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All Aboard The Train To Mexico
I’ve never really played a lot of tile placement games. Before moving to Portugal I played online Mahjong Solitaire, the occasional game of Carcassonne, and Upwords (which feels more like a word game). Andrew generally favors games like Blokus more than me. We didn’t own dominoes and none of our fellow board gamers in the…
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Don’t Run Away From Complex Board Games!
Last week Michelle talked about how when we look for new board games we try to find a gap in our collection. A good example is that I love space themes and gravitate towards them so they are over represented. We track our games on a Google sheet so we can quickly pick out a…
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Happy Birthday To Us!
My birthday is July 1st and Andrew’s is August 12th and for 2025 we decided to try something new. Although we dined out in fancy restaurants on our respective days, which is our time honored tradition, instead of getting separate gifts we agreed to shop together. We debated about whether our splurge would be something…
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Perudo: Cups Full Of Fun
Back in the late 90’s I used to have house parties that involved lots of party games. My friendship with Michelle solidified during these nights in spite of the fact that they were chaos filled drunken nights that got progressively zanier as my move away from Minnesota approached. We lived in a college community and…
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The Tour And Tiny Bricks
I hadn’t given much thought to the Tour de France prior to moving to Europe, but after catching snippets in several Olhão bars and cafes back in 2022, my curiosity was piqued. I started with the Netflix show Tour de France: Unchained (I highly recommend it), and was shocked at how nuanced and complicated this…
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We Tried Our Hand At Speed Puzzling
Andrew and I have a soft spot for odd competitions (if you do too, check out We Are The Champions on Netflix). For instance, we are not immune to the charms of spelling bees, which I participated in both as a kid in 5th grade, and as an adult in a San Francisco performance of…
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Finding The Tinned Fish
A very common question and discussion I’ve had multiple times since moving is “What things are hard to find at a Portuguese grocery store?” Oddly enough at least half of these conversations have been with other people who have also moved to the country. I’ve heard multiple strange stories about the lack of peanut butter…
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On The Road To Recovery
I have chronicled my ACL injury and repair and people are curious about what life is like post surgery. I am almost at the 4 month post-op mark and am still on restrictions, but here are some factoids about my recovery journey so far. On 2 Crutches: First 4 weeks. First Look: After 6 days…
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Perlers (Melty Beads)
For many years now my main artistic hobby has been making art out of Perler brand melty beads. I generally use or tweak existing designs and have given away many pieces as thank you’s for Extra Life donations. Since we’ve got quite a few pieces up around our Urgezes home I thought I’d show them…
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Surgery Day
I arrived to inpatient check in at Hospital da Luz Guimarães, which is separate from the standard appointment check in desk, just before 9:00 the morning of January 31st. I felt a bit disembodied, floating around in a near dream like state. I had been struggling with my knee for such a long time that…