One Day in Rio: Jardim Botânico

We had one full day in Rio (Wednesday) and it was... (surprise!) grey. So we lay on the beach for 20 minutes with the wind blustering about and the wild waves hurling flecks of saltwater our way and decided to make our way to the Botanical Gardens. Which, it turns out, are pretty cool. See below.








Thursday dawned bright and sunny, but unfortunately we had a lunch to make and then a

Travel Diaries: Paraty

As you may or may not have heard, we spent two days in Paraty and the first of those sitting in the hostel looking wistfully out at the rain, fingers crossed for a rainless tomorrow. To our great delight, tomorrow was mostly rainless, if one of the wettest (yet paradoxically dryest - the whole town awoke to find itself without running water (!) apparently due to rain (?)) rainless days

Feather Fantasies & Fabulosity

So after a full week off work and a lot of bone aches and bed rest, I seem to be mostly dengue free! Went back in to get my platelets checked yesterday and my blood is fully coagulative, so no excessive bleeding for me! And work again tomorrow, but I finally feel up to it. The bad news is there won't be many outfit posts coming up for while since I was too lethargic to get out and wear them.

The Ups & Downs of Rio

Finally, the promised Carnaval pictures! These are all from the Sambadrome (sambódromo), where a couple nights a year Rio's favela communities come out to play in all of their finest, sparkliest regalia! It was a fabulous time and an incredible show that starts at 9 pm and keeps right on going until 5 or 6 am the next morning. We headed out around 3 because we were exhausted, though, but not

Carnaval Instagram Feed!

Finally, some of the promised photos (more sambadrome photos (glitter!) to come later)! These are from my
instagram feed (follow me!) and they basically consist of all of Rio's little pleasures: beach, açaí*, amazing views, and Carnaval festivities.



KEY (top to bottom, left to right):
1 - açaí* for breakfast before heading to the beach & Carnaval nails!
2 - my makeup for the first bloco**

Ash Wednesday and Detox

First things first: happy Ash Wednesday y'all! I hope you've all had a very pleasant (totally insane) Carnaval/Mardi Gras/Mardival and, if you are Catholic, are all ready to quit smoking or quit meat or quit chocolate or quit porn or whatever it is you're giving up this year. (Also, can anyone explain to me exactly why there are ashes involved? What do they represent exactly?) As for me & Boyf