Where are we now?


View Where are we now? in a larger map Jo, Annie, Miles and I are living in Northport, Alabama and working at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. We've been glad to be in one place for a bit after what appeared to be semi-permanently traveling (in actuality for a period of 2.5 years).We started this blog to catalogue some of the adventures when Jo and I were sequentially conducting our dissertation research in India and Brazil. While we've fallen off the blogging bandwagon somewhat during recent trips to Brazil, we're trying to pick it up again now that we're back in India!


Friday, July 20, 2012

Try this at home

After what we were sure would remain the wild goose chase to end all goose chases, we finally located the elusive macerico.

 And where, but right across the street at our neighbors´ house, lurking quietly all this time: the ultimate tool of the trade, the weapon of war—the flamethrower.



And so the carnage began. Spiders, beetles, ants, raining down in a black, apocyliptic snow. It was a thing of beauty. If you don´t know what I mean by all of this violent imagery, refer back to our post from earlier about the long-term project of conquering vermin in our humble abode.



Forget karma. it´s time to burn.

while Annie was particularly interested in the flame thrower we thought it not an age appropriate toy. I know, uptight parents.

The joy that the macerico brought to our lives is really unbounded. While I´m sad that the excitement is over, I´m gladdened by the fact that in another few months, our vermin ´´friends´´ and general cloud of cobwebs will have returned and it will once again be macerico time.

The result was truly amazing, the ceiling and walls free of nastiness. I later learned that the principal usage of the macerico is to remove the skin of dead pigs before putting them on the spit. Apparently one person works the flame thrower, and another uses a machete to remove the burned skin. Perhaps too much information?

The only question remains: what can´t we use the macerico for? Ideas include mowing the lawn, rapid burning of trash, perhaps not shaving, but you never know....it is the macerico after all.


Saturday, July 14, 2012

Happy first father´s day



So this is a little belated at this point (as are all these posts on Rio by the way), but who cares.

This year was a particularly special father´s day for me, as it was my first as a father.

I woke up and took Annie for a long run up towards the Christ statue, giving Jo a chance to sleep in. That might seem like special Mother´s day treatment, but for me to have a wonderful time with just Annie was really special.

Later in the day, Jo, Annie, and I went to a lovely little bookstore cafe and engaged in another of my favorite fatherly past times: perusing (and procuring!) foreign language children´s books. We came with a few including: I am a Plant; The day you were born; and Spot Goes to Sleep. Sure to be family classics. (my favorite is I am a Plant, although when Annie won´t go to sleep the Spot book has a special place in the rotation).

Aside from the books, there was some lovely afternoon sun, which coupled with a game of peek-a-boo (pictures below) and some excellent espresso and pastries was the proverbial icing on the father´s day cake.










And I think we can all agree that Jo can rock the fedora.















Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Rodizio

Perhaps one of my favorite things in Brazil is the pizza rodizio. There, I´ve said it. No, it´s not the beautiful beaches, cultural diversity, or ecological riches. It´s the pizza...especially the dessert pizza.

Chocolate and strawberry anyone?

For those who might have missed previous posts in which I mention the rodizio the short and long of it is that it´s all you can eat pizza, but it´s not just that, oh no. Rather, it´s an experience, an environment. A beautiful environment in which waiters circulate endlessly between tables with pizza after pizza.

I actually feel ridiculous devoting a post to the rodizio, but when one has been in rural Amazonia for an extended period of time. There´s no denying it´. One word. Rodizio.

Now, when we were in Rio our friendly hostess E. decided to challenge me to a pizza eating competition.


Being empirically minded, we decided to add a series of handicaps for E. and Jo. Gender counted as a slice as did beer.


                                             Annie was underwhelmed we weren´t sharing.






Unbelievably, in the final tally, E. won. It´s true. To preserve both of our decencies, I won´t give out final numbers here, but let´s just say we both made it well into the double digits. And now, it might just be time to look for another rodizio.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Morning walk


One wonderful thing about Rio is just getting up and taking a walk. Staying in Santa Teresa, this meant that we got to stroll up towards Cristo (the Christ statue).



It's a gorgeous walk through a national forest, which given that it's Brazil is temperate rainforest.






And the views from the lookout over Rio's incredible coastline are...well, just incredible.











Sunday, July 1, 2012

Market day meets Rio





Readers of this blog might remember my love of old antique (read: junk) markets. Well, it turns out that there is a great one in Rio.
  
 On bus over with E. Annie is a big fan of mesh it turns out; who isn't really?

Turns out it's right below an overpass (FYI make sure to book it out of there once the market's winding down!)


 It was a place where the most random of most random things can be found


Dolls which have seen better days...

 
Speaking of being a big fan, there's nothing I like more than random motors....


also was glad to see vintage Nat. Geo's are a favorite


And old VHS cameras


Annie did get a little nervous though....


when she saw the vintage surgery instruments! 

The strangest juxtaposition of all was the vintage porn and machetes. 
Sorry, no picture due to the young readership of this blog.