Uruguay is for the Birds

There are so many birds here. Many of the birds do not seem to have much fear of us. They will come right up to you. They are not large birds, necessarily, but noisy ones. There are parakeets (budgies) and lots of little birds. Even though Uruguay is not a tropical country- at times it sounds like you are in the middle of a South American rain forest. Of course, there are the intermittent dogs barking and the car and house alarms going off- which are not the normal sounds of a rain forest. It is kind of odd that you move to a place where there is peace and quiet and the sounds of the surf and the ruckus of bird calls are as noisy as a city.

However, there are some birds in the neighborhood which are particularly noisy and hard to identify. I have never seen them, but morning and evening they sound off for about 1/2 hour and then they are silent. They sound like geese being goosed, if you catch my drift.



We are on our way to having a better looking bathroom (the first of 2). The wall tiles have been removed, the new tile for the floor and walls are on site and the new fixtures, as well. Since this is such a tiny bathroom (remember it is only 3 square meters or 32 ft 2) we have selected a set of really small toilet, bidet and sink. And we are going to have the tile only go up to wainscotting height, with a border tile and trim piece. All in an effort to give us some sense of space.

So far, on this project- all of the concrete has been mixed by hand. The bathroom floor was not different. Aldo (our worker) mixed everything on the cement pad on our driveway.

 We finally brought a small electric cement mixer, because of the amount of concrete needed to mix.

It is a grey and windy day today, but everyone is on the job.