Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil

The Breakdown: An “Alternate” Plan

May 8th, 2014 | Posted by Ian in Brazil | Dogs | Lodging | Speedbumps | The Places We've Been - (Comments Off)
Eddie and the CR-V

Welp, it finally happened for the first time. The CR-Van broke down. We hopped in the car to leave São Paulo on a sunny Saturday morning, excited to hit the sexy beaches of Rio de Janeiro by that afternoon. After a few loopty-loops and a few curses lobbed at the GPS for her poor performance, … Read more

Living Room and Bedroom Door from Kitchen

Our home in São Paulo was a compact 1-bedroom apartment on a double-digit floor of a big bland downtown building with a fantastic view, many built-in conveniences, and a super comfortable bed. From the outside, things felt a bit chaotic. The building sits at the intersection of two main-ish streets with lots of foot traffic and … Read more

Dogs on Minhocão

This is a series detailing some of what appear at first to be more mundane details of a place, but will hopefully be illuminating as insights into the grind behind the “glamour.”  Groceries We were out for a walk with the dogs on our first Sunday in São Paulo when we stumbled upon a fantastic market … Read more

Museums of São Paulo

April 30th, 2014 | Posted by Ian in Brazil | The Places We've Been - (0 Comments)
Pinacoteca

São Paulo has a lot of museums. Like a ton. Here are some that we have never been to and thus can’t speak to their quality: Museu do Ipiranga - Technically the Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo, this museum focuses on the history of Brazil and the state of São Paulo. It is São Paulo’s most famous … Read more

Cheers and Chants

Last Saturday marked six years since the day of our wedding. Our plans for celebration were loose at best, being generally outlined as ‘have a great day’, ‘go do stuff in São Paulo’, and ‘eat and drink whatever we want’. Well, not to brag, but we totally nailed it. After taking the dogs out to … Read more

São Paulo apartment view

São Paulo is a monster. The city proper’s nearly twelve million residents make it one of the top ten largest cities in the world, as well as the largest in all of the Americas and all of the Southern hemisphere. With a total population of twenty million, the metropolitan area is also in the top … Read more

A Brazil

We cross borders by land in a CR-V with US passports and our two dogs. We do not carry drugs or weapons or disallowed fruit (usually). These articles are not a definitive guide to crossing borders nor should they be used as a sole source of information. They are our experiences. When, Where, and Which … Read more

IMG_6662

More than anything, Colonia del Sacramento is an escape. It is old cars and cobblestone streets and lamplight, all of it seemingly separated by both kilometers and centuries from the hustle and bustle of Buenos Aires, visible on a clear day across the Rio de la Plata. Even the river itself looks different from this … Read more

Colonia Flat

April 15th, 2014 | Posted by Brianna in Lodging | The Places We've Been | Uruguay - (7 Comments)
Living Room

As we’ve mentioned in a few previous posts, we had the pleasure of meeting our host for our stay in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay prior to our arrival while we were still in Buenos Aires. Martín is a location independent computer guy like Ian who splits his time between the Argentine city and his quiet retreat … Read more

Yerba Mate

April 10th, 2014 | Posted by Ian in Argentina | Brazil | Food | Uruguay - (2 Comments)
Yerba mate and bombilla

Back in the States, we are generally only exposed to two kinds of “natural” stimulating beverages, namely coffees and teas. Over the past six months we have had the pleasure of being introduced to a couple alternatives to these staples. To try (legally, at least) coca tea, one would unfortunately have to actually travel to … Read more