Firewalking

Okay, so it's been a month, almost, without an update... That's because we've been sucked back down the rabbit hole of everyday life... sigh. That's no fun. David has been working his patooty off as a result of Hurricane Ike and has taken up residence in Houston. Good that he has work, not so good because we don't see each other much...
I have been flying to Las Vegas and back for the last month and do it again for the next month. Vegas has no attraction to me at all, but I like being able to be home every day.
Zac and I did something interesting last Sunday... We went to a "Be Unstoppable" seminar. We broke boards with our bare hands, broke arrows with our throats (Zac had an issue with this one, but did it anyway), walked across broken glass (barefooted) and across hot coals (barefooted). I did the coals 4 times, Zac did it 3. Neither of us were hurt in any way. No cuts, no burns, no bruises. It was a pretty powerful experience.

Both David and I have tried contacting the realtor in Uruguay. I never received an answer at all. David got a reply to his email and the guy told him the house was twice as much as we know the asking price is... sigh. I guess he doesn't want to deal with women or gringos up in the states... Guess I just need to go back to Uruguay and make the deal in person... sigh... the sacrifices I must endure... ;-)

What? A week has gone by already!?

Good Grief! Time sure does fly when you're not paying attention. And what have I done all week? Beats me.
The boys are back in school. I've had to fly a few times. David has been back to San Antonio... at least he can come home on weekends now. It's back to the hampster wheels for us... sigh.
I'm experimenting on downloading a video to this blog. This is just a quick shot at the delicious BBQ place, (par-ee-szha) in Montevideo. We have a lot more videos, but we're thinking it'll be better to splice them and put a youtube link on the page... That's more work than I feel like doing right now. I sure do think about all the delicious food we ate down there a lot... Mmm mmm. These photos are at the place from the video.

Finally Home...

Wow. What a great trip! We had a blast! We met some really great, interesting people. We're home now, but getting all that we experienced into a decent blog is going to be a challenge. Especially since we haven't slept yet and are a little bit punchy... We do still have teenagers to deal with... This internet thing, what an invention...

My pictures somehow seem all out of order and I'm too tired to do this right, but I'm so excited about Uruguay I want to share some of it with you.

So, this is our (late) lunch last Wednesday... I have a better picture of David's steak, but I'm too lazy to download it because I wanted you to see both of these DELICIOUS lunches... Total bill was maybe $25 US. That included a bottle of wine, 2 bottles of "agua con gas" and ice cream. I think that steak weighed about a pound and was PERFECTLY cooked. It's what I would refer to as a "hunk o meat". Seriously enough for both of us. Mine was "po-zhou" (pollo for you spanish speakers, chicken for you gringos... delicious in any language) Portion sizes here are unbelievable. You gotta just order one entree and split it. We're kinda slow, it took us about 2 days to figure this out... Wally told us that "doggy bags" are kinda frowned upon here, so "you've just gotta gut it out and eat it all"... ouch. It's hard to do that!

We've already told you about Wally and Denise, they're great. We imposed ourselves upon them again on Saturday, because our flight didn't leave until 9pm and we really like them. We tried calling first, but they were outside and didn't hear the call. So we dropped by anyway. (Sorry guys, we wanted to see you again!) While there, we met a neighbor of theirs, Tony, a brit married to an uruguayan lady. He was a hoot. These people are so nice and friendly and willing to help you out. Tony was a wealth of information, and entertaining in the process.David, of course, somehow discovered the chilean guy that has a house next door to Denise and Wally that just so happened to have a couple of guitars that needed some playing... Denise, Tony and I were all standing around chatting for quite a while when I started wondering where David was... I figured maybe Wally had come home from his errands and the boys had run off... but, no, Wally was still off on his errands and David was off playing... I started realizing I was hearing music, so the paparazzi in me had to go investigate... well, I caught him in the act.

After standing around for a while, I decided I was hungry and wanted to go try out some "real" empanadas. There's a place just down the road and around the corner that handmakes 36 different types. So David and I went off to get some and bring them back to snack on.
-- (sidebar-- Wally's blog already covers the empanada adventure better that I could so you really ought to read his blogs too... they are quite entertaining-- wallyinuruguay.blogspot.com) He also wrote up the adventure to the supermercado that he and Denise took us to. I left my camera in the car so he took pictures of the deli case for me... "interesting stuff" for sale to eat there...
As we drove down the road, enroute to get empanadas, about 1/2 a mile from Wally and Denise's, we saw these 2 houses next door to each other, FOR SALE, right across the road from the beach... one of them I recognized as a house that had been advertised in International Living magazine for sale for $45k US.
This is the house for $45k above. This other house, right next door was also rather cute, we don't know what it's price was, the realty office was closed both times we went by it that day... We REALLY wanted to check them out inside while we were there, but late on a Saturday afternoon, chances weren't looking too good of that happening, especially since we had a flight to catch...
We are actually interested in both/either of them...

Here's the views of the beach from these houses, one looking left (north-ish), one looking right (south-ish)...














Obviously, we had a great trip. We'll try to put together a more cohesive and informative blog after we get some sleep... Til then...

Colonia del Sacramento

Is this a great picture, or what? We are outside our hotel room in Colonia del Sacramento at sunset. What an amazingly cute little town. Very touristy, but I could definitely see living there during the off season. It's very old, cobble stone streets etc. I think our hotel was built in 1748. There wasn't a blow dryer in the room, of all the nerve!
We finally found a parilla for dinner. Had to wait until 8:30 pm to leave the hotel though. When we went out the 1st time (when we took this picture) nothing was open yet. So we ventured out later and found a place. David videotaped the guy cooking on the parilla and we're hoping to figure a way to link the video to this blog...
We leave at 9pm tonight. We're going to try a different "feria" this morning in Montevideo, since the one the other day was undoable due to the rain. So we're off. More later...

What to do today...

Well, kinda cold and drizzly today... We're trying to hammer out our plans for today. I still want to check if the farmers market is happening... We'll probably head on over to Colonia del Sacramento which is about a 3 hour drive from where we are, but what else have we got to do?

We STILL haven't experienced a "parilla" (par -ee -sha), that's where they have meats meat meats galore on a huge wood fire... We will go the the "bigee" one in Montevideo on Friday, but we had surely hoped to find one by now... They eat so late out here, so far it' s been unavailable when we've gone out looking. We're obviously off on our timing and luck in finding a place. I know they are all over the place, just not open when we show up... Oh well. We're off...

We're here in Uruguay

Here's a picture of us today. Behind us is the house we liked the best of all the houses we've looked at. It's directly across the street from the beach. It's in top shape, unlike most of the houses we've seen. Of course that's reflected in the price. The good deals all seem to need quite a bit of work, so I guess it's a trade off... We aren't sure we're really up to anymore "major remodeling" projects... Especially from across the world... Still, it's been educational.

Here's a picture from the front porch of this house...



The weather has been GREAT the last few days. It started raining this evening though. We wanted to check out the farmers market/swap meet thing that is on every Thursday. I hope it still goes on if it's raining... I wanted to shop for my souvenirs and treasures there.

Yesterday we met up with a really nice couple from Seattle that retired early and moved down here a few months ago. A few weeks ago David stumbled upon Wally and Denise's blog and forwarded it to me. I wrote to them, they responded and here's a picture of Denise, David and Wally. They were really great, they spent most of the day with us yesterday showing us around and telling us about the expat life. They have a cute little house right near the beach.

Getting ready for the trip

Well, 3 more days and we're on our way to Uruguay. Can't wait. I think it'll really be fun and interesting.
Got a rental car set up and a hotel for the first night. Still need to hammer out our itinerary, but I'm not too worried about being able to find places to stay. It isn't high season down there right now. We've got some good leads on some places.
I want to go and look at available houses near the beaches while were there. I haven't contacted a realtor down there yet, so I don't know if I'm going to be able to make that happen. I have a few names and contact info. That's on my agenda for the next few hours... We don't intend to actually buy anything this trip, we just want to see what types of places are available and what the going rates are. There's a lot to see down there and no way is a week going to be long enough. Oh well, we'll do as much as we can.
Looking forward to the relaxation and delicious food!

Getting our blog started...

All my life I've loved to travel. Whether it's a day long road trip or a trip around the world (which I haven't done yet all at one time), I'm pretty much up for it. I love going places I've never been and experiencing other cultures, people, foods, and everything that comes with it.

I really believe that if you grow up in a warm little mud puddle, and never go anywhere, you'll never even realize that there is an ocean out there. You'd never know what you are missing. How sad a life that sounds to me. Travel is one of the best things for opening up your mind.

As our kids are growing into self sufficient adults, my Man/Partner/BFF and I are seriously thinking it is time to decide where we want to live when we grow up. So, over the last decade I've managed to convince him to come with me all over the planet. We've been to lots of different countries and places around the states. There's an awful lot to choose from!

David and I are both very artistic and creative people. He's an amazing musician, singer, songwriter, writer, and producer... among other things. He's also quite handy in gardening and construction. I like photography, drawing, oil painting, crochet... all kinds of things. We're both pretty good cooks too. We're also somewhat athletic and outdoorsy. We both run to stay in shape.

We're new to blogging. It's taken me a while to slowly come into the 21st century, but I am. Slowly.

I look forward to hearing from like minded people. Especially with your advice and wisdom about getting ready to make the leap from the USA to living overseas.