Will Bridges

Okay, Spanish Lessons have been coming slow. I took 3 years of Spanish One when I was in high school. I failed every year because I wasn’t the type of student to turn in my homework or show up very often. I was too worried about learning programming. However, completely by accident, I learned the basics of Spanish syntax, pronunciation, and just little things that are very helpful in my mission to learn Spanish now. Plus, I have a decent vocabulary in Spanish for being as much of a beginner as I am. So, I’m ahead of Yendis (my girlfriend), a bit. But, I have been so busy with work I have only had time for two lessons. So, I don’t feel I’m moving fast enough. I do have a little over a year before I move to Uruguay so I feel I can come up to speed enough to not be fluent but to be able to converse in a decent fashion. Plus, once I get there I plan on getting a tutor to help me learn the native dialect and I’m sure that being there will improve our Spanish dramatically or at least I hope so. I’ll tell you all what, one month after I get there I will write a blog post completely in Spanish! That will gage how far I’ve come.

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Many people have said ‘Why are you moving to a developing nation in South America?’ For those of you that didn’t read the post I’m moving to Uruguay in early 2008. I’m in the process of learning Spanish and saving some capital from my flourishing business.

Let’s get back to why I’m leaving the states and why I want citizenship in a developing nation such as Uruguay. It’s not the top reason but I’ve deeply lost most of my faith in America. We are destroying the middle class with debt, drugging up millions of our children on addictive pharmaceuticals, and taking away people’s freedom in favor of security. These are not the ideals I value and not the ideals I want to give to my son. I will not give my son a legacy of debt, drug addition, stubborn blind faith, and fear.

People will say ‘Will, you’re leaving. You’ve given up on America.’ I haven’t given up on America. America gave up on me, it gave up on freedom, and it gave up on the trust and care of it’s people. America is each and every one of us. So, the truth is we may have given up on ourselves. I still feel this country can pull out of it. But, it will do that without me soon. I will be back and I will exert my influence to help change in the country that is my home. But, I will make myself, my children, and my partner citizens of the world. We will diversify, adapt, and give our children the ability to do so. I want to raise a new generation of American. One who can see our country from a world view, think large, and feel close to everyone.

I’m moving to a developing nation because I feel we can grow better there. The same reason people left to come to America. I’m leaving to advance myself, my family, and to be free of the policies of this nation that no longer reflect my personal policies. There is room for change in the US and I think we may be on the verge of positive change. But, there is a lot of change to go and a lot of greedy hands in the way of that change.

Overall, I believe in us and our ability to change and grow. But, I need to grow, change, and diversify. So, I’m sorry home and I love you but we have to part ways for now.

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I know… I know… But for real. I want to move to Uruguay. On the trip home from Thanksgiving Yendis and I talked about it and we want to move out of the country. I can do my job from anywhere with a good broadband connection. Here’s some good points I came up with about Uruguay. I’ve been researching this for a couple days between working.

• Uruguay speaks mostly Spanish. That’s great because I wanted a good excuse to learn, Yenids wants to learn, and I want my son to be bi-lingual.
• It’s not too far out of the US time zones which is where most of the people I work for conduct business.
• It has a stable economy and democratic government.
• Crime is extremely low for that part of the world.
• The health care system is great and it’s free to citizens & residents who have been living there for 3 years. Further, if it’s not free it’s extremely cheap for great private health care and they have most of the modern equipment we have.
• Public education is free all the way up to the Doctorate level of the university! But further, private education is fairly priced and diverse.
• Montevideo is only 3 hours by ferry from Buenos Aries which would be a cool place to visit every now and then.
• Citizenship is easy to get. You only have to live there for 5 years if you are single or 3 years if you are married.
• The climate is perfect. Equivelent to Long Beach, CA.
• The public officials seem easy to work with and responsive as well as the rest of the businesses in the culture from the reports I’ve seen.
• Montevideo is a city of 1.5 million people which is a great size.
• Broadband internet is available and not extremely expensive.
• It’s a fairly modern society. They even have a couple grocery stores online that will deliver to your house.
• It’s about a 40-60% cheaper cost of living than most places here in the US.

That being said. There are some small cons. Here is a list.

• The sidewalks are in terrible condition in some areas from reports and some areas of the city look like they have went unmaintained for years.
• It’s far away. It’s between Argentina and Brazil in South America on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s about $900 for a round trip ticket per person to Washington DC and it’s an overnight flight.
• It’s an adventure. I have an extremely low knowledge of Spanish. Yendis has almost none. I’d have to learn some before I went.
• To be comfortable in a foriegn country I would like to have about 25k worth of money saved up and it’s going to be difficult to save that over the next 12-18 months.
• While there are tons of resources it’s hard to know if it’s going to be right for me. But, from everything I’ve read it seems right for me and my family.
• My son is very young and will still be very young before we move. There’s a good chance we will only get back home 1 or 2 times a year. I intend on going to become a citizen so I will have to be there for 5 years, at least. So, he won’t get to see his family very much.

We looked at many other options including Norway, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Austrailia, and some of the islands. Overall the pros for Uruguay still outweigh the cons. There was some serious or major drawback to all of the other countries we considered. So, I’m going for it but I need to be as frugal and as motivated as I can be so I can save a large enough amount of money to be comfortable. I have enough clients that I’m comfortable now but that could always change. However, I doubt it will. So, I intend on moving in the next 12-18 months. Yendis wants to wait but I’m pretty sure I can convince her because I know she wants to leave the country. We may visit next year to see how we like it before we go. If you would like information on the resouces and knowledge I have obtained please follow these links.

Uruguay Living - An American living in Uruguay who has lived in many remote places in the world. Tons of information here and all very recent. Plus, he sells a book that anybody considering a move there should buy. A real good book.

Sociedad Southron - They guy who created the blog above created a society to help people trade information about moving to Uruguay. You have to join the forum but it’s free and there are tons of posts there about everything from dozens of people. A really great resource as well.

Uruguay Human Development Report - Tons of stats on the situation of human development in Uruguay.

Uruguay CIA World Fact Book Report - Genral information about Uruguay and it’s people.

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Thanksgiving with the family turned out great.You can see from the pictures below. Only three families attended out of the Bridges side of the family but it still turned out great and truthfully I’m not sure Bill & Greg’s house would have handled any more people. But, anyways, they cooked everything they could healthy and organic and without any sugar. Still it was one of the most delicious meals Thanksgiving days I have ever had. We felt right at home. I would have liked to go out in the city a bit more and explore as it looked interesting but we just didn’t have the time.

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I’m going up to Ohio to have Thanksgiving with some family for the holdiay. It will be my first time going to Cincinnati and my first time being in Ohio. I havent seen some of my family that is going to be there in about 4 years so it will be good to see them. I will bring back pictures and maybe get to post in my blog while I’m there. I’m really too busy to go but I’m making an exception because it’s family. I Hope everybody’s Thanksgiving turns out great.

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