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Midwester Rube On Uruguay One Week In

As promised last night. A week is scarecely any time to develop familiarity with an alien land and its people, but some trends are beginning to coalesce.

The good:

  • The people are very friendly and will try their best to assist in any manner possible... so long as you do not leave their immediate visual range
  • The pevasive Uruguayan standard sidewalk while initially contributing to the overwhelmingly alien feel of the place is becoming one of the most functional of the contrasts to old country1
  • The food so far exceeds it's approximate equivalent in old country in every way so far.
  • OMG the weather!!!
  • This is a country of good dogs.
  • Many opportunities to hear new bird songs.
  • The locals seem to appreciate that someone from neither Argentina or Brazil chose Uruguay and not just for a short stay.

The bad:

  • The habit of sniffling when nasally congested while observed exactly once happens in a spasmic way that grates the nerves
  • For a few hours in the afternoon direct sun exposure reaches intensities that can be somewhat unfriendly to the naive gringo whose summer ended a couple months ago
  • Old women attempt to maximize the space they occupy on public walkways, and tend to gather in congestion points to stop for conversation with others of their kind.
  • Few opportunities so far to spot the birds in their songs.
  • Consumer pesticides list the family of the active ingredients on their packaging, but not specific active ingredients or their percentages.

Surprises:

  • The initial ear training phase of language immersion, especially upon arrival for this first timer, was far more cognatively taxing than expected. To the point there was initially little extra to spare for attempting more than the simplest same language responses. Ear training continues with most local speech being recognized as individual words, and with the cognitive load having lightened substantially. I can think of few self study measures to have taken in advance which would have eased this process other than maybe downloading a number of Argentine cars for ear training. Experience with Mexican and Central American Spanish speakers was little assistance with the local accents.
  • Brazilians smoke fucktons of weed.
  • The experience of the first few days understanding little of what most people where saying to me and still suriving the interactions with most of what I wanted underscores how few of the utterances were probably all that useful or necessary.

Not a surprise at all:

  • As St. Francis of Assisi said "Better to understand than be understood" - 12&12 page 99
  1. Except for the form in front of some of the upscale Western hotels where they use CERAMIC tiles... [↩]

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