Friday, March 14, 2008

One of the many pains of being an expat

Besides missing family, besides not being able to buy the things you
like on a regular basis, besides the exchange rate against the local
currency, wow now what was I going to write about?

Oh yeah, hospital bills.

Thankfully we do have a good hospital system here, an old established
British Hospital. Problem is, you just don't go and see the doctor and
give them your Blue Cross/Blue Shield card and all is well, no, first
you have to pay the bill (Use my airlines credit card and get some
miles, LOL), then comes the paperwork to get reimbursed by the insurance
company and hope there is no problems with the billing amount.

So far we've been pretty lucky. I dare say the dental care is another
matter altogether, that's pretty much a cash only deal.

Greeting someone Uruguayan style - aka - kissy kissy

For newcomers to Uruguay (And I imagine Argentina) there is something
you have to quickly accept and get over. When you meet a woman (In some
instance men too) you give them one of those European cheek kisses, you
know what I'm talking about.

If you extend your hand out for a handshake to a woman they will shake
your hand, but you'll get a strange look.

The fact is, the cheek kiss is how it' done here. Of course you don't
really kiss their cheek, you just kind of go through the motion and make
the kissy sound : )

Children are taught this from day one here, so even when it comes to
meeting children, same thing, no handshake ; 0

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Blogger hacks

I don't know how many of you have Blogger blogs but if so I have ran
into a couple really neat hacks, per se. You may have noticed one.
You RSS readers won't : )

No Google navigation bar on top! Woo Hoo! Much more browser space : )

Getting ready to implement another hack (Not really a hack, have to quit
saying that) tonight. Should only take a few minutes.

Drop a comment if you want to know any of these tips : )

Another nice weekend and...

Another beautiful weekend here in Uruguay! Nice warm sunny days, wish
it would never end! So I took a trip to the local supermarket and
wouldn't you know it they were still out of our cats favorite food!
I'll make a trip to the pet store, now that I know where it's at : )

Surprise, surprise, I cooked! You heard right! I used cooking utensils
and actually used the oven! I made a pizza, granted the dough was
already made but I did chop up the vegetables, grated the mozzarella
cheese and added the sliced salami. It was really good! Almost as good
as the one Chris and I had made : ) But not as good as a Chi Cho's
pizza from Virginia Beach!

That is good pizza!

When I go back to the States there are some foods I have to eat right away:

1) Slice or two of Chi Cho's pizza
2) Vietnamese Pho soup (I love it!)
3) Some good North Carolina BBQ (Very true when I came back from Saudi,
as there was no pork)
4) Big delicious Korean meal
5) Yes, of course, obviously, Mexican!

Now I'm hungry!

So, I have been thinking about some stuff to blog about, would probably
help if I got it off my mind on onto my keyboard! I'm contemplating
making a podcast : )