Imagine Chicago is actually the biggest city in Wisconsin (it’s not hard to do, I know all your Midwest geography is so good that you know Chicago basically borders Wisconsin already). So a big city in the heart of cheese country. Sprinkle in a few West Virginia mines, and here we are. For the beginning …
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Learning Experiences
Duck and I have discovered many things here about which we have had a 180-degree role reversal. One of these is my sudden and near-total directional challenge in our neighborhood (just our neighborhood, and really just leaving our house – I can usually get home just fine). I have no idea why this is, except …
The best laid plans
So remember how I said we were going to try to limit our outings? Ha. Yesterday we started the CPF (like a social security number) process at the local post office (don’t ask) and then my host at UFMG, Marilia, wrote that she would be on campus in the afternoon and would I like to …
Mercado Central and Mass
If anyone out there is as into Anthony Bourdain as Duck is, you probably know that he did an episode of Parts Unknown in Minas Gerais. He spends a good long time in the Mercado Central (central market) and this episode was one of the first things Duck watched in preparation for coming here, so …
Belo Horizonte, home sweet home
Duck and I were up early this morning and headed straight from our Airbnb to the airport. It’s a quick hour-long flight from São Paulo to Belo Horizonte (which I will refer to mostly as BH: B = bay, H = ah-GAH, so bay-ah-GAH together if you want to be like the locals). Duck, in …
São Paulo: Orientation
Duck and I arrived on Monday and took a cab to the hotel (Uber is about half the cost but we couldn’t get it to work for us). At Duck’s encouragement, I introduced myself to other obvious Fulbrighters also checking in. We went out into the drizzly mid-afternoon for some food where it started downpouring …
Iguaçu Falls Roundup
Birds: I snapped a shot of this cheerful little (ie about the size of a starling) guy at breakfast this morning before he hopped away. There were also some birds soaring above the falls that Duck thinks were vultures – they were amazing to watch, huge wingspans and really just riding the thermals, not flapping …
Relaxication
Duck and I are really taking it easy. Yesterday consisted of lots of what our friend Jaclyn calls porch sittin’, in our case reading and enjoying beverages and more giant green olives than we could ever possibly want, sitting by the pool and going for the occasional dip, and indulging in a long massage. Thursday …
Iguaçu Falls
We made it! Our first flight, Boston to DC, was very unpleasant for me, but I rallied and the long one (9 hours, DC to São Paulo) was very good. We were even both able to sleep a little. (First class helps with that!) I told Duck that we might have a problem on our …
Foot Mittens
We’ve been up early every day (because moving is so fun and we can’t wait to get started!) and are pretty zonked by the end of the day. So zonked that tonight, when I noticed that Marc was only wearing one slipper, I told him that he had lost a foot mitten because I couldn’t …
Horntoes in Brazil 