Category: Uruguay

First frost 2025

Sometimes as early as the beginning of June; sometimes as late as mid-July, but here it is, and heavy. Polar front predicted to give us several days of cold weather…oh sorry, “extreme” — from -2 to 3°C, or mid 20s to mid 30s°F. Pretty funny for someone who grew up in Connecticut. Or, God forbid, Canada! 😱

However, what we lack in extreme cold outside we make up for with our home’s insulation, consisting of single brick and stucco. In other words, nothing.

But Uruguay! This apparently goes back a bit (source):

They have fine houses and well-padded pocket-books. Many of them trace their descent from families that came to Uruguay hundreds of years ago. Their possessions are in great estates, rented houses, and in cattle and sheep. They have their palaces in Montevideo, whose floors are marble, and whose ceilings are frescoed and upheld by marble columns from Italy. They have vast one-story buildings on their estates, where in summer time they entertain like lords, supplying every guest with a horse. In the winter, their surroundings are equally pretentious, but very uncomfortable, for the houses of Montevideo are as frigid as the white marble in which they are finished. The people believe artificial heat unhealthy, and in this city, which is as large as Washington, and quite as cold, there is not a furnace or a steam-heating plant. During cold snaps, a hostess often receives dressed in furs, with her hands in a muff and her feet on a hot-water bottle, and gentlemen and ladies come to state dinners in over-coats and fur capes.

Because of course.

When it’s time to get rid of the old CRT TV or computer monitor, you don’t leave it in one of the hundreds of containers put out for that purpose by the municipality, you somehow drag it into the middle of nowhere and leave it there instead.

Because that’s what Grandpa would have done.

“It’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Overdue (plumbing)

For years, I have wondered about rectifying the horrible plumbing we inherited in our back yard. It always seemed a little silly, since it would involve breaking up part of the patio we had installed. The exact tiles we used are no longer available, so the new ones wouldn’t match perfectly.

But recently I asked our contractor about it, and he said no problem! And when he says that, he means it.

Not only did the drain include a zigzag design, it also had a buried (inaccessible) elbow and substandard pipe, some of which turned out to have been broken.

I don’t find most construction projects particularly gratifying, but this improvement is actually exciting. Because, you see, three or four times a year I had to pry up all the junction box covers, put on long rubber gloves, and force a stiff plastic tube through the pipes connecting them—and yes, the one with the elbow was a bitch—when they got clogged up with grease that shouldn’t have, but somehow got beyond the grease trap.

Nasty job. No more!

BTW the gray square on the garage floor is a closed-off junction box. From four to two—so delightfully uncomplicated!

L’il Big Dog

It’s hard to convey how huge this collar-less puppy is. Like a cross between a bear and a horse. I can say, however, that we were relieved to see that he did not intend to go on the walk with us today. Something about 60 kilos of puppy crashing through the undergrowth and charging by on narrow bits of path, as the one time he did, makes a walk a little less relaxing.

What a difference a century makes

In 1965, the population of Uruguay was 2.68 million (current 3.36 million).

Wikipedia: The Executive Tower (Spanish: Torre Ejecutiva) is the official workplace of the President of Uruguay. It is located in front of the Plaza Independencia, in Barrio Centro, Montevideo.

History

The original project was started in 1965 as a future Palace of Justice, but the 1973 coup d’état interrupted it.[1] By the time the military government ended in 1985, the building was too small for the Uruguayan justice system, so the project remained halted for decades until in March 2006, President Tabaré Vázquez decided to finish the building and use it as an extension of the Estévez Palace.[2] The President’s offices were transferred there from the Liberty Building in September 2009.

In 1873, the population of Uruguay was around 0.4 million.

Wikipedia: The Estévez Palace (Spanish: Palacio Estévez) is a building situated in Plaza Independencia, Montevideo, Uruguay, designed in a combination of Doric and Colonial styles by Manoel de Castel in 1873. It has served as the working place of the President of Uruguay and has been eventually converted to a museum, housing artifacts and mementos of the Uruguayan presidency and its office holders.

The Palacio Estévez is the little gem to the left in the photo above. Ah, the good old days.

Trash collection, mostly.

Yesterday morning, I stopped a half block away from the garbage truck workers. Most car drivers have some respect for occasionally ditzy dogs, but garbage truck drives go fast. Best to stay clear.

The lift on the back didn’t work too well, perhaps because—duh—there wasn’t enough space in the truck. Stuff kept spilling out. They lowered the container, compressed the load, and picked up most of what it had dumped in the middle of the road.

Which reminds me that…

This morning, approaching from the other side, I see that apparently a neighbor, perhaps Tabaré whom I met recently, cleaned up the bit in the road.

All the other stuff? One day, probably fairly soon as summer tourist season is winding down, they’ll come around with a loader and dump truck. Not pretty, admittedly, but eventually things do get cleaned up.