It’s my wife’s birthday tomorrow

Normally, this is a joyous occasion.  The days leading up to it are full of suspense, as I tryto figure out first, what she really wants and failing that, what she would really like.  As all husbands trying their hardest to please their wives, there have been a few sorrowful mistakes along the way resulting in returned gifts…   but always a big smile no matter….

But here, I’m totally stressed out.  First off, there’s the card.  This isn’t Toronto, where I can choose from like 2000 cards from a couple of stores close by.  The two stores I know in the area dont have 2000 cards in total between them for all occasions combined.  Then there’s the bigger problem.  Cards are not written in simple words.  There are overtones and undertones and nuances that a gringo simply isn’t going to know.  So what looks like something totally befitting my most precious friend, could be taken the wrong way.  Im too wise and have been her husband too long to want her to be taking anything the wrong way from me.  Better to not be taken at all :-). 

I think I’m going to buy a card that looks about right and then write-up, fill-in my feelings in English, the result:  a nice Spanglish card. 

Next comes the present…  (flowers aren’t until the following morning here… everything is fresh… no one buys flowers the day before).  What do you get somene who still has their house and life upside down?  In the past, each birthday was a continuation of the previous one and had a flow from year to year.  Here, it’s a whole different world.  So I think I’m going to throw myself wholly into feelings this year.  Smother her with affection and hope for the best

(BTW, Mother’s day wasn’t nearly as bad…  flowers everywhere and the cards were plentiful and simple.)

Shopping in Uruguay

We offered to pickup a cellphone for someone coming to Uruguay to save them the hassle of trying to find one immediately upon arrival.  Usually, we dont actually go shopping for something here.  When we brought our container from Canada, we pretty much filled it with everything we could think of we might need for the next year :-).  So now, we usually buy things when we see them, not when we need them. 

Anyway, to get the cellphone, we had to go looking.  Cellphones are everywhere here.  But if you’re doing someone a favour, last thing you want to do is buy them something they find cheaper a few days later.  So we had to scour the city to find the best deal at the time.  Being a web person, first thing I do is pull up all the stores I know in the area and check out product and pricing there.  Uruguay has a lot of material… but it’s not very clear.  More like opaque.  For instance, we looked up cellphones at www.motociclo.com.uy (one of the major low end suppliers of electronics and of course, motorcycles), and found lots of cellphones.  But the prices left something to be desired.  For instance, the cheapest phone was U$19.  Now do you really think you can buy a phone for less than a buck.  You wish.  So it must be payments (cuotas).  How many?  Well, if you live here, you assume it’s 24… because that phone we’ve seen for around 500-600 pesos. 

So where is the best place to bottom feed for prices in Uruguay that isn’t opaque…..   www.mercadolibre.com.uy… The e-bay of Uruguay.  Be warned… to really understand it, you need good Spanish.  Lots of assumptions and prior ebay skill is needed to truly figure out what’s going on.  Like the cellphone for over 1 mil pesos.  Still haven’t figured that one out.  Check it out.  Great fun.