Today is Saturday, March 29, 2014 and it’s my wife’s birthday. For this occasion I made a promise to myself and to her.

From now, on instead of working every Saturday, I will spend all time with my lovely wife Kristina and our adorable daughter Eva. For the last decade I worked pretty much every day. I’ve been especially diligent since I switched to my startup full time three years ago, not missing a single day of work since. One amazing thing that I’ve observed over that time is that, whether I work or not, there is never less work to do. So I’ve decided to have a break every Saturday, and my wife will monitor my schedule closely. It is my commitment to her. If I break this promise she can leave a comment here for my public embarrassment:).

Also every Saturday for the next year, we will write an article together and publish it on Monday. It will be about our life going around the world and experiencing different cultures and places. Feel free to subscribe to this blog, so you will get some insight on places like Argentina, Chile, France, Spain, Costa Rica, Panama, Uruguay, Brazil, etc.

I usually take tons of photos but never publish them. I always wanted my photos to be perfect before anyone can see them. From now on, I won’t care if they are perfect or just simple photos. They will be up here as long as they describe our journey and things we see.

Here’s a few words about the Osses

Eva

Eva was born three months ago in Buenos Aires. Yes, she is Argentine, or, more specifically, she is porteña. That is, she is from a port city, Buenos Aires. Eva doesn’t speak any human languages yet, but she can already say agua. Perhaps it means something else in her language, but our landlady likes to think that Eva has already picked up some Spanish due to being Argentine.

Eva likes the ceiling lamps in our apartment here. She giggles and makes fun of them as she rests on her back all day long, observing her surroundings .

Because she is so little, Eva can completely get away with ignoring the genius of Francisco de Goya, the great Spanish painter of the 18th and 19th century. She sleeps pretty tight in her sling while her dad studies Goya’s drawings in El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

 

 

Kristina

Kristina was born and raised in Moscow. She loves art and cinema, but more than anything she loves Eva. When she has time she makes toys for kids. You can check her work at krixy.com. Kristina likes to walk and it’s astonishing how far she can make it without any help from public transportation or a cab driver. Just think about it: walking from downtown Manhattan to Central Park and back would be her laid back kinda afternoon.

I had never imagined that I would meet my wife in a nightclub. It happened, though, five years ago, when I visited Moscow. Kristina came to the club for a late dinner and stayed for the performance by the english drum’n’bass DJ LUKE VB. When we met that evening she told me that the lamp fixtures above the bar had smiley faces. There were a dozen of them and they all smiled. Kristina never stops smiling herself, and this is something that keeps me loving her more and more. On our first date we went to Winzavod, a new center for the contemporary art, converted from Soviet-era brewery buildings.  She paid for my ticket because I didn’t have any small bills.

Then I returned to the states, and over the next six months we met a few times in Europe. Then she visited me in San Francisco. I proposed to her while we were skydiving, 10,000 feet above the island of Kauai. That was both exciting and beautiful. We got married in Albion River Inn in Mendocino with my parents and a couple of friends present.

Kristina loves warm water and sun and never complains about visiting Hawaii, Costa Rica, Panama and such. Pichilemu was brutal on her…

Vadim

My life motto is to never stop exploring. I love to discover new places and experience life in different cultures as a local. I’ve visited over 40 countries, speak four languages, and have lived in stimulating places around the world: Moscow, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Costa Rica, Santiago, and now Buenos Aires.

There are two things that make me really happy: having Kristina with me and having Eva with us. The rest is my journey, and I also find it quite exciting. I work on my startup, eat organic food, mostly walk everywhere, and surf when I can. I invested in a few real estate gigs and that keeps me going.

Did I say that I evaluate my travel destinations based on proximity to the surf breaks? Now I did.

 

We live in Palermo Soho in an authentic two-story apartment. With a skylight instead of a ceiling, white walls covered with art and photographs, and a great patio upstairs, we think this place is absolutely gorgeous. I even have my own office upstairs, which I will abandon every Saturday from now on:).

The neighborhood of Palermo Soho is absolutely amazing. It’s like a mix of New York and Paris, with some Latin flavor.  Most of the buildings here were constructed in the early 1900s, and the ‘hood is filled with different types of cafes and restaurants.

We absolutely love it. We wouldn’t mind, though, if someone were to fix all the sidewalks around here.