Trash Service in Urban Portugal

One of our favorite aspects of traveling to other places is to find out how people in those places handle the basics of life. You know, like going to the grocery store or how they handle mail, and often, some of the most fascinating things is to observe how people manage trash service. It’s something we all have to deal with and how we do so is truly interesting.

Phone Service when Moving to Portugal

When moving from the United States to Portugal or any other foreign country, there’s so many things to think about, including setting up phone service. If you’re like the average family in the US, you have some kind of cellphone plan. Whether or not you keep that plan when you come to Portugal is something that you must think about.

So You Wanna Visit Portland, Huh…?

Cathedral Park under St. Johns Bridge

The Usually-Updated List of Stuff to Do and Places to Eat Now that we’ve been in Portland for three years and bought a house (!), it’s obvious we’re pretty serious about this town. When friends and family ask about our newly-adopted city, we gush about its people, culture, and vibe. Now that we’re getting more…

Random TV Moment

We haven’t really watched any television since leaving the English-speaking countries.  This is usually just as well since we should probably be doing something productive like writing blogposts or watching the latest episode of Amazing Race on YouTube (internet permitting).  Nonetheless, I can’t help but do the obligatory once-through the TV channels once we are…

Museum Madness Part 3 – Versailles and Quai Branly

In the final entry in our three part series entitled Museum Madness, we explore the Palace of Versailles (sort of) as well as the culturally diverse museum Quai Branly. I’d heard of Rick Steves’ free mp3 tours awhile back but completely forgot about them until right before Paris.  I was stoked to find that two…

Museum Madness Part 2 – A&M, l’Orangerie, Pompidou

Side note:  just testing a new layout/theme for the website.  Let us know what you think either way– we’ll probably be experimenting for a while. On the advice of a friend, we sought out the Musee des Arts & Metiers and Pascal’s Arithmetic machine.  Luckily, the museum was covered by the Paris Museum Pass, and…

Museum Madness Part 1 – Louvre and Orsay

Side note:  just testing a new layout/theme for the website.  Let us know what you think either way– we’ll probably be experimenting for a while. Paris really is a beautiful city– from what little I remember from being above ground and outside.  As Charity likes to remind me, we spent most of our time either…

And Now We’re in… Belgium…

After Ireland and a one-night layover in Amsterdam, we headed over to Belgium to play tourist in Brussels and Bruges.  First up– Brussels. Advance research told us that there was not much to see and do in Brussels, but we went anyway because we couldn’t secure “affordable accommodation” in Bruges right away.  No problem, we…