Expat & Travel Resource Guide
Johnny Luck, world famous tattoo artist, is in Montevideo, Uruguay from now through August 15, 2009. He is setting appointments to work out of Good Luck Tattoo on 21 de Setiembre @ Hellauri.
If you want or need a tattoo, please contact us to set up an appointment. In the meantime, Johnny has an extensive portfolio with him that you can touch and feel, and a couple of examples of his work posted online. Click here to check out his web page.
Click here to contact us.
Mail forwarding is something we considered before moving to Uruguay. Of course we have an address here in Uruguay, and we do receive mail here… BUT… We soon found out there are several reasons to forward mail through a mail forwarding service.
The biggest reason we decided to use a mail forwarding service is that our US Banks require a US physical address for our accounts. In addition, various other businesses we work with require a US address on file as well.
The second reason we decided to use a mail forwarding service is that we quickly found that many websites we love to shop on don’t ship to Uruguay. The ones that do ship products to Uruguay tend to have an excessive charge (I was quoted $320 for FedEx to ship a case of Agave Nectar to me! It was “only” $90 for the USPS slowest of slow shipping methods).
Before we decided on moving to Uruguay, neither one of us had ever used a mail forwarding service, because we never had a reason to forward our mail. The most we had ever done was put a in forwarding slip at the post office.
We researched a couple of different mail forwarding services. What we were looking for was for a mail forwarding service that was easy to use and transparent. The mail forwarding service we decided on using was Earth Class Mail.
The mail forwarding service we chose, Earth Class Mail, lets us check, manage and forward mail from anywhere in the world, via our computers. So whether we’re in Uruguay, or on a weekend adventure somewhere else in South America, we can access our mail and have it forwarded to us as long as we have Internet.
So we’re going to review the plan we chose to use with the Earth Class Mail, mail forwarding service. Getting started with Earth Class Mail was pretty easy. We first picked the plan we wanted. There are three options: Essential mail forwarding plan, ValuePlus mail forwarding plan and Professional mail forwarding plan. We use the ValuePlus mail forwarding plan for a few reasons:
We then had to choose our address. You can either choose to have PO Box or a physical address (or both, depending on your needs and budget). PO Boxes are available at no additional cost. Physical addresses require an additional monthly fee (ranging from $9.95 to $29.95, depending on location). UPS and FedEx won’t deliver to a PO Box and our bank requires a physical address, so we chose to have both.
After that, we had to have a form notarized to give Earth Class Mail permission to receive our mail. And, of course you have to remember to provide your address to friends, family and businesses you work with. After that, we were all set to go.
Once the mail forwarding kicked in and we started getting mail, we realized how easy the service is to use. When Earth Class Mail receives a new piece of mail for us, we receive an email. We then login to our account to see the scanned image of the envelope and can choose to have them:
We’ve found that by Earth Class Mail’s mail forwarding rates are reasonable. We pay about U$S 50 to have a FedEx Priority envelope forwarded to us in Uruguay. And, we paid as little as U$S 6 for a small package to be Forwarded down to us via USPS
If you’re a European citizen, I also noticed that Earth Class Mail could get you set up with a street address in various European countries and cities.
Overall, we’re very happy with the Earth Class Mail, mail forwarding service and recommend it to anyone that is planning to live or travel abroad.
Coming from San Diego, we didn’t expect to find great Mexican Food in Uruguay (San Diego has the best Mexican food around… I know you probably disagree if you’re from Texas, but that’s okay). Hopeful that we’d be wrong, we decided to look around Montevideo to see what Mexican restaurants Uruguay has to offer.
Our first couple weeks here, we were referred to Roma Tijuana Mexican Restaurant, located at Cnel Mora 533, as being a great Mexican food restaurant. So, we decided to check it out.
We ordered a chips and salsa sampler as our appetizer. Let’s just say we were very happy we brought our own hot sauce with us. The salsa was actually a slightly spicy ketchup, but we fixed that right up with some Tapatio and we were good to go.
I ordered enchiladas, and while they weren’t bad, they definitely weren’t what I was expecting. I thought enchiladas were supposed to be covered with sauce? Not at Roma Tijuana.
Brian got the fajitas. He said they weren’t too bad, but definitely nowhere near to what we’d get in San Diego.
Roma Tijuana is sort of like Mexican food meets Italian food. Interesting, but not what we were looking for. So, strike one in our search for good Mexican food in Uruguay.
We love roaming the streets of Montevideo in search of our next favorite restaurant. Last Friday night we came across La Lupita Mexican Restaurant. It’s located at Luis de la Torre 565, at the corner of Gregorio Suárez in the Punta Carretas barrio of Montevideo.
From the street, it doesn’t look like anything special. But, once you walk inside you know there has to be something special about this place. From the pictures on the wall to the red, white and green streamers across the ceiling, the décor screams Mexico.
The restaurant is small, so if you don’t get there early, expect a wait. The place was packed, and halfway through dinner, we noticed there was a line out the door. But, so far, I would say this is the closest thing to authentic Mexican food in Uruguay that we’ve found.
They served chips and salsa when we sat down. The sauce they served was very mild, but when we asked if they had salsa mas picante, our waitress happily brought out a bowl of spicy salsa (yah!) and a bottle of habanero hot sauce. We never even had to break out our own hot sauce at La Lupita.
I ordered the enchiladas rojas and they actually had sauce on them. They were good, definitely not as good as my homemade ones, but much better than the ones from Roma Tijuana.
Brian got the enchiladas verdes, which were also good, and a cerdo (pork) taco.
Zoë has had an enormous appetite lately, so we ordered her a plate of mini taquitos and tostadas. She just loved dipping the taquitos in the bowl of guacamole. Believe it or not, she finished off this whole platter!
La Lupita also serves Corona (which Brian happily ordered since we haven’t found Corona in too many places in Uruguay) and a full bar of tequilas (which we didn’t sample).
Overall, I would recommend La Lupita Mexican Restaurant if you’re looking for Mexican food in Uruguay. I’m sure we’ll stumble across a couple more Mexican restaurants before long, but for now, La Lupita will be our choice for Mexican food in Uruguay.
You know what is really interesting to me about Uruguay? It’s the price and quality of food in Uruguay. I bought 0.8 kilos (1.75lbs) of grass-fed Black Angus Rib Eye steak for 177 pesos (U$S 7.64); 1 nice sized zucchini and a medium sized onion for 12 pesos (U$S .52); and a huge bunch of fresh spinach for 26 pesos (U$S 1.12). Add a little sea salt, pepper, garlic and cayenne pepper. We just got done eating it for dinner… “mmmmmm” as Zoë would say.
What about pesticides? Well I’m glad you asked. I just learned today that a lot of small farmers do not use pesticides. Not because they don’t want to, but because it’s too expensive. I’m cool with that. On the other side of the fence though… The majority of larger farmers do use pesticides. There are some farmers in Uruguay who use pesticides that have been banned in the US for years…
So, we try to get all of our fruits and veggies from the smaller farmers at the local feria (kind of like a farmer’s market and swap meet all in one) rather than at the grocery stores and giant stands at the feria…
Yep, we’re having a baby in Uruguay! Zoë is no longer going to be an only child… she’s going to make such a great big sister.
We officially got word from the doctor today that everything looks good and our little one is expected around February 6, 2010. That means I’m nine weeks along. We couldn’t be happier. We definitely planned on having another baby in the future, but it looks like the future is coming faster than expected.
So after we told our families, there was a common question among them… “Are you going to come back to San Diego to have your baby?”
Our answer: “Why would we do that? Uruguay has great hospitals and wonderful medical care. We live here… Uruguay is our home for now, so we plan to have our baby here.”
After talking with some friends that had a baby in Uruguay, we’ve decided to look into having it at Hospital Británico (the British Hospital in Uruguay). The technology and service level is top notch, and we’ve been referred to a Doctor that speaks excellent English.
We’ve found that there isn’t much information available online about what to expect when having a baby in Uruguay. We were looking at into buying into a Uruguayan Hospital’s Insurance Plan. We still are… but being pregnant is considered a pre-existing condition. That means we’ll be paying all pregnancy related expenses from doctor’s visits to tests to the delivery out of pocket.
We’ll also be journaling about our experiences with pregnancy and having a baby in Uruguay. How that benefits you is… After our little one is born, we’ll be putting everything into an eBook that will hopefully make it easier for other expatriate families to navigate the process of having a baby in Uruguay. And of course, we’ll have updates here on our Uruguay blog!
Brian, Chrystal & Zoë
When we were preparing to move to Montevideo, we starting reading several Uruguay blogs. One Uruguay blog we came across shortly before the move was http://www.urmovingwhere.com.
Brad and Lisa, a couple a little bit older than us who have a daughter just five months older than Zoë, Geneva, started the blog after they moved to Uruguay. We traded emails with them several times before our move to Montevideo, and keep in contact with them now that we’re living in Uruguay. Zoë and Geneva love to play together.
Picture of Zoë and Geneva enjoying a homemade taco dinner
If you like our Uruguay blog, we thought you might be interested in learning about their experiences in Montevideo. Their life here is just a bit different from ours and may be able to give you another perspective on life in Uruguay.
Here are a few of the differences between our families:
We hope you like Brad and Lisa’s Uruguay Blog!
To prepare for our move to Uruguay, Brian and I did research to figure out the best way for us to learn Spanish. We decided upon the Michel Thomas CD courses:
For less than $150, you get a complete course designed by a world-renowned language instructor. Unfortunately Michel Thomas died back in 2005, but his CD course is great. Here is a short 5-minute video where one of his teachers speaks about the courses.
On the flip side, this program (and pretty much every program out there), teaches Spain (Castilian) and/or Mexican Spanish. The dialect in Uruguay is very different, so, we literally had to check our Mexican Spanish at the door when we arrived in Uruguay.
Most of the time we’ll be understood if we use Mexican Spanish, but we want to go beyond that and truly speak like the Uruguay locals.
Luckily we’ve befriended several Uruguay locals that speak English who’ve been helping us navigate the language differences. We’re constantly asking them to explain how to properly say this or that.
Interacting with them on a regular basis has been a tremendous help in developing our language skills in Uruguay. Everyday we get a big “ah-ha” of some sort that helps everything make just a little bit more sense.
We only learned the “usted” (formal) and “tu” (familiar) forms of verbs before moving to Uruguay. When we got here, we found the “usted” form isn’t used much (if you do, the person will often smile at you and ask where you’re from or correct you with the “tu” form). But out of respect, we still use the “usted” form.
We certainly don’t want to unintentionally offend anyone, especially since we’re still new to the culture in Uruguay. The “tu” form is used with people you don’t know well, but with close friends/ family there is an additional form, “vos.” We’re still working on learning that one.
Here are some other differences we’ve noticed between Mexican Spanish and the Spanish in Uruguay:
There are many options to take Spanish classes in Uruguay, but we’re enjoying the opportunity, and challenges, of learning through immersion. So, I’m sure that there will be many more new discoveries to come as we continue to learn Spanish in Uruguay.
When we decided to move to Uruguay, one of the first questions we asked ourselves was, “How are we going to keep in communication with friends and family?”
Calling long distance is pretty expensive (like $2.50/minute), and we knew not everyone could afford those types of rates. We wanted to make sure everyone could call us whenever they wanted, and not have to worry about money.
Not to mention, when we conduct business… We do it with people in the U.S. and we don’t want to pay U$S 100 an hour to talk on the phone… Our profits would be gone.
We’ve been using Vonage for years, so we assumed once we made the move to Uruguay, we would continue using the San Diego number we had through the VOIP (voice over internet phone) service to communicate with friends and family back in the States. It was always reliable and only $24.99 per month for unlimited local and long distance calls in the U.S.
When we were in the States, we were on the phone a lot with our business, so Vonage worked well for us. But, we knew once we made the move to Uruguay that we’d be doing a lot of our communication via email, and the phone would only be used for personal calls and the occasional business call.
We tried Skype and had a ton of problems with it. We know some people swear by Skype, we’re just not those people.
Brian heard about MagicJack from an infomercial before our move to Uruguay. For only $39.99 for the first year and $19.99 each year after that (not to mention, once you sign up,
MagicJack will send you an offer to extend for an additional 5 years for $60), you get unlimited local and long distance calls to the United States and Canada.
MagicJack comes with voicemail, call waiting and call forwarding. The only downside is MagicJack does not allow you to retain your current phone number or transfer your number.
It sounded too good to be true, but we decided to order one and try it out… It was only $40…
We got it a few weeks before our big move to Uruguay, tried it with our high speed cable internet service a few times and immediately canceled Vonage. The service worked very well, the calls were crystal clear and it was a fraction of the cost of Vonage.
To use the MagicJack, all you need to do is:
The voicemail sends you an mp3 to your email so you can listen to it through your computer… So you don’t have to worry about missing a message if you’re on your computer and the MagicJack isn’t plugged in.
This feature really came in handy when we first arrived in Uruguay and were still staying in the hotel because we couldn’t have our phone plugged into the MagicJack all of the time. The hotel had free WiFi (as most places here do)… And we just used the phone that came to the room
We’ve been using MagicJack regularly now that we’re living in Uruguay, and overall we’re very satisfied with the service.
We do lose the occasional call during the early evening hours due to our sometimes-slow Internet connection. But, that’s because we have ADSL Internet service, and the phone lines can only carry so much bandwidth (when we had cable Internet in the States, the sound was crystal clear and we never lost or even had interference in a single call).
For $20/year, we really can’t complain. We will definitely continue using MagicJack and don’t plan on going back to Vonage anytime soon.
I’m not so sure the service would be much better with any other VOIP service anyhow since they are all dependent on the Internet connection (We’ve heard similar concerns about dropped calls with Skype and Vonage use in Uruguay), and our only choice for High-Speed Internet here is ASDL.
If you’re living or traveling outside of the US, or planning to do so sometime in the near future, we highly recommend checking into the MagicJack.
How do you keep in contact with your family, friends and business associates when you’re abroad?
Since moving to Uruguay, we get all of our fruits and vegetables, and some of our meat and other household items, at the weekly ferias (open air markets) here in Montevideo. There is a smaller feria on Tuesdays and a larger one on Saturdays only a block from our apartment.
You can buy “anything” at these Markets. Jackets, makeup, hoodies, dvds, video games, hats, clothes, incense, art, food, furniture, toys, diapers, etc.
It’s nice to always have easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables. We’ve been making homemade chicken stock to make delicious soups and stews every week with the vegetables.
Just to give you an idea of how far the US dollar goes in Uruguay when it comes to food…
Earlier this week, for U$S 15.75, we got:
24 farm fresh eggs
4 pears
4 apples
3 limes
1 head of lettuce
1 large leek
20 jumbo strawberries
1 large Broccoli crown
4 large red bell peppers
2 giant carrots
2 large zucchinis
2 large tomatoes
3 onions
And, on a smaller trip to the Uruguay feria, for 280 Uruguayan pesos (U$S 12) we got:
24 farm fresh eggs
2 giant carrots
4 large tomatoes
2 ears of corn
1 head of purple cabbage
2 large red bell peppers
1 package of fresh Brussels sprouts
2 large zucchinis
3 apples
½ kilo. strawberries
2 red potatoes
1 garlic bulb
Not too bad… There are ferias all around Montevideo, some better than others… some cheaper than others. We live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Montevideo (Pocitos)… So our feria is probably a little more expensive than the ferias outside of our neighborhood.
This is a question we asked ourselves when we made the decision to move to Uruguay. We had a Graco Quattro (that was part of our travel system), which was bulky and just wouldn’t work for city life. So, I started researching different strollers to find one that would be ideal for life in Montevideo.
After a lot of research and chatting with friends we found 2 modes of transportation for Zoë that would work best while living in Uruguay. One is our stroller and the other is our backpack carrier.
Kelty TC 3.0 Transit Child Carrier
Review: As I mentioned in our first post about our travels to Uruguay, the Kelty Carrier has been a lifesaver. It’s a backpack that allows Zoë to ride in it. Sometimes we just don’t want to haul the stroller around, or there just isn’t room to navigate it (like at the market). Zoë loves sitting up high where she can see everything and it must be comfortable because she has fallen asleep in it several times, head flopping and all. Brian says it’s comfortable to wear (after he figured out how to adjust it). The Kelty Carrier has made our life in Uruguay so much easier than if we only had a stroller.
Baby Jogger City Mini
Review: As far as our stroller goes, we decided on the Baby Jogger City Mini because it is lightweight, sturdy, easy to maneuver, reasonably priced and customizable. It also had a very large sun cover, which seemed to be hard to find on strollers in the same class. And, the one hand fold was something even I could handle on my own. I highly recommend watching the video review on Amazon.com (click link above and scroll down… it’s the first review listed). It gives an excellent overview of the stroller’s functionality and I always find visuals very helpful.
We initially bought just the City Mini stroller, but quickly decided that we’d need to add a few accessories before moving to Uruguay:
Baby Jogger Child’s Tray
Review: It has a holder for a sippy cup and room on the tray for snacks or a toy. It also snaps right out on one side to make it easier to get Zoë out.
Baby Jogger Parent Console
Review: It has one spot for a drink and two small cooler sections. Works great.
Baby Jogger City Mini Single Stroller Rain Canopy
Review: This thing is awesome. It fits nicely over the stroller and keeps Zoë dry and warm when it rains here. We’ve used it several times already and it works perfectly… absolutely essential in Uruguay.
Mommy Hooks
Review: Another great investment… we have two. We were actually out shopping while still in San Diego and I said that I wished there was some sort of hook you could get to put on your stroller to hang your shopping bags so you didn’t have to try to carry them and push the stroller at the same time. So, I went home, got on the Internet and discovered the Mommy Hook. We have one on each side of the stroller and it’s perfect for a trip to the Punta Carretas shopping center or grocery store (we usually take the Kelty Carrier to the market). You can load them up pretty full and the stroller still handles well, even on the uneven sidewalks here in Montevideo.
Baby Jogger Carry Bag
Review: This was great for traveling to Uruguay with the stroller. Before we got on the plane, we just popped the stroller in the bag and gate checked it. That way, we knew it would be protected from damage.
Baby Jogger Adjustable Belly Bar
Review: If you don’t want the full child tray, the belly bar is great because it gives your child something to hold onto. And, you can adjust the height, which is nice (the child tray obstructs Zoë’s view and there’s no way to adjust the height). Either way, you need to have either the belly bar or tray for folding the stroller up and having it stay in place (nice little feature for the smaller apartment size in Montevideo).
These are a few other accessories that look interesting, but we don’t own:
Baby Jogger Foot Muff
Review: I’ve thought about adding this one since the weather in Uruguay in cooling down for winter, but we probably won’t purchase this. What we tend to do now is just cover Zoë up with one of her blankets, the only downside to that is she likes to kick them off. One thing that we do when it’s on the cooler side is, we put the Rain Canopy on her stroller, which traps the warm air in and keeps her warm… and if she decides to kick her blanket off or throw a toy, it traps them as well.
Baby Jogger Umbrella Holder and Baby Jogger Umbrella
Review: I almost bought these until I read they’re specifically for protection from the sun (not rain). It may be something we look at in the future, but right now we’re looking for a good rain umbrella attachment since Uruguay has rainy winters. The one good thing about the handle on the stroller is that it is rounded, so it makes it a lot easier to navigate with one hand and hold an umbrella than the square handled strollers.
Baby Jogger Cooler Bag
Review: This cooler holds a six-pack and will come in handy this summer for trips to Pocitos beach. We are definitely purchasing this in the next coming months.
Baby Jogger City Mini Single Stroller Bug Canopy
Review: We thought about purchasing this since we were coming to South America. If we had purchased it, we would not have used it to this point. But it is winter here. Depending on how many creepy crawlies come out when it starts warming up will be a big factor in determining if we purchase this or not.
The “city terrain” in Montevideo, Uruguay is a little rougher than in some other areas of the world. The sidewalks are made of tiles that are laid individually, by hand (you’ll see workers out laying new tiles pretty much every day). We have yet to see a level sidewalk, or one that doesn’t have a least a few missing tiles. We’ll probably have to replace the wheels once a year just from the wear and tear the sidewalks put on them. But other than that, the stroller is holding up great. Overall, I would say the Baby Jogger City Mini has been ideal for living in Montevideo, Uruguay.
