Want a Summer Ranch in Uruguay?

[everloss]

I was so intrigued about this when you first posted it that I've done a bunch of research into Uruguay and found that I don't think I would mind living there.

The climate is very similar to Ohio, the standard of living is very high, they export high tech goods, and they seem to have a stable government and are on pretty good terms with their neighbors.

As of a week ago, Uruguay is in my 5 year plan.  At least to travel there and scope it out in person.

[RPGPundit]

Yup, Uruguay is awesome to live in. And yes, Everloss, pretty much everything you said above is true.

Lamb, yes, the Unions have way too much power in this country, and this is one of the down sides (though its mostly just an occasional inconvenience if you aren't actually a medium-to-large business owner).  I believe, but don't quote me on it, that you don't have to have unionized employees if you have only a certain amount of workers.

As for strikes, yes, its extremely common for unions to go on strike.  A week ago, they had a "general strike", where basically EVERY UNION IN THE COUNTRY went on strike for an entire day... for no reason at all, other than the fact that they hadn't done it in a while. It was just a way to intimidate the government and the general population.

The worst by far are the unions of public employees; its not unusual to have to go do some kind of paperwork at a government office only to find that its only running a half-day, or completely closed, because the union has dictated it.

When I went to get married to the Wench, the day of our civil ceremony (which we had to wait three months to obtain!), we almost got turned away because when we arrived the union at the Civil Registry had decided to hold an impromptu meeting to decide if they were going to go on strike; and because they could, they decided that instead of waiting until after hours to have this meeting, they'd just shut down the whole office and keep everyone out of the building until their meeting was done. We had the ceremony, but about four hours late, and most of the people who'd come along to take part ended up having to leave long before that.
They have so much legal power that there were cops there, not to force them to reopen, but to help them keep everyone out of the building. Again, this was not a strike, it was just them having a meeting to consider a strike, and doing it during office hours because they would rather fuck up the lives of about a half-dozen couples that were trying to get married that day, rather than have to stay an hour or two after work.

Uruguay is great, but you have to learn to be very very patient with that kind of bullshit.  If it wasn't for all the unions and all the leftists here, it'd be utopia. I guess its the Magic Deer's way of evening things out on account of our not having earthquakes or snowstorms or tornadoes.

RPGPundit

[IceBlinkLuck]

I'm certainly sold on at least a visit to Piriapolis. Gotta see that hotel . And if I decide to settle in the area I'll know someone who can point me to the local gaming groups as well.

[everloss]

So how is Uruguay in regards to cigarettes, drinking, and gaming?  What are police like? What about universities, colleges, higher education opportunities?

[RPGPundit]

So how is Uruguay in regards to cigarettes, drinking, and gaming?  What are police like? What about universities, colleges, higher education opportunities?

Last time I checked, cigarettes cost under $2 a pack (they might be a little more now). Beer costs about $2 for a 2L bottle (and its fairly good if you like german-style beers). Casinos are plentiful.
There's a tobacco ban indoors (aside from some speakeasy very private clubs, its hard to be able to smoke indoors anywhere outside of private homes).  The good news it that the weather is so nice, its not really much of a big deal to smoke outside on patios.  
You can buy beer and assorted spirits at any grocery store.  Bars are open all night.

The police are mostly harmless.  They're fairly omnipresent in the downtown area, particularly the special "tourist police" who are supposed to speak some English (IN THEORY).  I've found Uruguayan police officers to be friendlier than Canadian ones, who always look more like musclebound thugs.  Uruguayan policemen look like regular people wearing a uniform, and tend to have less power trips, because everyone knows they're not really very powerful. Of course, from what I've heard, they're not that useful if you happen to get robbed, most of the times they're pretty incompetent at solving any actual crimes.

There are a few private universities and there's one big public one (the Universidad de la Republica).  Tuition is free for citizens.  The quality of the public University here is pretty variable, tending toward crappy, though most Uruguayans (utterly mistakenly) believe that the university is somehow a world-class top quality university; it isn't.  Many of its departments aren't even recognized for credit by North American Universities.  Uruguayans tend to believe that their primary and secondary educational system is worse than it is, and that its university is much better than it is.
The most significant private university is the ORT, which is a Jewish university (not restricted to Jews or anything like that, just a Jewish institution) which mainly teaches technical subjects, and is quite high quality, but expensive.

RPGPundit