists, and that Andalusian was perfectly good Spanish as well; and I should understand that in Gibraltar they speak the Llanito dialect of Andalusian, NOT Castellano”.

Great! After that I was afraid to call the language anything…

Then came my horrendous stay in Costa Rica where they have the habit of changing the diminutive “ito, (as in Puerito, cafecito, etc.)  to “ico”, hence their nickname of “Ticos”–I have some other names for them, but I cannot add them here as this is a family friendly blog.  Anyway, despite, the “ico”, Costa Ricans also claimed to speak “Castellano”….

Finally, I arrived in Montevideo and encountered Rioplatense Uruguayo, although I had no idea that was what it was at the time.

I distinctly remember having breakfast in my hotel and requesting  “servietas papeles” (paper napkins).  I pronounced the word slowly and clearly using the Cubano Castellano I had been taught.  But the waiter looked at me as if I had spoken in Turkish… Then he brightened and said (phonetically transcribed) “ah, servishettas”, after which he brought the napkins.  As before, my internal reaction is quite unprintable here, except perhaps in to use the Latin phrase “illegitimi non carborundam est” (I apologize to any Latin scholars if I have mispelled anything).

That was my introduction to Rioplatense pronunciation in which the “y” (when used as a consonant) and the “ll” are both pronounced like “sh” or “zh” in English.  Everywhere else in the Spanish-speaking (spanophone maybe?) world they are pronounced like the “y” as a consonant in English.

The other big difference is the use of “vos” alongside “tu” in the second person  familiar form.  I have been told that “vos”  (instead of, or interchangeably with “tu”) is a holdover, or perhaps more properly a hangover, from medieval Spanish.

For many months I spoke both Cubano Castellano and Rioplatense Español badly, but in tande.  Words I learned before I moved here were pronounced in Cubano and new words that I learned here were pronounced in Rioplatense.  Finally, in my efforts to de-gringoize myself, I totally converted to Rioplatense.

But then Rioplatense backfired on me last April in Panama when our Panamanian attorneys made fun of my Rioplatense pronunciation.  As you may expect, that just meant that I would find ways to use it more often. Sanitago sold out and switched to Castellano, and then accused me of being a “Uruguayo Nacionalista”…

But when I came home to Uruguay I was convinced I finally had the various versions of whatever you call that language straightened out in my mind….

Until earlier this week, when it was explained to me, that Rioplatense Uruguayo is different that Rioplatense Porteño in that the people from Buenos Aires NEVER use “tu”, and only use “vos” or “vosotros”:  AND that the people in the interior of both Uruguay and Argentina do not speak Rioplatense (of whichever dialect) at all.

Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided to have Borko teach me Serbian…

Culture, Language, Living in Uruguay | 12 Comments »