Pets, Naps & Readers

One of the reasons I (Denise) started to contribute to this blog is because of Wally's intense Napping schedule(see previous days post) and his newest pursuit, "Intense Reading". I use the word intense meaning: very strong, great, deep etc... I mean hours! are spent on both new "sports" So this means less blogging time on Wally's part.

Why now, after almost 2 years here in Uruguay, has he started a "readathon"?  He should be out enjoying Uruguay! It's a beautiful "Autumn" day- note:"Fall" I learned is a mostly North American title. The reason he's indoors, reading is that we have an eReader, a Sony eReader. What am I talking about? Well, one of the many questions an Expat is often asked is "What do YOU suggest a foreigner should bring to a new country that they plan to live in?" One answer is BOOKS! in your native tongue in this case ours is English.  Surprisingly they generally sell books in SPANISH here, go figure and only a few English books find their way to book stores. We brought Books! 

So you're wondering (or not), Why the great reading program now? Well, THE DOG ATE MY BOOK! I had been reading a Sue Grafton book "S" IS FOR SILENCE and was down to my last 50 pages when it got knock to the floor and was found eaten the next day.  Knowing that I wanted to FINISH IT myself (not eat it) and also knowing "T" was out, we decided to buy an eReader. An eReader allows one to go online to a web store and select a book, just like a book store. Some people have heard of a Kindle but here you can't use it's  wireless capabilities to download books. 

We got a Sony eReader instead because Pdf's are better (Portable Document Format) and you can go online to get books from many sources. Someone, on a forum we read, said that Amazon deletes books from time to time like Orwell's "1984" and Sony doesn't.

It's easy to use!   1) go to an online site, select a book. 2) Download the book files to your computer (don't try and open them)  3) Transfer the files to your reader using a USB cable.  4) Enjoy!

 Here's a warning though: You can NOT find either eReaders here in Uruguay and they would cost $$$ many times more here than in the States if available. So we had to ask a visiting friend to bring us a GIFT of 2! I bought,er requested (wink, wink) a pink one and Wally got a dark blue one. So with his new"Toy" in hand and hubby rediscovering the joys of reading, I'll help to keep the blog afloat till Wally resurfaces. Bye the way I've finished "S" and "T". So in summary an Expat needs  a Computer/laptop and an eReader. Buy them BEFORE you come down and Happy moving!