On The Road Again

Well, this has been quite a week. Monday we finally got the house, clear and free. Tuesday I got a brand new motorcycle, free and clear. Of course the weather has been anything but free and clear, but that is another post. Pictured here is the Keeway Supelight 150. Notice subtly in the background, the name of the hotel, and also the current state of mind. Now for those avid bike riders a 150cc bike may seem the joke, but here in Uruguay- it's a big bike. Everyone that sees it remarks about its size. You see- 125cc is the standard for large motorcycles, here. Riding a bike here can be hazardous to your health, since there are really not many rules of the road- or rather there are rules to the road, but nobody follows them. I am glad we are in the Atlantida area, where traffic is sparse and I will have a chance to get accustomed to riding again before the "high season". I haven't ridden a bike in over 25 years. Yikes!

Safety equipment is important. So far I have located an HJC, DOT compliant helmet for myself, at the cost of $340. That sounded high for me, but I needed one to start riding. Apparently it has this cool feature that make it more expensive. The full front flips up, as you can see from the pictures. If I could have waited, they will have more reasonable priced ones (still as safe, with DOT) for about $160. I'll get one of those for Denise.

Now- onto the house. It has been a whirlwind of activity, just getting utilities changed into our name and some installed. Ordering furniture and trying to arrange for delivery. This stage of the game is just like opening your wallet and letting everything flow out. But it must be done. We bought couch, chairs, dining table, bed, stove, refrigerator, washer and dryer. Coming back, today- Denise spotted a local clothes dryer. Ours will be installed in the house and the neighbors won't have to see our undies flyin' in the wind.

Getting all of these utilities hooked up presents quite a hurdle to the language challenged. It really makes you appreciate just how well foreigners adapt to the English language when they move to the US from other countries. I never really appreciated it until now- Now that the "zapato is on the other pie", so to speak. Telephone was hooked up and one of the guys noticed my old metal fireplace (which we have plans to replace). So he arranged to come back and take it out for me in exchange for the stove. Good deal from my standpoint and it took them several hours of hard work. Then the cable guys came. True to international trade agreements, the cable guy did not make his appointment on the day they specified. I think there is some law against being on time. However the next day (only a couple of hours late) they arrived to hook it up in a most professional way. Now if we only had a television- we could watch it.

This is the soon to be lovely kitchen and on the right is a picture of our soon to be luxurious living and dining area. Below, Denise is pictured in our soon to be well appointed office area. Just how soon all of these things occur remains to be seen. However, our shipment from the US is scheduled to be delivered possibly as early as next week. Then we will finally have all the junk that we couldn't or wouldn't sell on Craigslist. Even as we packed it up, we realized that it was stuff we didn't really need, but you can't help yourself. Sometimes you just can't bring yourself to throw those old belongings away. Anyway- we will soon have the mishmash of things we shipped. But there is a TV- so that is a plus (if it comes in one piece).

Tomorrow is another round of registrations (bike), deliveries and we will start work on the house. We have opted to have a Chinese made solar water heater installed. We are going green. The architect (Carlos, whom many of you know as "Solarch" on the Southron website) will have it installed on Tuesday, so 9 months out of the year we will have free hot water, and the other 3 months it will be partially subsidized. Will post pictures of the installation when it is done. More as the week proceeds.