Greetings from Mexico City!
Hope everyone’s doing well in the New Year (is it too late now to say this?)! It’s been a long while since our last newsletter. Upon reflection at the end of the year, we concluded we hadn’t written for so long because Owen had felt the past couple of months weren’t share-worthy. We’d spent most of that time deep down the crypto rabbit hole. It’s not particularly exciting to talk about bunkering down and learning when we don’t have some big result from it to share.
Ivy pointed out that there are always memorable moments, we just have to keep an eye out for them and not take them for granted, however small they may be. It’s not like everything we wrote about from van life was some epic adventure or lesson. While we’ve enjoyed writing about the tech scene in different cities, we assume most of you follow us to keep up with us. So going forward we’ll try to share more about our life again, and Ivy may move the tech stuff to a different outlet. Let us know if you’d want to follow that! In the meantime, here’s a smattering of moments from the last few months.
After Madrid, we went to Lisbon
We lived in a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment that coincidentally was right across from a very Chinese area. There were Asian grocery stores, Asian jewelry places that looked like all Chinese malls in the 2000s, and most of all tasty Chinese food. Some of these Chinese restaurants were “secret”, only passed on by word of mouth and ran unregistered in the homes of Chinese immigrants. Ivy made a reel on this if you’re interested in learning more.
Lisbon reminds us of San Francisco. Perhaps it’s because there were 3 tech/crypto conferences happening all in one month or because Lisbon is by the water with a bridge that has an uncanny resemblance to the Golden Gate Bridge (ironically built by the same company that made the Bay Bridge).
The energy of the city is amazing. There were crazy crypto parties that were held in palaces and remote secret locations (somehow associated with Burning Man).
People came from all over the world and were actively moving to Lisbon as the place to be.
The Portuguese government is thrilled and supports it with visa programs like the Golden Visa and D7 programs to bring in new investments, remote workers, and talent to the country. There is 0% tax on foreign income, wealth, dividends, and most importantly, capital gains on crypto. And if you ever want to work in Portugal in certain in-demand sectors (definitely tech), there is a tax incentive for those with 5+ years of experience to get taxed at a 20% flat rate for 10 years. This appeals to any brain drain talent to come back to Portugal.
Paired with the good weather and low cost of living (we can confirm as of today that groceries in Lisbon were cheaper than even Mexico City!) - heck, we might move there ourselves!
In December, we made a quick ski stop
Owen has an itch to snowboard every snow season, though usually, it gets satisfied after just a day or two on the slopes. Early December was the only time this season we’d get to go, so we went to the highest possible spot in Europe, Val Thorens, to ensure we’d actually catch the snow. We got there the weekend the lifts started up again and at that point, there were only 60 some runs open, but that was plenty for us. In total, there are 335 runs and 183 lifts in the Three Valleys region!
One day near the end of the week, we accidentally ended up off-piste on our very first run of the day and Owen got buried in snow. The powder was several feet thick yet so loose that when you try to push yourself out, you just get stuck deeper. He wasn’t sure if taking off the snowboard would be better or if it’d just get lost that way, so he kept it on and tried to ease along slowly while shovelling the snow around him. Ivy easily cruised to the bottom and went around a second lap to try to help.
After much struggling, a passerby told him that it is in fact better to take off his board. He can use it as a sled that way. Equipped with this new knowledge, Owen managed to get himself freed after 30 minutes of digging. Some skiers on the lift nearby cheered when he finally got out. It seemed they’d already passed by on the lift before (maybe even more than once) and saw him stuck then.
After this one run, he called it quits for the rest of the week. Being buried in the snow for so long actually gave him a bit of trauma where even when he was on regular footing, he kept feeling an unease, like he’d drown into the powder again.
The rest of the time was not for naught, however. Our little cabin was quite cozy and we enjoyed brewing mulled wine to drink every day. We’ve been tracking our calories and weight for the past 4 months and this week in the Alps was when we both hit our lowest weight. Even with all the mulled wine and a meal of raclette (mounds of meat, potatoes, bread, and cheese) that we estimated to be over 3000 calories, we still saw both our weight continuously drop!
For Owen’s 30th birthday, we stayed in a spa town
Ivy booked us a weekend at the fanciest hotel we’ve ever stayed at in a town at the edge of the Black Forest called Baden Baden.
Ivy had worked with Owen’s friends to make an amazingly thoughtful gift for him and then coordinated with the hotel to lay out the gift along with champagne and cake in our room. We got upgraded to a massive room with a gorgeous floor-to-ceiling view and when Owen walked in, he went straight to the balcony to admire the view and completely missed the gift.
Owen did later discover what he missed and spent a good portion of the weekend fawning over the present. He has the most wonderful friends!
Aside from the fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel, the area is known for its natural geothermal spas. The hotel had the nicest spa and sauna in the entire area, yet we didn’t discover this till the morning we had to check out as we’d spent the rest of the time visiting the other spas in the area. We did thoroughly enjoy the food and other hotel facilities though!
When we got to Baden Baden, Germany had just changed their COVID regulations to require either a booster or daily antigen tests. We opted for the latter and it turns out in that area, they swab not just your nose but also your mouth… with the same stick! It was as gross as you’d imagine.
Ivy had her bachelorette in Tulum!
It was a weekend filled with outdoor beach clubs, nightclubs, and a touch of tourist activities. Two weeks since that weekend we are relieved to say that it went COVID-free!
A few highlights were forcing the girls to make reels, the gorgeous villa we stayed in with 3 pools/hot tubs and 5 king beds, an epic taxi ride to the club where Ivy blacked out and somehow still managed to look cute for photos after throwing up for 1.5 hours.
The rest are you know, secret bachelorette things so won’t be sharing it here or with Owen.
After the bachelorette, Ivy stayed another two weeks in Tulum. Tulum is currently very half-developed. There are modern villas and apartments, a row of beach clubs with $100+ minimum spends, hip restaurants and Instagrammable spots – essentially a playground for rich nomads and expats. But right next to these villas are unpaved roads filled with potholes, locals still living in sheds with no running water or proper sewage infrastructure, and garbage strewn in all the bushes.
The place is up and coming - but infrastructure needs to be developed and hopefully in a way for locals to thrive with the tourism industry.
One thing that we liked, there are developments that care about sustainability. 2 blocks away from our apartment was Los Amigos, a real estate development that has 90 solar panels that power their zero-emissions gym (they are also a solar company), wastewater treatment, and a beach club that cooks with biogas. This complex had a co-working space, a gym, a spa, and restaurants.
Now we’re in Mexico City and we love it here! The nicer areas of La Condesa and Roma Norte feel extremely liveable with so many cute dogs and tree canopies over the roads.
We hope to get back to writing newsletters on a regular cadence. Writing these really did help us take more notice of what was going on around us. Without paying attention, life quickly passes us by. Here’s to more writing this year.
Onwards,
Owen & Ivy