I’m heading back to the States for the weekend to pick up some of our stuff we have in storage… Why not have it shipped? Because, it’s cheaper to get on a plane and bring it back (by a couple of thousand dollars).
When you are getting ready to fly out of Uruguay there is something you should know. You have to pay an airport exit fee. Why? I don’t know… But, they won’t let your through security until you’ve got your bar-coded receipt.
It’s U$S 31 or $744 pesos (as of today’s exchange rate Friday Aug. 14, 09). I tried to whip out my good ole MasterCard, but the lady wouldn’t accept it… Maybe she didn’t like me, but whatever the case may be… all she wanted from me was my boarding pass and my cash… I’m sure glad I had pesos on me.
As I sit here at the airport, I am enjoying one of my favorite pastimes. People watching. One thing about Uruguay is, the mullet has definitely not fallen out of style, both for men and women (it’s kind of scary)…
Either have tie-dye outfits, from head to toe tie-dye outfits that is. In addition, it’s around 20-22C degrees today (68-72F)… By looking at everyone in the airport here, you would think it’s 20 below. People here tend to overdress for cold weather… or even warm weather. Tons of clothing, hats gloves and scarves… and when they take those off… they have 4 layers of sweaters on below. None of that bothers me, it’s just observations.
If you are one of the people I’m getting ready to describe, and you take offense to this… good… I really think there should be a law passed here (and everywhere) about men not being allowed to wear skin-tight low cut V-neck T-shirts… AND… There’s just something wrong with men carrying a purse… I don’t care if it’s called a “man-purse”… There’s just something not right about that… So if I’m describing you, you’re doing wrong.
alinda says
Okay, now I’m curious about flying stuff back vs shipping…my hubs and I will be moving 6/10 and are debating whether to sell/donate all our stuff or ship it down in a container…any advice?
Alinda
Brian and Chrystal says
We had a very nice household full of high end furniture and electronics… We sold every last bit of it… We came down with 13 suitcases, 2 guitar cases and carry on luggage… We had 8 boxes stored in the US.
To ship the 8 large boxes down was going to run about U$S 3-4K (From San Diego)… Plus whatever import taxes would be imposed on us by Uruguay.
Me flying back for a weekend and bringing back 200lbs of stuff was less than a grand (about half of what was there.) We planned on just picking our stuff up when we went back on trips to the states, but… I had to pick up a bunch of maternity clothes, baby clothes and that sort of stuff… It’s much cheaper than buying all new down here.
When we were looking at shipping our whole household down in a container, it was going to be in the U$S 20K range… I’m sure along the Gulf Coast and along the East Coast would been less expensive than out of San Diego… Regardless, we had a few thousand pounds of stuff… Moving to another country, you start asking yourself the questions like: “Will we live in a an apartment or house? I’m curious as to if this will all fit in our new place? What if it doesn’t? Is the moving company going to screw us?”
We asked ourselves, “Is this headache going to be worth it?”
I can’t tell you what to do, but, I can tell you this… One of the most liberating things we’ve ever done was to sell off all of our stuff…
alinda says
Thanks so much for the response. Decisions, decisions… ; )