October 16, 2025 . Americans in Uruguay . Day One .

Greetings from Montevideo.

It’s been a really long (and tiring) day (40+ hours!). We left Oakland on Wednesday at about 7 am. Had a messy travel day (taxi dropped us at the United international terminal at SFO (G gates)–as usual–and after looking at the board, we noticed that our flight to Panama City was leaving out of the A terminal, which was strange; turns out because of construction at SFO, United is using both G and A terminals, which they failed to mention at check in and on our boarding pass… we had to walk nearly 3 miles inside the airport, going through terminals G, F, E, D, C, and B in order to get to A…there is no connection from G to A going in the other direction…all the while walking with our carry on luggage..meaning ALL of our luggage.) Then we flew to Panama City (7 hours) and had a two hour layover before boarding a very nice COPA (7-hour) flight from there to Montevideo.

The taxi ride from the airport to our hotel (about 40 minutes, costing I believe about $40) was pleasant as the driver took the route along the waterfront (the Rambla) nearly the entire way. Unlike arrivals into many US airports (especially all the NYC airports), the roads were very well paved, traffic moved smoothly, and the city appears to have many parks that dot the various neighborhoods, including a really large park that we passed on the route. Since this is just our first day, this will mostly be first impressions.

We checked into the hotel at about 9 am, had a quick hotel breakfast and headed to our room to take a much needed nap. We are staying at the Alma Historico Hotel in the “ciudad vieja” (old city). So while we saw mostly 20th and 21st century buildings all along the route, we are in the very old section of the city with more winding streets and a lot of cobblestone and colonial-era architecture, lots of landmarks, museums, palaces, and more.

Although we had lay-flat seats, it was still hard to get any meaningful rest on either flight. Somehow, it’s easier to sleep on one of those really long flights (like from SFO to Australia) than it is to catch any ZZZs when you know you have to get up and deplane and then trek through another airport… or so I think. Instead, I did a little work, played some games, watched a movie and listened to music.

We got up, showered and met our friend Peter (who has been living in Montevideo for several years and is now a “very proud” Uruguayan citizen) at 3:00. We’ve known Peter for decades, going back to his high school years in Berkeley. He’s lived in Latin America for many, many years, and we visited him in Mexico City several times when he lived there. Full disclosure—Peter’s dad was Mike’s boss when he worked at a downtown SF architecture firm in the late 1970s. Peter wanted to take us on an “overview driving tour” of the city so that we’d have the big picture of the layout and different neighborhoods before we head out on our own tomorrow.

Since we were in the car most of the time, I don’t have a lot of images to share… but that will come in the upcoming days. We ended our “tour” at Peter’s and Jairo’s co-op apartment where we could see the sunset over the Rambla and the sea. Basically the Rambla is a coastal avenue or boulevard that hugs the coast for about 15 miles–stretching the whole length of the city. It’s pretty wide in most places and people are walking, biking, jogging, fishing, and relaxing. It was a beautiful day so you could see lots of activities.

Peter’s co-op apartment is small and functional, with two bedrooms and a small deck. We ran into several neighbors (fellow-co-op members) who were incredibly friendly and immediately did the one cheek kiss! We had some Uruguayan wine (quite good), got caught up on family, travel, and of course politics—Peter’s favorite topic. And we learned a lot about Uruguay from both Peter and Jairo. More on that in the coming posts. Their building is close to all amenities, so they walk to nearly evrything and it is only a block or so from the Rambla–an amazing amenity. The co-op seems to be a tight knit group and they’ve had a lot of group activities, including the creation of a greenhouse adjacent to the building.

Then we headed to a wonderful “tapas” dinner at a local (upscale restaurant)—more talking.

So my first impressions: the city seems to be well run; people are out and about and hanging out at cafes and bars; we didn’t see any trash on the streets; there’s a very interesting mix of architectural styles; there’s a big effort to preserve historic buildings; there’s a good deal of construction going on; and from what we heard, the country’s public program–such as healthcare– are working well. And whatever party is in power, the social democratic principles related to social programs are “givens” and are supported — so Uruguay is different from other countries with more divisive rhetoric around terms like neoliberalism or socialism. Thus, topics like gay and trans rights are not even debated; they are givens. There were a lot of banners and graffitti supporting Palestine and it’s evident here that the Communist Party is about to celebrate its 105th anniversary (lots of signs).

Much more to come as we navigate the city. There’s a lot to take in.