I can´t quite put into words how Pat and I felt the morning after our first big night out in Lapa, a Rio hotspot. Due to the kilo of white sugar and bottle of Cachaça from too many Caipirinhas we had consumed the night before, we were not in the best of spirits when we woke to an alarm at 9am. We had made the mistake of booking a tour for early Saturday morning, in which we would get to see all of the big highlights of Rio rolled into a 6hr guided tour ...

The clouds were dark and the ground was wet when we landed in Rio de Janeiro Wednesday, January 23rd. It was an oddly surreal moment when we hopped on a bus from the airport that would take us into the city we had heard, dreamed, and worried about for what felt like ages. At first view of the city, my thoughts were flooded with the numerous warnings and pieces of advice we´d heard along the way (I could almost hear my mom in the back of my mind pleading with...