In less than two weeks, I am headed to Costa Rica. The second half of 2011 was an emotionally draining and stressful one for me. Initially I was planning to go solo in November for a week but instead I delayed a bit and decided to go for 2 weeks in January (and a friend [...]

Whenever I ask people to list their favourite cities, San Francisco is often listed. I had a week off between jobs which coincided with my friend going to SF for work so I decided to tag along. My stay there also coincided with Pride. The SF pride parade was surprisingly small compared to Toronto’s and [...]

I’ve created a YouTube playlist of some of my favourite Bossa Nova songs on the site. Gal Costa – Wave This is a great rendition of Antonio Carlo Jobim’s Wave. Gal Costa’s voice is both polished and expressive yet sensitive. Ella Fitzgerald – Dindi Ella Fitzgerald is cute as molasses and this version is an [...]

Brazil was much more expensive than I ever imagined it’d be. I got a hint of what I was going to encounter by the prices of hotels in Rio, but I didn’t imagine that the prices would be nearly on par with Canadian ones. Brazil’s economy is the world’s sixth largest economy and growing at [...]

The New York Times has named Paraty as one of its places to go in 2012. They have a slideshow here.