Exploring Uruguay

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Renting A Car in Uruguay

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Renting a car in Uruguay has been one of the easiest things we’ve done since we got here.  We simply walked over to Budget Rent A Car (located near Punta Carretas Shopping), asked to rent a car and got one.

To rent a car in Uruguay, all we had to do was show our driver’s license and passport, pay and we were off.

Now, it just so happened that the weekend we decided to rent a car was a holiday, ‘Constitution Day’ Weekend, so we got hit with higher prices because we had to go through Budget instead of one of the smaller local agencies (because they were all sold out.)

One of the smaller agencies would have gladly rented us a car for $20 a day, but she didn’t have any available.

Another local agency would have rented us a car for $22 a day, but he didn’t have any available either.

So renting the car from Saturday morning through Monday morning from Budget was U$S 148…  A little steep, but hey, it was worth it for the great time we had.

Now one thing about renting a car in Uruguay you do need to know and be prepared for is they are sticks.  Yes, manual transmissions.  We had read that on a blog or website prior to moving here, but to actually see it is kind of funny.

Regardless, we had a 2009 Fiat with less than 3,000 km on it. The Fiat had CD player with detachable faceplate with a MP3 input…  Our iPods provided a fantastic soundtrack for a great road trip.

Long and short, you should have no problems renting a car in Uruguay.  Driving, on the other hand, is a whole different story.

Having a Baby in Uruguay Follow Up: First Trimester Down!

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If you didn’t read our original blog about having a baby in Uruguay, you can find it here.

We’re happy to report that we’ve made it through the first trimester!

Everything is going well with my pregnancy and the care I’m receiving at Hospital Britanico has been great. I’ve found an obstetrician that speaks English, which has been very helpful, although I am a little nervous about the fact that not all of the labor and delivery staff will speak English.

If it were anything other than delivering a baby, I wouldn’t worry so much about the language barrier. I guess we need to brush up on Spanish medical terminology.

The latest discussion in our house is whether we’re having a baby boy or baby girl… I think we’re having a boy; Brian thinks we’re having a girl. We have another ultrasound next Thursday, so we’re hoping to find out if we’re having a boy or girl in just over a week (right before Brian embarks on a weekend journey to the States to pick up my maternity clothes and baby stuff). Of course we’ll keep you updated when we get the news.

Although I don’t think she quite understands yet, Zoë points to my belly every morning and says “baby.” I still think she’s going to be in for a bit of a shock when we bring an actual baby home in February. But she is a very loving little girl, so I think she’s adjust just fine with a little time.

I was just thinking today about how different it is going to be having baby #2. When Zoë was born, Brian was able to stay with us in the hospital.

This time around, he’ll have to stay with Zoë at night, so I’ll be at the hospital alone with the new baby. While it’ll be different and I’m sure Zoë will be wondering where mommy is, it’ll give me some private bonding time with the new baby before we bring him or her home and mommy is pulled in multiple directions.

That will have both its pros and cons. When I was still recovering after having Zoë, it was nice to have Brian there to change Zoë’s diaper (he actually changed her very first diaper) or bring her to me so I could feed her.

But, I guess the positive side is that I’ll get extra snuggle time with the new baby and can sleep knowing that Brian isn’t laying on an uncomfortable cot next to me ☺ We’ll see how I actually feel about it when the big day comes.

We’ll keep you posted on our blog in the coming months about how things are going. And of course, we’re still working on our ebook to help other expatriate families understand the process of having a baby in Uruguay.

Uruguay Food: Exploring the Food of Uruguay

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We heard it put best when someone said that Uruguay food consists of, “Pizza, pasta and parrilla.”

Really, that’s pretty right on. Parrilla (Uruguayan barbeque) and Italian foods are quite common in Uruguay. However, there are a few local dishes that are also popular in Uruguay.

Chivitos are one popular Uruguay food. You can either get the Chivitos plate or the Chivitos al Pan. Typically, the Chivitos plate consists of layers of lomo (beef), ham, pancetta (bacon), mozzarella and fried egg. It’s usually served either on top of or with a plate of French fries, tomatoes, lettuce, potato salad, olives and some pickled red bell peppers.

The Chivitos al Pan is simply the layered lomo, ham, pancetta, mozzarella and fried egg between two pieces of bread. These sandwiches are usually huge and may or may not be served with French fries.

As far as Uruguay food goes, this is one of our favorite meals to order.

Another popular Uruguay food is the Milanesa. Again, this can either be served as a plate or al pan. A Milanesa is basically either a piece of chicken or beef, beaten very thin, breaded and then deep friend.

If you order the plate, it’ll usually come with a huge serving of fries, but you can also order it with mashed potatoes if you want. Sometimes it will also be slathered with ham and cheese, depending on where you order it.

The Milanesa al Pan is basically the same thing, but slapped between two pieces of bread. We typically have to take half of the Milanesa home because they are typically huge. Zoë loves Milanesas. They’re basically like huge chicken nuggets. Throw fries in with that and she’s a happy camper 🙂

Hamburgers are one type of food we expected to be universal. They do serve hamburgers in Uruguay, but they’re different than in the U.S..

How you ask?

I guess it just wouldn’t be a hamburger without ham. Well, if you order a hamburguesa completa (complete hamburger), you not only get the burger, ham and the bun, but you get mozzarella, a fried egg, pickled peppers, onions and more! Luckily you get to choose which toppings they put on.

Let’s loop back around to pasta now. You can get pretty much any type of pasta in Uruguay, but there are some interesting differences.

The first difference we noticed was that the pasta is made fresh at a lot of restaurants. I mean, when you place your order they make the pasta from scratch right then. It’s awesome. Not everywhere does it, but we love it when they do. I guess it helps cut back on food costs.

Another thing we noticed is that if you order lasagna, it will almost always have ham layered in!

We thought it was strange at first but ham seems to included with almost every type of Uruguay food, so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised.

Another type of pasta that is very popular is gnocchi or, as you often see it spelled in Uruguay, noquis.

Actually, most restaurants (and even some of the grocery stores) serve gnocchi on the 29th of every month. Argentina also holds the same tradition. Apparently the reason it’s served every month on the 29th is because it is traditionally the day before payday, when most people are usually broke. And, gnocchi is a cheap and filling meal. It’s also really good.

Pizza is pretty self explanatory, but there are some differences from the average pizza in the US.

The pizza is typically all made fresh and oven baked. You can’t order thick crust or thin crust… it is what it is.

Not all pizza has cheese… the first pizza Brian tried didn’t have cheese. They don’t use a lot of sauce and some of the topping choices are different. And unfortunately, you won’t find a delicious by the slice joint like you would in New York, but overall it’s not bad.

Parrilla is, like we’ve said, Uruguayan barbeque. Although after thinking about it, I think it deserves a blog post all its own. More to come on that in a future Exploring Uruguay blog.

How Do You Pay for Things in Uruguay?

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UY Pesos, Dollars or Plastic? We use all three.

I don’t know why, but our US banks won’t allow us to pull out more than $2,000 UYU at a time. So it’s easier for us to pull ou U$S300 and saves us two $58 UYU transaction fee at the ATM.

We typically take our US dollars to a Cambio (see pic below) to exchange them for UY pesos so that we get the best rate of exchange.

Unfortunately the Cambios aren’t open on Sundays, so occasionally we’ll be stuck with US dollars and no simple way to exchange them for UY pesos.

Then I buy a coke at the market across the street with a U$S 100 bill and get the change in UY Pesos (but don’t expect many of the stores to do that for you until you’ve established yourself as a regular customer).

Most places will accept US dollars, but if you hand them a hundred dollar bill, they’ll usually look at you like you are crazy… Very few places could break it (U$S 100 is about $2312 UY pesos).

However, if you walk into some stores, like electronics stores, you’ll see everything is priced in US dollars rather than UY pesos. I guess paying U$S 1500 sounds better than $34,680 UY pesos…

Also, because the sales tax here is 22%, we try to pay for everything we can on our debit card. Why? Because we get 8% back on most purchases when you pay with debit/ credit cards (with a few exceptions like grocery stores) and we don’t get stuck with a currency transfer fee.

Unfortunately, even though Visa and MasterCard are accepted at a lot of places, we’re finding more places don’t accept plastic than do (especially restaurants). I guess the fees are pretty high for businesses.

Of course there are places, like the ferias, that only accept UY Pesos. So, there really isn’t a simple answer to, “How do you pay for things in Uruguay.” It’s really a mix is UY pesos, US dollars and plastic.

We learned through trial and error how to balance the mix and hope this blog provides a little clarification for you.

Doing Your Laundry in Uruguay

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One thing I wasn’t quite prepared for is the process of doing laundry in Uruguay. You can’t just decide one afternoon that you need to wash a pair of jeans and have them clean in an hour or two.

Why you ask? Well, you won’t find many clothes dryers in Uruguay apartments. They just aren’t that common. All of the clothes drying is done on clotheslines, either on balconies or even out of the window! We have several clotheslines on the balcony off the master bedroom.

That’s because we, like many people, do have a lavarropa (washing machine) in our apartment. It’s in our kitchen… strange place, I know. But that’s a common location for it in Uruguay apartments. The only problem is that our lavarropa takes about 1.5 hours just to wash a small load.

So, I try to do one load of laundry at night and then hang it to dry in the morning. If I’m diligent about it, I’m able to keep up with our laundry. However, I often fall behind (it’s easy when it’s raining and you can’t hang the clothes out to dry) and that’s where the lavaderos come into play.

A lavadero is basically a full service Laundromat, which is your second option for doing laundry is Uruguay. All you have to do is drop your laundry off and they wash, dry, press and fold everything for you. It’s really quite convenient, and they typically have everything ready in two days.

And, like most services in Uruguay, it’s reasonably priced. We had about seven loads of laundry (small loads) done for $500 Uruguayan pesos (which is U$S 21.58). Not bad.  Here are the prices from the Lavadero across the street (just click on the image and you’ll be able to see a larger view). Remember, the prices are in UY pesos.

Dry cleaning is readily available in Uruguay as well. In fact we have a tintorería (dry cleaner) right next door to our apartment building that even does one-hour dry cleaning. I used them once to dry clean three shirts and it was just under U$S 3.00 per shirt.

So, while doing your laundry in Uruguay can be a process, it’s just another part of the culture that we’ve adjusted to.

To Bidet or Not to Bidet… The Answer is Quite Obvious…

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Another Uruguay blog we follow is, “Wally in Uruguay.”

This Uruguay blog follows Wally and Denise, who are retiring to Uruguay from the States.

We’ve never met Wally or Denise, but through Wally’s Uruguay blog we feel like we know them.

When you visit his Uruguay blog, start from his first post and read through to the present. It follows them purchasing a home (a fixer)… and going through all of the trials and tribulations of renovating a house here in Uruguay.

In a post from a little over a year ago on his Uruguay blog, Wally touched on a topic that I never thought I’d want to write about until now. But he did such a great job on the topic that I’m going to recommend you read it instead of me writing another blog on the topic, Ode to Bidet.

Wally kind of reminds me of my Uncle Dave… He’s full of energy, ready to take on anything head on, quite funny… and sometimes a little clueless (as you can read on his latest post, Denise’s Special Day).

If you are considering retiring to Uruguay, Wally’s Uruguay blog is full of invaluable information… from hiring contractors and dealing with them, to a lot of “do it yourself” work around the house.

If we buy property in Uruguay after the new baby is here, we’ll be referencing Wally’s Uruguay blog on a regular basis. Or, if you just want a neat story to follow, his Uruguay blog provides that as well.

Montevideo, Uruguay Makes the News in San Diego

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Before we moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, the San Diego Reader was a staple of our week when we lived in San Diego, California. The Reader is a weekly publication filled with neat feature articles, listings for all of the local live music shows and much more.

When we announced to family and friends that we were moving to Uruguay, not many of them knew exactly where it was on the map. So, we were surprised this week to pull up the San Diego Reader’s website this week and see a story on Montevideo, Uruguay!

It’s a brief article and I think the writer’s prices are a little high compared to what we’ve seen. Brian just got a round trip ticket from Montevideo to Los Angeles for $680. And, two people can go to dinner at a very nice Parrilla and both have the finest cut of steak, lomo, and a good bottle of wine for what he’s estimating for one person (maybe he was getting the “gringo discount”).

But, we thought it was neat to see that more people are starting to recognize that Montevideo, Uruguay is a great place to visit and live. Check out the article by clicking here.

Uruguay Restaurant Review: Taco Munoz

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From the name of this Uruguay restaurant, Taco Munoz, we thought we had stumbled across yet another Mexican restaurant in Montevideo. Not so. The restaurant is named after the owner, host, server and chef, Taco Munoz.

The atmosphere at this Uruguay restaurant is inviting… jazz music was playing in the background and a wood burning stove heated the small dining area. We really felt like we were being welcomed into Taco’s home (actually the restaurant is located in an old home).

You could see into the kitchen from the dining area, which was quite neat. Taco Munoz has a small parrilla going in the kitchen, but offers a full menu not predicated on the parrilla.

It’s amazing to me that one man runs this entire restaurant. It’s the first time I’ve seen that at an Uruguay restaurant (or any restaurant for that matter). He literally greets you, seats you, takes your order and does all of the cooking (from scratch) and you never feel like he’s stretched too thin. Outstanding service.

The meal started out with fresh baked warm bread, as well as some delicious cheese bread. And, of course Brian had to try the house wine, labeled with the restaurant’s name, Taco Munoz, which he said was quite delicious (no more wine for me with a baby on the way!)

Zoë had a huge plate of penne pasta with butter and fresh herbs. It must have been good, because she at over half of the very large plate.

Brian had a seafood stew, filled with fish, shrimp, mussels, tomatoes, zucchini and lots of yummy herbs. He said it was one of the best seafood stews he’s ever had.

I had the orange glazed chicken, which was cooked on the parrilla and layered with carrots and a rich orange sauce that was absolutely delicious. It was served with a side of potatoes covered in a thick, flavorful cream sauce. This was one of my best meals yet at any Uruguay restaurant.

And, we must be gluttons for punishment, because we ordered the Taco Munoz house dessert to share (we tried to order two and Taco let us know it was gigantic and enough for two people). It was an enormous plate consisting of a pancake (similar to a crepe), ice cream, dulce du leche, pineapple slices and some frozen melon.

Zoë had her favorite dessert, the apple pancake, which was loaded with baked apples and raisins.

I would have to say that Taco Munoz is one of my favorite Uruguay restaurant experiences so far. We will definitely be going back to see what other delicious specialties Taco can whip up for us.

Taco Munoz is located at Francisco Ros 2781, between Cnel. Mora and Luis de la Torre.