New York City: convenience

	Uruguay	Manhattan
Great meal	30 minute drive to Solís, open weekends only 9 months of the year	Greek restaurant a few doors down as good or better than best we know in UY

Buy new blazer	30-60 minute drive one way to Montevideo. Unimpressive quality, limited choices, $200+	7 minute walk to Macy’s. Third floor, nice quality, $225 marked down, then additional sale price, total $137 (but overnight tailoring $40)

Ship via Fedex	One-hour drive to Montevideo or Punta del Este (the latter ridiculous in the summer because of traffic)	Two minute walk to FedEx

Basic office supplies	Manila file folders, hanging folders not sold in Uruguay	Two minute walk to Staples

Consumable coconut oil*	Unavailable	5-minute walk to Vitamin shoppe. (What brand/size do you want?)

*Food grade coconut oil became available in Uruguay within a year or so

A surprisingly pleasant experience, coming from a place where ‘getting things done’ is a sort-of kind of proposition.

So, if convenience were all that mattered….

Shots from the Highline

Alongside New York’s Highline park, a friendly neighbor – painted on the window.

Very cool building treatment by Yayoi Kusama, currently exhibiting at the Whitney.

New York’s incredibly awesome Highline

Some creative citizens spearheaded resistance to destruction of the ‘visual blight’ elevated railway built to eliminate rail traffic from the meatpacking district of lower Manhattan that produced so many accidents as street level that it was called Death Avenue in the early 20th century. By the 1960s it was abandoned, and over the next decades plants grew and soil developed.

Now it has become a totally impressive, totally awesome ‘back yard’ for NYC residents, almost a Frederick Law Olmstead (creator of central Park, the ‘lungs’ of NYC) redux.

Here’s a treat, view of a Frank Gehry condo building from the Highline. Even more impressive, we’re told, illuminated at night time.

We’re not in Uruguay anymore

New lettuce

New lettuve on the raised beds, Uruguay
New lettuce, and one cabbage plant, amidst very happy cilantro (growing with a top-dressing of seaweed). All volunteers, dug up from friends’ unworked garden that was very active garden last year.

Bats!

We finally determined that the scratching noises in the roof many mornings just before daybreak are the sounds of bats returning home. Bats are good. Bats in the roof less so.

So how do you get rid of bats yet keep them at the same time? The answer: a bat hotel!

Bat hotel I built for the side of our house, Uruguay

Welcome to the Hotel Murciélago!

I hope.

Mold

moldy wall in Uruguay

Given a combination of brick walls, poor construction (this is underneath a terrace that ‘sort of’ drains), and warm snaps during cold weather, Uruguay offers the perfect combination for growing mold on walls, shoes, and just about everything else.

Looking at building a house in the country (hey, what’s the problem?), we’re interested in alternative construction techniques. One is steel framing. They call it ‘dry construction.’ A new and exciting construction technique for Uruguay!

Not everyone, it appears, is convinced. A friend tried to explain the virtues of building with insulation to an architect in Montevideo. He put his hand on the wall, and said that in the winter up north, instead of being cold, the inside of the wall would be room temperature. To which the architect replied, well, you can turn on a heater.

As another friend points out, turning on a heater in a damp brick room is the best possible way to accelerate mold growth.

Leñero

Leña means firewood, and the guy who sells it is a leñero. This guy appears on weekends and holidays near the zoo (yes, we have a zoo). He always waves to everybody. I’ve waved to him for a couple of years when I walk the dogs, thinking one of these days I want to ask him about that truck.

Finally did: 1954 Commer (English). He’s got a better one, he says, and plans to put the engine from this into that. I didn’t ask when, or how long he’s been planning that; meaningless questions in the land where ‘next week’ can mean ‘next month.’

Dead things on the beach

Dog sniffs dead fish on beach, Atlántida, Uruguay

I don’t know fish, but this one looks OK. Fisherman abandoned it.<

Small dead seal on beach, Atlántida, Uruguay

Fortunately not a common occurrence.

Coffee in Yesterguay

Probably 98% of the coffee sold in super (and other) markets in Uruguay is ground and glaseado – meaning sugar added.

As far as I know, the only place to buy real coffee is Palacio del Cafe in Montevideo. They do not have a stunning selection, but they do have rather stunning packaging:

Coffee label in Uruguay in 2014: not exactly politically correct

You can also get their coffee at Tienda Inglesa in Punta del Este (in the bakery section, natch). In that case, however, you’ll get more modern (say, post-1930) graphics.
Current cost UYP 355/kg = USD 7.45/lb.