My bubble

A word of advice: Stay away from them!

I left Uruguay about two decades ago because even as a teenager uruguayanness made my blood boil, and in order to return I have had to come up with certain "techniques" to prevent stress from ruining my health. You know how it is, whereas in a foreign land good manners and a certain detachment mean you can or should be benignly tolerant of certain questionable customs or actions of the locals, when it's your own country that tolerance is quickly replaced by full-blown indignation.

So our natural choice was to move to "Punta del Este" as it´s less Uruguay than the rest of Uruguay. The second step was to actually be "away from Punta" in a tiny corner of the coast basically unknown by everyone by it´s real name, which is Barra de Portezuelo, because the absence of people makes it less Uruguay than even Punta.

Another self-removal strategy is to abstain from reading the local papers. I only glance at the "Cities" section of El País on Sundays, on occcasion. This morning, seeing as there were lots of headlines about the economy for 2008 in Sunday's paper, I opened the "A" section to find the column by Andrés Oppenheimer, the top journalist Latin America has produced in my lifetime. The voice of reason. The guy can write, but more than anything, he has forged a career (based in the U.S.) doing the unthinkable in Latin America: bringing some common sense to all the folly that surrounds us, calling a spade a spade, something afforded only by the physical distance from his subjects, as otherwise his writings would have been dropped, his paper or TV station bombed or his person eliminated multiple times over the course of his career.

I digress. Still, Oppenheimer and all, I stick by my regime of not reading the papers. I do scan my Google-assembled patchwork of headlines and an occasional item in full, but that's more like entertainment, I try to keep it light. The tiger-mauled brothers, the disappeared Indian girl who reappeard after abandoning her Chicago-area husband, the Canoe Man saga, etc. More to do with "humanity" than with "current events."

Resutls: pretty good so far. When I go to civilization I'm in Punta del Este, a fantasyworld where most people are on vacation and where most of the "issues" I will hear about pertain to Argentina, so no biggie. The rest of the time, I am almost unaware -- in a frame by frame sense I mean -- of all the ridiculous or unreasonable things that could make me angry, stressed or bitter like some people I know who insist on "knowing" and cannot stop ranting about this or that.

The Middle East is blissfully far away now. Whereas until a couple of months ago I experienced the Middle East in the flesh -- by Middle East I mean that confluence of Islamic culture and eternal spring of never ending violence of all sorts -- now I perceive it as something remote, that faraway place where streets crawl with leering men, where people can't even pinpoint anymore why they're so angry or bitter, where bombs and killings are language, where the air is always thick with conflict of many sorts. I now remember it maybe once a week at the most, and I feel a twang of guilt at my mental hygiene process on account of the friends I have there, and of all the good things that are drowned by the bad, unfairly, but -- to pile the cliches -- the bottom line is that life is short.

Altogether, I firmly believe our new life and my newly-implemented techniques will be seriously health-enhancing. And my resolution for 2008 is to keep fine-tuning my bubble, which always seems to leak "real world" from one end or the other. Happy New Year.

My recently-visited-for-the-first-time restaurant reviews

Let me start the review with the happy ending to our pathetic Xmas eve. Christmas has never been a big thing in our home. My mom´s excuse is that since her mother died (in 1970!!!!!!!!) she lost the joy of it. However, truth is she never had her own Xmas, and neither did we. Then she opened a shop (in 1981) meaning Xmas Eve (in Uruguay you actually celebrate Xmas Eve and Xmas day is for recovering from the previous night´s excess) became the end of a very busy day. Then my brother opened his shops, and things got even worse. Couple that with my mom´s aversion to buying presents, ("Here, go spend $50 on each one" she would tell me on the 24th at 4pm pushing some money into my hands) and my refusal since last year to be the family last-second gift buyer, and things could hardly be worse.

But although in the end everything turned out OK, as pathetic Xmases go, this year we outdid ourselves. My mom´s insistence that I had to go to Punta for dinner "because at least we´ll all be together" overlooked the fact that a) there was no food at her house, and b) she had made no reservations. So at 10 PM we launched our tour of restaurants in Punta del Este, Barbi driving and cursing, Mom and I laughing at the ridiculous situtation. We started by the harbor, where there was not a single table to be had. The new Blue Cheese was closed, on Pedragosa Sierra, so I decided to try Floreal, a Punta classic that we never go to which was also packed, everyone looking so nice and well dressed and happy while we looked worn-out and hungry.

Finally, we decided to give a try to that restaurant we had passed that seemed to be half empty and which none of us had ever heard of. We were met at the door and explained the "system" which is pretty similar to a rodízio, the Brazilian steak houses where meat is brought in a never ending succession to the table. However, our host stressed the "very fresh variety of salads" and we were sold. Plus, it was 11 PM and had no other choice.

Well, the evening confirmed my brother´s comments when he arrived that "This is supposed to be the best meat place in all of Punta del Este." The salads were indeed fresh, and different from the usual fare in Uruguay. The home-made flavored breads were delicious, the meat was outstanding, and things had been done to it beyond slapping it against the parrilla (chicken with blah blah herbs, etc). The meats also came paired with bbqued fruits and vegetables, such as the pork matambre with bbqued pineapple and pears, which was outstanding. The french fries with scrambled egg on top were super crispy and delicious, and everything else, up to the desserts which included barbequed nectarines, was fantastic.

It cost something like USD100 per person, with wine and champagne, and although it was not cheap, it was worth it and I´m sure no more expensive than most places for that night or New Year´s Eve. We´ll go back and fast for the whole day, because at some point we had to send the waiter away without trying something that looked wonderful, some fried huge ravioli with ruccula and mozzarela...
Avenida Pedragosa Sierra yLa Paloma 480898-488260

We had another excellent dinner about a month ago in the hills over Las Flores, at Carumbé, which means turtle in some native language. It´s a little restaurant and tiny, 2 -room inn where chef Juan Pablo Capdepont cooks his high-end fare. I was a bit deceived, told by my friend Inés who was having a romantic weekend getaway at the inn that the food would be "criolla" or Uruguayan creole. Far from it, but the suprise was nonetheless positive. The food is of the fusion type, and all of it (we were four for dinner) was outstanding. I had curried rabbit something something, some cheeses, and the dessert I can´t even remember because we had two bottles of wine. Again, not cheap, probably USD50 per person, but well worth it. The place itself is very homey and cozy, with a view of the kitchen, and the chef´s wife and the chef himself do all of the table service. There are about 5 or 6 tables, so better make a reservation. According to my friend who had the brunch, it´s worth driving from Montevideo for. She said Capdepont claims to have opened the inn just to have an excuse to prepare brunch.

Carumbé, on the hills over Playa Verde, Ruta 73 at the Tarariras stream. No children allowed (043) 27093. Rooms are USD120 per night.
(Update, sadly chef Juan Pablo Capdepon died on Sunday, Jan. 13 in a car accident.)

And now to Piriapolis. We have been exploring the "neighborhood" quite a bit, trying out different places. The problem is many of the places in Piriapolis are of the everything on the menu variety, so you can´t get a feel for how good a place is until you´ve had both the parrilla and the pizza and the real food. We like Terranova, a corner in the same style of fare as La Pasiva, but which won us over with an excellent chivito al plato and olímpico sandwich. The pizza on another occasion was completely bland, not recommended.

At La Rotonda we had excellent cordero. Greasy and stinky and tender, the way I like it. A huge chunk. The salad was generous and had lots of ingredients, although in the classic Uruguayan style which is basically a pileup of vegetables and other food which then you have to turn into an edible salad yourself in another dish. Lots of work. Still, very reasonably priced, attentive if somewhat rough service, and we like it for what it is, a basic Uruguayan style eatery.

I´m a disaster as a reviewer because I don´t remember even the name of another place we went to on the rambla, not on a corner. We gave it points for being open on a Tuesday when most places were still closed. The decor was very Heidi style, with little wooden window-frames, checkered table-cloths, etc. It had a DVD playing of some really good Brazilian music show, which I loved, and the waiter was super. The food was OK, not great, and the price was a bit expensive we thought in relative terms, vs food quality, but still, sometimes ambience is a lot and that day it was the perfect place to be, watching the sunset after a storm. I´m sure we´ll go back.

The most recently visited place is Trattoria Da Piero, on the Punta Fria waterfront. It was jam packed last night, with large families (the three generation thing is big in the Piriapolis area, and lots of babies and toddlers screaming, a stroller gridlock, etc. Not my favorite kind of scene, but we were drunk from a caipiroska pre-dinner, so we dealt with it OK. The menu made us laugh, fusion gone mad, such as "entrecot con vegetales al wok con crema y tandoori" which had drunken me cracking throughout the dinner. I ordered a chicken "en reducción de bondiola con pure de papas y rucula" which was as tasty as it promised, but unfortunately the chicken came undercooked, and returned to me tough as a truck tire. Barbi´s plancha del mar, a fish and seafood medley looked cute and he says it tasted OK. My recommendation for this place is to go very early and sit on the terrace overlooking the sea, not inside where the big family action is. Prices were reasonable and staff and owners very eager to please, which gets points from me always.

On a decidedly negative note, last night, on our third attempt we finally found Tartaruga open. This place, in Punta Colorada, has an enviable location, on the tip of a point in the road overlooking a little lighthouse (not house, just a lantern on top of an iron structure) with sea views, etc. Cute wooden structure also. It used to have a great menu, about three years ago. However, they started reducing the menu season by season, to a point where now it is a plastic laminated single page of seafood and pasta, only two salads (they used to have a great selection of four or five) no beef or chicken dishes whatsoever, and the attittude of a 3-star Michelin rated place.

"Can you add carrot to the salad?" I once dared ask last year. "The chef does not allow anything off menu" was the answer, as I surveyed a completely empty restaurant, with us the only customers. I laughed last night when a lady in the table next to us dared ask for garlic and parsley on her fish. "The chef does not...." came the swift reply. In the end we chose to have a couple of capiroskas and drive to Punta Fria for dinner.

Closing the year with a couple of real estate deals

I don't know why it is that we are always moving or closing on real estate in the month of December, but when we think back, we notice that's the way it is.

First, my mom finally signed the purchase agreement for her Brava 28 condo. It's been several months in the making (we started negotiations when I was still in Turkey), but after much coming and going, she's got the best unit in the second nicest new building on the Brava side of Punta del Este. (The nicest being of course Vignoly's Aqua, but that, starting at $3 million, is beyond our budget.)

Mom shows my aunt where the sea views will stop... On the left, the built in parrillero, or bbq, nice as an outdoor fire pit even without cooking. The green lawn seen on the right is the roof of the gym and party room, smart that they covered it in grass... the two covered circles on the ground deck are jacuzzis.


when they finish building across the street. The views will be fine up to the palm tree on the left of the white building. Luckily, the new building across the street will have gardens and swimming-pool on the street sides, adding more green and water to our views.



So why is it the best unit? Well, the building is an inverted L shape if you see it from the road, and she is on the leg that is pushed back into the lot, about 50 yards away from the road (less traffic noise), protected from the winds by the other section of the building, and bathed in sunlight all day long either in the front, side or back of the apartment. Three exposures. Also, we chose the floor very carefully: the 2nd floor won over the 3rd floor, surprisingly, because the views on the second include a lot of green in the field of vision (from garden as well as the beach dunes), over just sea views on the third. Also, the terraces on the 2nd floor are all covered in hard wood, both walls and floor, while on the 3rd it's ceramic tiles. Ironically, 2nd is cheaper than 3rd, as usually at least in Punta condos are priced in ascending floor order.

The living room/dining room is pretty big, but my mom being my mom, she will knock down the wall to the master suite (there are three other suites, so no problem), which happens to be the corner with wrap-around terrace, and make it all living room, adding about 175 sq ft to the existing 460 sq ft of living and dining area, and most importantly, guaranteeing afternoon sun in the winter.

view of the bedroom that will become living-room... lots of sun and views of the landscaped houses on the side of the building.


The living room is a bit too long and narrow now (for our pain in the neck demanding tastes), but when we open up the master suite at the right side against the terrace, it will have tons more view and light and a friendlier L shape, rather than the corridor propotions it has now.
Sea views all the way from the kitchen in the back...
View of the breakfast area in the back of the kitchen, overlooking the Rincon del Indio forest and gardens...

On our more modest news, beyond the momentous moving into our house on Dec. 1, we have decided to buy out my Mom's share of the lot we purchased together in Punta Ballena last year. It just so happens that lots in that corner have gone up 100% since last year, so we decided we want to keep it as our future backup lot (for building if we sell our house, or if we win the lotto) and will lock in the price now before my Mom's share becomes unaffordable to us. After having secured a verbal agreement with her, we have just now put up for sale the other lot we bought last year in Barra de Portezuelo. I feel sad about it, because it's beautiful and we love it, but we own 3 adjoining lots now where our house is, and we can even sell two with the house and have one spare to build if we want, so it makes more sense to sell that one and buy out Punta Ballena before it becomes too pricey for us. We had been even thinking about buying another lot in Las Grutas (the Punta Ballena corner we like) that was $50k last year but I was just informed that one is gone and others on the same block are up to $100k, so this is the catalyst for selling our newest lot in Barra de Portezuelo. At its $35k asking price for a quarter acre, it seems so modest now... but our area is yet to become trendy, so it's a fair market price.

Barbi collecting flowers last year right after we bought it, from the back of the lot looking towards the sea...

Arts and crafts, birds, sunrises, Mehmet the sailor...

Well, our domestic life has become very bucolic. The absence of a TV (DirecTv to be installed next week) has sent us in other directions for evening entertainment. Also, after finally feeling we have a home worth going to the frame shop for, we brought out all those things we have been saving over the years to get them ready for the framer.

I am big on old textiles, so one of them is our treasured collection of Hmong hand-embroidered belts. Rather than belts they are decorative strips that are sewn on jacket sleeves, waists or collars... I fell in love with them first in northeast Vietnam, where I bought a couple, and last year in Thailand we hit the jack-pot in Chiang Mai and bought several dozen. They are embroidered in this incredibly tiny needlepoint, making very op-art type geometric designs in bright, happy colors, usually pink and green, like Mangueira samba school colors. That´s what they remind me of, but it´s a very cross-cultural reference...

This was the night before we received the carpets, which spent a whole month at the cleaners... The major thing still missing is the sofas, which are promised for the 30 or 31, we´ll see... for now we make do with our old sofa from the sale corner at Ikea in Izmir...

We will frame and keep about 24 of them in sets of 6 that are motif-related, and will frame and sell another couple of dozen individually.

We also have a couple embroidered pieces from Turkey, very old and super folk-cute, and our bugs on teak collection as well (all kinds of scarab-type bugs handpainted on little strips of old teak) , plus art from FAME (Fine Art Adoption Network) that I adopted from Nick Holliday and Sarah Nicole Phillips, plus watercolors of various Hmong and other tribes also from Vietnam, etc. etc. Now we need a new house with more walls, because this one is all glass everywhere...

The bucolic life means we wake up usually very early, often early enough to notice the sun rise. One such morning I got inspired and got out to take some pictures.



The birds continue to impress me. This one was part of a pair singing on my terrace for a few minutes. When I got up to get the camera it relocated to the window sill... Don´t know what it´s called, but it looks like a miniature penguin, with yellow...



"Harry´s Bar Mehmet" (in Turkey every Mehmet comes with a modifier) used to tend bar at --you guessed it-- Harry´s Bar in Kas. Recently he did the a modern-day version of joining the merchant marine, which is to jump on a cruise ship to see the world and make some cash. He stopped by Punta del Este yesterday, and Barbi spent a couple of hours with him.

Luxury in rustic forms

Entrance at Pinar del Faro

I find myself in constant need of explaining Punta del Este to audiences who seem to not get it.

One of the things that the growing number of expats colonizing Montevideo and Piriapolis seem to rail against is the “Miami” Punta, the stretch of gaudy high-rises abundant in wrought iron, crystal chandeliers, or Luis Whatever furniture in the lobby. Well, newsflash, that is not my Punta del Este, or the Punta del Este of most of my friends, acquaintances, and even of most of my clients. (I do have some customers in the Miami Punta though.)

The Punta del Este we think of as ours is a place of casual, low key esthetics, where luxury is expressed in terms of views (sea, dunes, forests, gardens) and sounds (waves crashing, birds singing) and where nature also informs design and decor. Hardwood versus shiny brass and crystal.

Pool at Pinar del Faro

In the interior design business in Punta del Este it is customary to have new development model units furnished by local design shops, and needless to say, the competition is fierce for the privilege of planting a conspicuous sign on the road that says “Decorated by...” Sometimes the building is not yet a hole in the ground, and the developers are pestered by furniture shops wanting to lock in the so called “showroom” (model unit in Spanish is “showroom”, go figure).

In that mad race, I always find myself saying “screw them, we don´t need the hassle” against my Mom´s view that “everything helps.” After many years of doing this, my conclusion is that it only helps when there is a true meeting of the minds with the developers and designers of the project in question, and that otherwise the costs outweigh the benefits of brand exposure.

Fountain at Pinar del Faro

However, when we do find these business “soul-mates,” the benefits keep piling up (I´m trying to avoid using the dreaded s....y word ). I have come to think of it this way, “If our shop were a building, would it look like this?” If the answer is “No way” or “That´s too small” or “Never in that exterior color,” then we should not be furnishing the model unit. But when we find a project where we would want to buy property, then the stars are fully aligned. In the past couple of years we have found a couple of those that are currently on the market, and a couple in earlier stages at this point.

One is Brava 28 (http://www.brava28.com), a low-key, sober looking condominium building in the Rincon del Indio area where –regardless of whether or not we end up buying a unit-- the entire project is something we are proud to be connected to. A two-block, L-shaped building with four-floors in each block, Brava is luxurious in its comfort (large floor plans where every room is generous in size and holds ample storage space), in its views and its finishes, without being cheesy or flashy. A huge pool protected from the winds by both blocks and by a grass-covered dune is surrounded by wooden decking. The landscaped grounds surround the building on every side, and the finishes include lots of slate, hardwood and white. The sea can be seen beyond the dunes with their characteristic native bush, and the forest and neighborhood landscaped yards are usually visible from bedrooms or kitchens. We´re already on our second model unit furnished in Brava, as the first one sold, and we have had several clients among the buyers.

Another, newer project where we are completing the model house furnishing is a gated community in José Ignacio called Pinar del Faro. For those with some understanding of the local scene, this is a very chic project, starting with its location, on the highway at the entrance of José Ignacio town, to the pedigree of its developers, Argentine heavyweights Nordelcor, and, as importantly, designed from the master plan to the decoration of the model house by locally renowned architect Mario Connio. If Connio signifies anything in Punta del Este, it is the polar opposite of the “Miami Punta” esthetic. His shack-on-the-dunes style invariably includes thatched roofs, a local classic that has been practically abandoned by the Uruguayan middle class and is being revived by the hipper-than-thou Connio.

Pinar del Faro is comprised of about 250 lots in 40 hectares, with lots of pines, palms, a lake, two huge pools (the one for children or families FAR AWAY from the one for grown-ups) two plazas, tennis courts, a restaurant, club house, etc., plus underground utility connections and Internet access (I have no idea how good or what system). Lots range from 1000m2 (quarter acre) to around a half acre for the largest ones. They are not third-world cheap, but hey, this is a place where I would not mind living year-round, or just having a lot “for the future.”

The multiple sets of regulations include a building plan approval requirement that involves an architectural firm engaged for policing the Connio shabby-chic-by-the-ocean style. Fine by me, as I would not want any cheesy McMansion ruining my morning walk or any fake “Colonial” (what in Spain they call “Romantic” and what in the U.S. they call “Spanish”) style home interrupting my digestion.

Lake at Pinar del Faro

So luxury for me, the height of material decadence, is a combination of comfort (from Internet access, to a bathroom roomy enough to avoid bruising, a real spa-grade Jacuzzi, vs. glorified bathtub), and a certain combination of materials and elements that include lots of wood, greenery and absence of man-made noises. A rustic sort of luxury. So we look for these kinds of developments that truly reflect the essence of Punta del Este´s style, that make us start thinking about purchasing property while we plan the decoration of the model unit, and where the general feeling is more laid back California than tarted up Miami.

Best and worst of our house-building experience

Well, as the year draws to a close, and we are finally settled or settling in the house, it´s time for a review of best and worst of the vendors involved in this project.

Let´s start with the good ones first.

1. Fabián Sosa Díaz and Luis Bogliaccini, architects.

This is not a kind picture, but they always refused to provide me with a presentable one. From left to right, Barbi, Luis, Fabian, and 8-month pregnant Julia, all doing the twist at a party recently.

It´s impossible for me to fully thank Fabián and Luis for their devotion and commitment to this project, above and beyond the call of any professional duty. We started out in 2001, when I was planning to build a water tower, and evolved from there. Almost a full economic cycle later, we are living in our dream house thanks to both of them. Also, our dream house has evolved and improved thanks to their invaluable advice and ideas. After all, it was just a dream shack originally. Beyond the design stages, Fabian in particular has spent countless days, weeks and months making sure the evil contractors (more on them later) moved their asses and actually finished the house. No small feat, with 12 months of extra work.

2. Marabierto.

Marabierto, the home-furnishings business led by my mother and in which I am a partner and buyer, deserves full credit for the financial aspect of building this house. Marabierto, in its new incarnation, opened its doors on Jan. 5, 2002, excellently poised to dive head on into the biggest economic crisis seen in my lifetime in Uruguay and Argentina. Still, thanks to my amazing Mom, it forged ahead, avoided bankruptcy and went on to grow well beyond our dreams. While the funds for the original modest shack had to be diverted in 2002 to the survival of the business, Marabierto returned the favor by funding a project that is three times the size and price of the original. There would be a very small and simple shack in its place had it not been for our business --- and while I´m at it, let me send a shout-out to our fantastic customers. Let´s hope it continues to do well, as I have a lot of “expansion” plans and lots of land...

3. Punta Ballena Jardines. Even though they came in fully at the very end, after 18 months of dealing with the evil contractors, the professionalism and overall good attitude displayed by this landscaping firm has left us truly amazed. We keep thinking, and saying out loud “If the contractors had worked like these people do, we would have had the house ready in 4 months.” Martín and Diego Añón, father and son, respectively, are extremely knowledgeable and also wise. They will not try to sell you the sexy part (the planting) but rather insist on laying out the correct infrastructure, and while I ran out of budget for the aforementioned sexy part, I am delighted with my barren expanse of cleaned-out land, knowing all the drainage is in place, the sprinkler computer knows when to water the lawn, it can be expanded without extra cost when I add more lawn or plants, my pool and house won´t get flooded by the runoff from the sloping land during a rainstorm, etc.

ThTelecom Ingeniería, the alarm and DirecTv guys. Extremely nice, accomodating, professional, serious, etc. All good things. They are based in Piriápolis.

Carlos Traibel, the satellite internet and Ruralcel guy. Great service, great guy. He travels all around the country installing satellite internet access, the only means of accessing the Internet for most of his clients.

And now to the bad guys

1. The contractors. I will not name them because I´m still in negotiations with them over our last payment and I don´t want a lawsuit, but I can´t think of anything good to say about them other than that they grudgingly and belatedly accommodated Fabian´s demands, at least on second or third or fifth request, and thus the house is indeed the house we planned. However, in addition to their delays (the house was completed in 18 months, rather than 6 as promised) the last stages were basically abandoned, and thus to this day there is a pile of wood and corrugated metal blighting my yard (tomorrow is the last day before I donate it), every surface is stained by the paint used on other surfaces (windows, floors, walls, etc.) some walls have their edges all chipped, etc. etc. So in a way, they never really finished the job, I just moved in when I got tired of waiting for them.

2. The sofa guy. Big jerk. A supplier who does business with us year round, spent two months not making my sofas and saying “What, do you want me to make your sofas and leave behind the orders for the real customers?” meaning the orders for my customers... And what I am for godssake? Chopped liver?

3. The utilities guys. All of the utilities. Not only do they charge in advance and then come to install the service whenever they very well feel like, but they also lie (“I am standing in front of your house” while we stare at miles of empty road) and worse, much worse still, they NEGLIGENTLY START FIRES all over the place. There was one fire in August that reached across the street from our house. Another one last week, half a mile away, that consumed three houses. In both cases the fires were started because utility work crews MUST have their barbeque lunches every day, at any price. They are just assholes.

River of the Birds

tero

I don´t know how many people remember the meaning of Uruguay, but in guaraní, or quechua, I forget which, it´s supposed to mean River of the Birds. Well, you can say that again.

I may have mentioned that I had never noticed the birds until my first trip to Uruguay with my now husband. He developed a crazy habit of slamming on the breaks and getting out of the car to look at whatever unusual bird was around. He has since toned it down a bit, now he doesn´t get off the car. I say we will be victims of death by birdwatching. Anyay, since moving into Arrancopelito, we have been basically living communally with a loooot of birds. There are four nests that I know of in the house itself. Every outside surface is seen by them as either a neighborhood, a good perch, a good drinking pond (including the pool, very popular) or a fun track for flying around and around and around.

carancho

The swallows are the funniest, the have two of the 4 nests, and especially in the late afternoons they start swooping in a flock of about 10, alternatively going around the house, or doing these weird approaches to the nest, with sharp turn away at the last second. They fly very fast too.

The falcons also spend all day overflying and doing their very elegant hunting dives, and a couple of days ago I even saw one of them being chased mid-air by a tero that was half it´s size and kept on attacking it.

garza blanca

The others just hang out more sedately, feed on the grass, perch on the terrace railing and sing at their heart´s content, etc. etc. Literally, there are dozens of birds hanging out at any given time around the house.



I have compiled a list of the birds we have seen either in our land, or in the neighborhood in the past, and it surprised me to see how many there are. Also surprising, as a recent British visitor living in Spain noticed, is how un-scared they are by humans in general. Except the teros I guess, which attach us every time we go to the beach, almost grazing us and then turning back, to come at us again... One of them makes a racket every day, then lands a few yards ahead of us, and proceeds to walk up the middle of the road, as if guiding us, while still screaming on... he thinks he´s a dog...


scissortail

So the list of what we´ve seen in the past 10 days is more or less the following, although our ignorance means that we have seen other varieties not identified and thus not listed...

parrots, scissortail, thrush, sparrow, pink heron, white heron, black heron, caracara plancus, falcon, swallow, duck (several kinds), tero, seagull, rail, guira cuckoo (venteveos), wood pidgeon, partridge (with two chicks crossing the road in tow), owls, and other unidentified winged critters.

The parrilla is finally put to good work

This was an amazing double rainbow that we saw late Saturday in Punta del Este, from end to end. In seconds it was gone, but we were able to stop the car and take a quick snapshot.

Starting the parrilla. We have a leg of lamb slowly roasting ahead of the rest of the meat.

Barbi wrestles with the parrilla. We still don´t have the appropriate tools.

There was a lot of pressure on Barbi. Some of our most unforgiving friends demanded to know what a Turk was doing in charge of the barbeque, but in the end, they all shut up and enjoyed the results, which of course were aided by elder brother Jorge´s expert advice. Jorge´s sage advice is "Always have tons and tons of coals ready at your disposal. The rest will take care of itself."

And it did.

long time no post

The launch of some regatta from Punta del Este harbor, on its way to Buenos Aires on Saturday. We caught it by chance, did not even know it was going on, after a full week of the other regattas going on... When we arrived home, it was dark and we could see all the boat´s green lights from our house, very cute.

well, what with the crazy work on every front, the pre move, the move, the post move, the inauguration of the parrillero this Sunday, etc., I´ve been neglecting my blogging duties.

First things first. We moved on Saturday, December 1, after much tantrum throwing on my part (nobody could spare a truck or hands for our move, which made the little screaming fit necessary).

Picture of Fabiana and Barbi, on our first day at home...

This one is called "el Cabeza" and visits once every few days from a neighboring farm. He´s very distinguished and well mannered and actually barks for a living, unlike Fabiana who licks and demands to be loved and only barks at bugs.


So we moved, spent a crazy week unpacking and especially trying to finish up with all the "trades" plus the alarm system, the satellite Internet connection, trying to hunt down a pool guy, etc. We found out that the sale of gas bottles for the kitchen stove is now forbidden until further notice, so the options are to resort to the secondary market (thriving I hear) or fish one from someone´s winter heaters. We found a couple, luckily.

Now the sprinklers work on their own, the pool doesn´t, it looks a beautiful moss green again, after going through clear, then primordial soup, onto milk white and back to deeply alive green in just 10 days. I finally tracked down a guy who will take care of it, but today with the storm he could not make it over here.

We also found the local place in the woods of Punta Negra where we can buy emergency firewood, veggies and other sundry supplies. It´s a bizarre place, and the year-round residents of this area call themselves "los de arriba" meaning the ones living in the woods "above" the topographically lower area of coastal beach houses which is mostly for summer vacationers, not "real locals". I am now honorarily "de arriba" I think, as I plan to shop there and employ as many locals as I can, have to support their meager existence, as it seems everyone is pretty despondent and it´s in our best interest to have some convenience stores in the area...

Anyway, we had our opening asado on Sunday, and the weather cooperated, a relatively calm and sunny day in between two storms. We had a great time, with family, close friends and both architects, their wives and brood. Barbi made his debut, with invaluable assistance from "the angel" as he calls my brother Jorge, who provided ongoing technical advice and some physical help as well. I stuck to the salads.

Living in the house has been amazing so far. We hadn´t slept so well in ages, nor been willing to rise at 7 AM to go for walks... I find myself going for walks at least once a day, sometimes more, in the company of Fabiana who takes the opportunity to go hunting. Speaking of which, she tried to present me with her prey two days ago, an aperiá, which came seconds after I walked past the dead evil viper, after having 9 huge birds of prey (nobody agrees on what they are, little eagles, vultures, etc.) flying above me as I strolled down the completely deserted beach, etc... Lots of nature.

The house itself is noticeably different in its two sectors. The wooden side is considerably less insulated from the elements, and my suspicion is that the vulnerable part is the floor. In the masonry part, the insulation seems to be perfect, we never feel cold or hot or whatever it is like outside, and the sound insulation is also great.