Escape from Uruguay

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It’s been a while since the last post.   Reason is retirement interrupted.  Actually had to work again…  Strange, but true. 

Now it’s off on our mid winter break.  Up to Toronto for a while.  A mix of business and pleasure.. hopefully it tilts decidedly to pleasure. 

A week of nonstop heat, junk food, Walmart, Home Depot and Best Buy should tide me over for another year. 

I hope to come back with batteries recharged. 

Local long distance

 

I dont know if the title expression really exists in English.  I’ve used it for many years to distinguish between calling places close to you and calling far away.  Uruguay is a small country, by everyone’s standards.  From a Canadian’s standard, it’s a postage stamp.  To my way of thinking, calling anywhere in Uruguay is ‘local long distance’. 

Antel’s interpreation of long distance is similar to most telco’s the world over.  They arbitrarily decide where people will accept being charged for LD and that’s where they draw lines to charge you extra.  I am nowhere near an expert on this, having lived for 20+ years in Piriapolis and reviewing my wife’s phone bills for the 4 months a year she spent there.  I recall that calling Montevideo and Maldonado were toll calls.  Makes sense.  I mean what wouldn’t be a toll call from Piriapolis?  Punta Fria?  Bella Vista? 

Well, as of June 1st, 2007, as a result of the federal government’s wish that all Uruguayans everywhere in the country should be one happy family, local long distance charges were abolished.  You can now call anywhere in the Republica Oriental del Uruguay toll free. 

I didn’t say free, I said toll free.  You have always had to pay pulsos/computos.  These are ‘minutes’ of usage.  You pay a very low monthly fee, around U$S10 for basic service.   You pay no more if everyone calls you.  But if you call someone else, you pay a small minute charge.  The good news is that you no longer pay LD charges on top of this.  To recover the money lost from LD, the government approved a slight increase in this pulso/computo fee.  I didn’t see a difference on my phone bill. 

I wonder if there are other countries that have national toll free calling from traditional ILEC’s, (like SBC, Qwest, Verizon).  We all know that it’s offered for a premium monthly fee from the new flock of VoIP providers… but they’re freeloading (one man’s view) on the internet access you pay for on top of your phone.  And it’s a premium monthly fee. 

Of course, the US and Canada are bigger countries, with more wire and more facilities.  But there are more people with more disposable income.  I’d say we were even. 

Prison - Uruguayan style

 

I went to visit one of my local friends today.  Visiting friends is hardly a topic for a post but since the visit took place in the Carcel Centrale (federal prison), it’s not your typical visit.  

 The prison is located just off the busiest street in the shopping area, 3 blocks from San Jose and 18 de Julio.  Visitors are allowed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  Visiting hours on Thursday are from 11:30 to 13:30.  They limit the total number of visitors so it’s best to get there early.  If you come after 12:30, you wont be allowed in.  Once you’re in, you do not leave until 13:30.  There are no exceptions to that rule. 

The line up starts around 11:15 at the San Jose entrance.  At 11:30, they open the doors and allow people to enter, 5 at a time.   They ask you for ID.  Everyone produces cedulas, which they keep.  You are asked if you have any electronic devices, like cellphones.  If you do, you give them to the clerk with your cedula and they give you a check stub.  You can bring food, toiletries, bedding and clothes.  The prison provides basic food and a bedsheet.  It’s not heated.  Visiting family and close friends bring provisions, sheets and blankets to last until the next visit.  They take laundry back with them. 

After you hand over your cedula and tell them who you’re coming to see, you walk to another area where you are frisked.  There are 2 little rooms.  One for ladies and one for men.  I made the mistake of going into the next available room.  The matron sternly reprimanded me as I pleaded the language excuse.   As she pointed to the room beside hers, a man came out and I figured it out.  I walked in, took off my vest and handed it to the guard.  I was searched once before, in NYC, by US customs so I have a little experience with the process.  Thankfully this wasn’t as thorough.. no gloves.    He ignored the vest and patted me down.  Finding nothing of interest, he sent me off to the next room. 

I went through another checkpoint and found myself in the visitor’s room.  It was 8m x 8m, had plenty of seats and benches, and a beverage machine.  I walked up to a guard and told him who I was visiting.  He called out to another guard who appeared with my friend.  He had a big smile on his face and was happy to see me.  I asked what do we do now and he said let’s introduce you to my friends.

His friends were, in no particular order,  a bank president, a well known doctor, a navy lieutenant, an ex president of OSE (the national water company), an ex vp of another major utility and finally the most unfortunate (sacrificed), member of the La Pasiva family.  He was the guy running the concession booth in the visitors room.   I was introduced to them one by one, in English and they replied, most of them in very good English. 

Today, at this time, all the inmates were high profile, highly educated,  members of Uruguayan society.  I should have guessed it when I was standng outside in the line.  Most were nicely dressed and well behaved.  I wouldnt be surprised if this group of inmates held board meetings during the week and gave free consultas to prison staff.   

My friend took me around the corner to the prison ‘yard’.  It looked like a larger version of my ‘aire y luz’ here in the house.  The building is squarish and large.  In order to get light and air into the all the rooms/cells, you create a courtyard in the middle.  It had a brick floor and was old, but clean.  The visitor’s room was also run down, but clean.  These aren’t the kind of prisoners who write grafiti on the walls.  These people are more comfortable with spreadsheets. 

He bought a diet coke and we sat down to talk.  A few minutes later, his mom and a cousin came in.  A half hour later, a friend from the office came in.  There are no limits to the amount of visitors for an inmate.  Several had what looked like a large portion of their family, including small children and babies.  It was a very relaxed, jovial atmosphere.   The guards were talking to visitors, and vice versa.  It wasnt a formal process. 

There was a cat that served as the prisoners’ mascot.  Almost every group had at least one if not two thermos/mate’s.  The gourds and bombillas were moving around all over the room. 

Early on, I asked him what everyone was here for.  All of it was white collar crime, (you guessed that already).  They are kept on the 4th floor of the prison.  They do not associate with the ‘general’ population at any time.  Since a lot of white collar crime is prosecuted on the political level, most of these people have political affiliations - all with the parties that are out of power at the moment.    The reason they’re at this moment has a lot to do with that.  Because parties change power, they must have all agreed to make this place neutral territory, lest their own people end up there when the other party takes power and be treated poorly. 

As odd as this seems, all the inmate I met have not had a trial yet.  Just the equivalent of our preliminary hearings.  In Uruguay, you present your case in a preliminary fashion to a judge.  He decides if you’re probably guilty or not.  If he thinks you are, he sends you to jail.  You’re in there until he decides to let you out.  Your lawyer keeps bugging the judge until that happens.  Sometime after that, (assuming you’re not in for a long time), you have a real trial.  If you are found guilty, you are sentenced to time served.  If you’re not found guilty, you’re free to go.  Unfortunately, you dont get your time served back. 

Because of the political component, you can be jailed even though both the state and the defense agree that the case is weak, and a guilty verdict is not likely.  If the ruling party wants to make an example, or doesn’t like you, they pass this on to the judge and he jails you.  In the case of the the navy guy, his boss got into a fight with the judge, (not sure if that was in the court or in chambers).  The judge decided he’d had enough and put the lieutenant in jail to close the matter for the time being.   I guess when his boss apologizes to the judge, (when the next opportunity arises), he may change his mind and let him out. 

At the end of the visiting hours, a buzzer sounds.  The inmates go to the cells and the guards close the gates to the prison.  A person shows up at the exit door with 2 stacks of cedulas in hand, one for women and one for men.  They read the women off one by one.  You go to the door and pick up your cedula and the guard says have a nice day and you say, see you soon.  When the women are done, they call the men.  Same process. 

Internet

  

I have used internet in Uruguay since the first year it became available. 

The first provider was of course, Antel.  The first method was dialup.  They issued a 900 number that works country wide.  One minute Uruguay had no internet and the next minute, the whole country had it.  There is no user name or password required.  You just program the number into your modem and you are connected at somewhere between 28.8 and 56kb, depending on your modem and quality of the connection.  This service is still available and is used by a large number of Uruguayans, occasional users.  You can get all the details about it at http://www.anteldata.com.uy/.  Click on ‘Internet y Uruguaynet’.  You will see the two numbers to program into your modem, choose either (09091234 or 09091264).  Of course, you need access to call ‘0′ numbers. 

Charges for this service are detailed on the webpage above.  
You are billed for two separate services.  The internet connection and the ‘computo’ (pulse) charges you normally pay when using eh phone.  Figure on a peso for every 4 minutes for the internet.  Pulso (computo) rates are 1 peso per 2 minutes business hours and 1 peso per 5 minutes, non business hours, weekends and major holidays.  The charges appear on your monthly phone bill.

Shortly after Antel introduced this service, several companies purchased service from them in bulk and repackaged it for consumers.  To compete, Antel offers fixed rate, unlimited dialup plans through the country.  As of today, it’s $285 per month incl taxes.  You still must pay the ‘pulso’ charge, part of your regular telephone service tariff.   

High speed internet is provided by, you guess it, Antel (via Anteldata).  It’s called ‘ADSL Banda Ancha’ (broadband).   Find all the details at the above URL by clicking that heading.  They have a much great range of plans than they used to have.  One effective alternative is to contract for volume of data instead of time on line.  You can select slower speeds to save money or lesser hours.   Other companies resell these same plans/services from Antel under private label.  Interestingly enough, everyone charges exactly the same price.  

With 3 of us online and VoIP in use, we find the 1024 package ($1258 incl taxes), is adequate.   ADSL from Anteldata is available in most towns and cities in Uruguay.   It is rarely available elsewhere.  These areas a served by another provider called Dedicado.  Connection is via point to point microwave. 

You can get all the details about Dedicado at ( www.dedicado.com.uy).  Prices vary from ADSL but when you compare apples to apples, they’re competitive.  A lot of people in towns (like Montevideo) use Dedicado.   Perhaps they wanted to get away from the Antel monopoly, or they wanted better rates on LD (Dedicao is a discounter of LD in Uruguay), or perhaps, in their particular case, the plan or service is better.   For instance, when you choose a speed from Dedicado, you can mix upload/download speeds to get what you need.  Where Anteldata effectively caps you out at 128kbps upload, Dedicado allows you to choose 256kbps or 512kbps.   In return, you reduce the download speeds.  With 1024 ADSL, you can choose 512/512 which gives you DSL.   You would want the higher upload speeds if you were sending a lot of material to the other end, like file transfering to a server or using 2 or more VoIP connections simultaneously, especially if one of them is using an older codec, like proprietary Cisco, NEC or Nortel IP phones. 

One thing to keep in mind is that ADSL is distance dependant for speed.  The further away from the central office you are, the slower the speed.  This may not be an issue in Uruguay where the speeds are so low compared to Canada/USA, that just getting synch may give you the advertised speed.  But you should consider this when deciding between the two.  Just beause your ADSL works, doesn’t mean you’re getting what you’re paying for. 

Reliability with both of these companies has been excellent, either through dialup or Banda Ancha for the past few years.  It probably still is but there are always problems you have to deal with.

Here, if you use ADSL, you must always be concerened with lightning for the majority of the year.  Not so much in Montevideo proper, but it should be guarded against when you’re in the smaller towns or rural areas.  Protection should always be used, wherever and whenever possible. 

2 weeks ago, Antel upgraded their network and my router stopped working.  Turns out they made a change that requires a firmware upgrade on my router.  After the upgrade, the router is flaky, losing connectivity 4-5 times a day.   This morning, I awoke to find it had defaulted to factory settings.  I could not imagine any provider in NA upgrading their systems without support for legacy router firmware.  But here, they obviously did.  It’s not their fault my router is flaky.  It’s in the new firmware.  And on top of that, believe it or not, Linksys is down today and I cant patch the firmware.  

Residencia Legal

 

The quest is over.  Picked it up today. 

Called for the past 2 days and there was a cancellation for July 13th at 16:10 (you get appointments for a date and an exact time).  My wife took the car to Minas yesterday.  My wife’s best friend Critstina, offered to take me to the Geant mall. 

She picked me up at 15:50 and we got there at 16:12.  You are supposed to come in alone.  Cristina went shopping.  I went in and handed over my Residentia en tramite with the ‘invitation’ from Immigracion to trade it for the ‘difinitiva’.  One of the 2 clerks at the front took both and punched two holes in my Cedula, (this voids it) and gave it back to me.  She told me to sit down and wait for my name to be called.

Within a few minutes, one of the clerks on the left side called my name.  I sat down and she asked me to take off my glasses.  The camera was well behind her head.  She adjusted it and said it was Ok to put my glasses back on.  Then she asked me to confirm the information on the cedula, line by line.  She was reading it from the computer screen.  I kept saying OK..  When we got to my address, I told I had moved.  I gave her the new address and telephone number.  She typed for a few seconds and then printed the information out.  She read the form and called over her supervisor for a consulta. 

After a few minutes, she ripped up the form, entered more information into the computer, printed it out and gave it to me to sign.  Then she printed out my cedula and asked me to sign it.  Then she asked me for my right thumb, inked it and rolled it on the cedula.  I asked her what went wrong before and she said dont worry.. (be happy).  Then she told me to go around the office, wash my hands, and wait for my name to be called.

I went to the right side of the room and waited with 6 other people.  I stood so I could see the 2 other clerks preparing the cedulas for heat sealing.  Each of the 2 clerks sat at a comuter.  Behind each, on a separate desk, was a screen with the pictures of all the people assigned to this person to process.  When 4 pictures appeared on the screen, the original clerks handed over 4 sets of documents and the ‘final’ clerk started processing them one by one.   She puts them into a heat sealing machine.  When the’re all out, she takes them one by one, and compares front and back to the image of each on file.  She carefully checks the thumbprint.  If she’s not certain it’s clear under the plastic, she uses a custom magnifying mechanism to see them in more detail.  When she’s satisfied the laminated product is perfect, she calls your name and gives it to you.  Then you go out, with the new title, ‘Residencia Legal’.  Mine’s good until 24/4/2010.  I thought it would be for 10 years, but I think citizens get 10 years.  Looks like residents get less.  Total time, 22 minutes.  

NB…  Notice that the top right corner of the back shows your Lugar de Nacimiento (place of birth).  When you open a bank account, they must see your Cedula or Passport.  If you’re born American, this is an automatic reject at banks like ABN, that operate in the US and refuse to cooperate with IRS reporting rules.   

You’re no ‘PAL’ of mine

 

This post owes itself to the comment section in Brazzie’s http://uruguaydreaming.com/2007/07/07/the-appliance-dilemma/ post today.  I knew I had to write this when it got up to 12 comments and the day hasn’t even begun yet for a lot of us.  The post focuses on which 110v appliances (electrodomesticos) would be practical to bring with him (and by extension, readers) and which would be better off left at home.  At some point, we went off on 2 tangents (at least I did),  about how do you make these appliances work at home here and then we drifted off into home entertainment. 

For those of you who are just interested in knowing whether you can bring everything electrical and electronic with you, the simple answer doesn’t exist.  But a not too complicated answer would be yes, if you’re prepared to compromise a bit, spend a bit and do a little renovation where needed, (mostly kitchen and bathroom).  If you have what you consider a significant investment in appliances and electronics, you should consider bringing them with you.  Why?  Unless you’re doubly blessed, you dont get much for those things if you sell then on ebay or on the street.   You can buy replacements here and not spend a lot but what you get in return isn’t worth a lot either.  The chinese, reasonably priced goods here are often of poor quality and dont last as long as you’d like them to.  

Let’s start with the kitchen first.  The big stuff like refrigerators,  diswasher, iron, toaster, toaster oven, microwave, garberator, instant hot water, blender, mixmaster, juicer, elecrtric carving knife, expresso/capucino machine, waffle maker, washer and dryer (it’s kitchen here if you’re a cliff dweller and in most houses, it’s close enough to the kitchen to be kitchen).    Forget the electric stove or oven.  It’s a little too hungry for the inexpensive option below.  Of course, you may have others, but you get the idea.  If you really have to replace everything you own, what would it cost you?  More than U$S500?  If so, you should seriously consider bringing them with you. 

From personal experience, money aside, I can tell you that if you have stylish kitchen appliances, like toasters, microwaves, toaster oven, you wont find them here.  They’re either basic or those that tend to look nice, are cheap Chinese knockoffs that really aren’t well made.  

To support all your kitchen appliances, including the big stuff, you have a relatively simple option.  You can have a transformer made here, sized to fit your specific needs, that can be installed in a lower kitchen cabinet or if you’re lucky enough to have a small closet or alacena, even better.  You hire a competent electician to spec. this AND install 110v outlets in your kitchen where needed.  It’s usually neither difficult nor expensive to replace backsplashes here, which is where the new plugs will go.   To get to the other appliances, like the washer/dryer/dishwasher, the electrician will run wires behind the cabinets.  You see nothing.  You can do this to a lesser extent in a rental if you plan on staying a while.  The costs can be reduced by reducing the work.  Make sure the elecrician installs it to protect you from shock by using the proper eqipment and grounding it carefully. 

 Typical 220v/110v kitchen setup.  From left to right.  Telephone jack.  110V twin outlet, 220V twin outlet (standard 3prong on top, high amperage below).  The toaster is American 110v.  The Dustbuster is Chinese 220v.  Take a very close look at the plugs.   They take 3 modern, straight-line, 3 prong plugs, centre ground.  If you put in a high current plug, it uses 2 modules.  Notice the 110v carefully.  They’re made to take i) the old, 2 prong non polarized plug.   ii) the newer 2 prong, polarized plug.   iii) the modern 3 prong ground plug.   iv)  a 2 prong Uruguay, 220v plug.  This is useful for modern power supplies, like those for laptops and cellphones which operate on 110v/220v.  This has mixed up my poor wife and even myself on more than one occasion.  We’ll put a 220v xformer in the 110v socket and wonder why everything’s dim.  Did that once with a hairdryer…  didn’t realize what I’d done ’til my arm got tired. 

You can do much the same for bathrooms.  You should be able to get by with a single 110V outlet with 2 plugs. 

  Typical 220v/110v bathroom setup.  From left to right.   110V twin outlet, 220V twin outlet (standard 3prong on top, high amperage below).  Notice the American electric toothbrush plugged into the 110v supply.  Notice the upper plug on the 220v outlet.  This is an American lamp, rated 110v.  We put a 220v lightbulb in it and it works just fine.  In the bottom, high voltage plug is a cellphone charger.

If you plan on putting your electronics in a central place, like the living room, you can bring a single, good quality 500w or 1000w transformer from home (or have one custom made here)  and place it behind the entertainment area. 

In the above examples, they will all run, practically speaking, as well as they did back home.  Even though Uruguay is a 50hz country, vs 60hz in North America, none of the applianes mentioned above should be affected.. with one possible exception.  Some clocks (older ones) dont have an onboard ‘brain’.  They use the electrical supply to measure time.  They’ll run slower.  A perfect example is an analog timer on something like a dryer.  You simply set it for less time.. about 15% less. 

 This is the 110v transformer we put in our house.  We had the luxury of a full renovation, so we were able to place it out of the way, in the basement, and run a new service from it upstairs to the main electrical closet.  This is a 3 phase, 10kw transformer.  It was sized this big to run a full size American dryer.  If not for the dryer, we could get by on half this size.  This one cost U$S500.  A single phase, smaller unit would be much less. 

 Special mention:  Lamps and light fixtures.  This is a simple answer.  Yes.  You can bring all your ’standard’ lamps and fixtures with you.  The ONLY exception are those with special bulbs.  My wife and I bought this chandelier when we first got married.  NO WAY it wasn’t coming with us.  We searched around a bit when we got here and found the same ‘candle’ style bulbs from back home.  To convert this to 110v we just changed the 110v bulbs with 220v.  You can do this for chandeliers and lamps.  If the bulb is a special 110v that doesn’t exist in the 220v world, leave it at home but you wont know ’til you try.  We do have some special bulbs here, like the little halogens.  There’s a good chance you can get a 220v replacement for specialty bulbs.  

   If you are planning to buy an apartment or a house AND you are planning on some renovations OR are OK with surface mounting wires in the modern, pleasant looking, thin raceways (that’s how we put up fixtures on ceilings where none existed before), or you have an existing fixture and the wire is accessible, you can bring 110v fixtures with you.  This is our kitchen fixture.  We bought it in Toronto.  Unfortunately, the bulbs it uses are NOT avaialble in 220v in Uruguay.  Too far to go to Hong Kong to get them.  The wire to the old chandelier ran right back to the 220v panel, so we just daisy chained it up to our 110v transformer and voila, 110v light fixtures.  No, you dont need a special light switch.  110v and 220v… all the same. 

 If you have ceiling fans or wish to buy them before you leave beause the selection here is AWFUL.. and they’re much less costly at home, you can do the same as we discussed above in chandeliers/light fixtures.  Run 110v into an exhisting ceiling fixture or put a slim raceway up the wall and across the ceiling.  We bought this one at Home Depot the day before our container shipped.  Yes, it runs a little slower than at home but practically speaking, you wouldn’t notice the difference.  The remote controls work.  The lights work.  It’s perfect. 

  Let’s not leave us guys out of this.  TOOLS.   NO PROBLEM.  Everything works.  Slightly slower speed.  If you’ve got a 7200rpm tool, it will run about 15% slower.  I’m unaware of any tools with onboard clocks.  My workshop is in my garage.  During the reno we ripped out some of the walls so it was easy to bring up a couple of 110v outlets into the area.  If you look at the pictures of the kitchen and bathroom above, you’ll see we trimmed the 110v outlets with silver.  Same thing in the garage.  Want to plug in the Makita, Milwaukee or Skil saw, go silver.  The battery stuff is charged using the same outlets. 

I hope you didn’t find this too confusing, because the next part, home entertainment is more complicated.  DVD’s, TV’s, DVD players and kids electronic games, like PS2 will probably give you trouble.  CD players, CD’s and home stereo, with 110V transformers will work just fine.  If you want the simple version, here’s the summary.  If you bring a TV from back home, it’s almost guaranteed you wont be able to watch TV.  If you bring your DVD player with your TV and a bunch of DVD’s, you’ll be able to watch them.  If you rent DVD’s here, you probably wont be able to play them.  But, if you want to bring these things, there are ways around the problems.  That’s the complicated part. 

Video in Uruguay uses the PAL-N encoding system.  TV stations here broadcast in PAL-N.  Whether you connect your TV to an antenna, rooftop or TVtop, to a cable outlet or a digital, set top box, you need a TV that decodes PAL-N.  Personally, I never heard of a TV sold to the general public in NA that decodes PAL-N.  If you have one, good for you.  Few if any of us are that fortunate.  If you have a good TV at home that you’d like to bring with you and have it work here, you’ll make a financial decision.  The ONLY solution I’m aware of that works in ALL cases, (not just ‘if’ such and such), requires you to purchase a ‘world’ PAL-x converter to NTSC.  The ONLY unit I’ve had experience with and am 100% CERTAIN WORKS UNDER ALL CONDITIONS is Samsung’s ‘World’ VCR (which I now believe is now made as a DVD unit).  The other, less costly converters require an intermediate device, usually a digital set top box.  This has some downsides.  The solution I refer to above does not.  When would you want to do this?  If you have a good, expensive rear projection or LCD or Plasma TV you want to keep.  Is it cheaper to ship it in your container, pay the U$S300 for the converter or is it cheaper to sell the TV and purchase a new one here.  The LCD’s here aren’t overly expensive.  But those are Chinese made and the quality has yet to prove itself over time.  You dont get Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, etc here cheap. 

OK.  So you know what to do about the TV.  Buy a converter for around U$S300 per EACH television brought from home if you want to watch public TV via cable or satellite.  Let’s move on to DVD’s and DVD players.

DVD’s and players have built in restrictions based on country groups or Region codes.  This was done to permit manufactuerers to charge more money for the same DVD based on the region’s ability to pay.   That’s not the official explanation.  It’s mine.  Because of this, your DVD player and your DVD’s from home play Region 1 DVD’s.  It’s unusual for ‘fixed’ DVD players to play multiple regions.  On the other hand, the more expensive version of those portable DVD players often do play DVD’s from many regions.  Why?  Because these were originally sold to the travelling public, often on international flights.  Wouldn’t do if they spent $1000 on a player in Los Angeles that wouldn’t play DVD’s rented in Tokyo.  This logic doesn’t extend to the units you buy and put in your family room.  Not likely you’ll be taking that under your arm to London or Paris.  So most of them in NA are made to play Region 1 only.  If you bring it here, it will play the DVD’s you bring,  but not the DVD’s you buy or rent here.  You need a multi-region player.  In my opinion, buy one here.  They’re not expensive.  The only trouble I ever had with one here was dirt.  Buy the DVD cleaner disk at home.  They’re more expensive here. 

Bring your DVD player anyway, just in case.  But the DVD player you buy here,  unless you buy the cheapest of them all, is multi-region.  Check the box to make sure.  Do NOT take the sales rep’s word for it.  A mid range, good quality, name brand player here like Phillips, plays all regions.  With one exception, which is why I recommend you bring your DVD player from home, RCE.  I dont personally know if this is implemented already, but it was talked about and may be or become an issue.  It’s a second layer of coding that affects Region 1 (American/Canadian) DVD’s that will NOT play on a multi-region player, like the ones you get here.  That’s why you want a backup–your player from back home.. assuming you’re bringing DVD’s with you. 

You’re lucky this is 2007.  In a little while, we’ll be adding another section here.  Blu-ray.  Cant wait. 

Reference documents you may find helpful:

Information on electrical plugs:  http://www.sonadistributors.com/elegu.asp

Information on DVD codes:  http://www.sonadistributors.com/tvguide.asp

Opening a bank account - Part II - American citizen/resident

 

If you’re an American or a resident American, you are either not able to or may not want to, open a bank account at the large, international banks here that have divisions, subsidiaries or financial interest in any bank doing business in the US.  That’s because the IRS requires these banks to report on  all US citizens/residents that open accounts outside the US via the use of a W9 or W8 form.  A non US citizen or resident fills out a W8, swearing you are neither of the above.  A US citizen or resident fills out a W9, authorizing the bank to pass information to the IRS.  There is one other choice.  The bank can choose to sign an agreement with the IRS wherein they promise they wont deal with American citizens or residents at all, period.   I kinow the ABN-Amro bank has chosen this option.    FuBarrio reports in his post on this subject ( http://www.fubarrio.com/2007/06/brouracracy-in-uruguay.html ) that CitiBank and Bank Boston also prohibit Americans from opening accounts.  Now that Bank Boston has been purchased by ITAU (Brazilian), it’s possible this policy is or will be changing. 

If you hold a valid passport from another country, you could open an account at one of these inernational banks, but you have to, (as the form states), perjure yourself on the W8 and that’s not a good idea. 

However, the Banco Republica Oriental del Uruguay (BROU), does welcome American citizens and residents, using their American or 2nd passport, without questions.  If you use your 2nd passport, they dont require you to sign a W8 form.  I beleive this is because the BROU (like other local Uruguayan banks), doesn’t operate in the USA and the IRS has no simple method of applying pressure on them to dig past the initial passport shown. 

Many Americans have gone to the BROU in the centro to open their accounts.  This is the ‘flagship’ location.  It looks like a turn of the century train station inside.  If you’re staying in Pocitos, Jose Galvan, at the branch at Avenida Brazil and Tomas Diago speaks fluent English, has an Idaho driver’s license and is a Uruguayan Wil Rogers.  

The documents at the end of this post are the only papers you sign to open an account under these circumstances.   Special thanks to Adrian and Sybil for letting me tag along yesterday and document the process end to end. 

In part III, we will go through this process on an American passport and see whether or not you are required to sign a W9.  Because of Uruguay’s bank secrecy laws, it would seem that if you dont sign a W9, the bank should not be able to release any information about you at all, unless, there’s some legislation that over-rides that for non-residents. 

The forms below (in order) are:  rules for savings accounts, signature form for savings account, rules for ATM card, initiation procedure to change your ATM’s PIN card for first-time use.  

     

Getting out - getting fit

 

It’s been 18 months and I’m finally aclimatizing myself to Montevideo.  Yesterday, for the first time, I finally got out and about with Aaron on the golf course.

This started me thinking about all the rest of us here in Montevideo (and future visitors).  Most of us, (with some notable exceptions), have a lot more spare time than we did back home.  The rat race has mellowed.  Time is money is no longer rule #1.

It’s time to get physically active again.  I’d like to hear from others here (or those coming to Montevideo) with time on their hands, wanting to get into social exercise/sports. 

One idea is to form a biking group, going out once or twice a week for a couple of hours and just ride around with a bunch of friends, maybe tying in lunch, exploring different parts of the city, certainly biking the Rambla is always fun.  I brought down a couple of bikes in the container.  They’re somewhat dated :), but I’m going to find a bike shop here in Pocitos to restore them to their prime.  This time of the year, it’s much more exhiliarating and comfortable because you can dress for the temperature.  We could even organize the odd trip out to the east or up north.  Uruguay has beautiful scenery that is wonderful to explore on 2 wheels.  

My personal favourite will be to take up Taekwondo with my daughter.  When she got her blackbelt, I promised her if I ever had the time, I’d train with her, and go for mine.  Tonight or tomorrow, I will try to find a dojo, where my fundamental Spanish wont get me killed in practice.

I doubt we could get a shinny group together, playing hockey at nights but maybe others of you have other sports (like Adam’s darts), that you’d like to float for the group here (and visitors) to see if there’s enough interest.  Heck, if there’s a diamond around somewhere, we could get even get a slow pitch game going here.  That would be kul.

Anyway, anyone else got any ideas for keeping ourselves eternally young?  And in case you’re worrying about the downside of sports we’ve got access to the doc that does the national football (soccer) team.  He’s right here, in the heart of pocitos.  Physio is very reasonable

Club de Golf - Monday (free)

 

Club de Golf (http://www.cgu.com.uy/historia.asp) is in Punta Carretas which is in Montevideo, Uruguay.  It is a nice club with very nice facilities. 

Today, I was supposed to play with Adam, but he decided to brave the winter Atlantic out Punto del Diablo way.  Substituting for Adam was Aaron Campbell.  I couldnt miss him walking towards my house today.  Golf cap and baggy pants–dressed for the part.  Dont know how I looked.  My main interest was in keeping warm for 2 hours outside at 14 degs. 

I dug up a set of old clubs for Aaron.  I have my clubs from home here.  5 years out of date, but as good as ever.  I was praying that the holder of the clubs was in the same condition.  The doctor told me not to play until December, but I interpreted that as ‘dont play hard’.  So I powerdpuffed today, and I dont feel a pain anywhere. 

Aaron has been to this club before, plus his spanish is good.  Mine is for emergency use only.  We found the club house and rented a couple of push carts for 100 pesos each.  I like the exercise.  When I saw the pushcarts, I wasn’t sure if I’d be pushing, pulling or carrying them. These are the same quality you get in Walmart for $24.95.  Like the Eveready bunny, they’re still running, but barely.  After 3 holes, mine wouldn’t hold my bag any longer so Aaron was kind enough to switch with me.  Turns out his cart was better suited to my bag, so that helped.  The idea of lugging a full set of clubs over the next 4 holes (without a shoulder strap), wasn’t my idea of healthy exercise.  I think, in total, between the two of us, our bags came off the carts 6 times.  But we prevailed. 

The course is a good course to play.  This time of the year the ground is soft, which is a pleasure compared the the dry summer.  It is also important for a person who was told not to play until December.  Smashing your club with stiff wrist and arm into solid earth guarantees a bad feeling in the elbow and shoulder.  I was able to take good sized divots today without any vibration in the arm.  Unexpected and happily received. 

We only played the front 9 because I had to get home early.  Aaron looked like he could go ’til nightfall :)   The traps are in nice condition.  The fairways are not littered with divots.  This was the beginning of winter, and we had bright sunshine heating us up.  Outside temp was 14 degrees.  It was very comfortable weather to play in. 

There were a good number of groups on the course.  We let 2 groups play through us.  A group of 2 that we invited to play through and a group of three (with 2 caddies) that literally played through us as if we in a fivesome.  Never seen that done before.  I was standing by our clubs and a ball landed between my legs, bouncing back behind me.  I looked up and these guys were actually driving into us.    Not knowing what the rules are here, we just waited until the 3 old boys had driven and we hit our next shots.  Then they came up and hit theirs past ours and we decided to just let them keep going.  They were pretty good and pretty serious. 

As nice as it was to play again, what interested me the most was the variety of birds on the course.  I finally got to see a pair of green parrots outside of a cage.  There were birds of every kind on the course.  I’ve played the Portland area once and had a stag run past me while I was lining up.  A couple of times at home in Toronto, we had a fox trot past us with a rabbit in his mouth.  Nothing like that here, but the birds were exquisite. 

The course’s main obstacles are trees, but it’s not a wooded course.  For instance, you dont hear the constant crack of balls hitting trees.  The traps were nicely laid out.  A couple of holes had greens pretty much guarded with traps.  I dont know what the rest of the course is like, but I hope to get back next Monday with Aaron and Adam and find out.