Last night, I discovered the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter. I have never seen 140 characters at a time be used so powerfully. haven't thought about anything important today? read the #YesAllWomen tag. or I'll just retweet them all for you. — Sabina (@submurina) May 25, 2014 There’s been a lot of debate about hashtag activism recently,…
A definite must-do for visitors to the university town of Coimbra, Portugal is see a fado show. Fado is a traditional genre of music similar to opera. The Coimbra style of fado is performed by men who are current or former students of the university, while the Lisbon style is most often performed by women. …
Tourist. Usually the word comes from our mouths in a nasty tone, more spat than spoken. We look down on the people who aren’t assimilated into our own cultures, who represent elsewheres instead of heres. Yet being a tourist isn’t a bad thing. It means you are willing to admit your lack of knowledge about…
Tomar, Portugal We left Évora (which, by the way, is lovely) and drove north about 2 1/2 hours to Tomar for a day trip to see the Convent of Christ. The monastery was built in the 12th century by the Knights Templar. Its enticing architecture is, like many sites in Portugal, a combination of styles: Gothic, Renaissance, Roman,…
On November 1, 1755, an enormous earthquake hit Lisbon. Thousands of people had left their homes for church early in the morning to light candles in honor of All Saints’ Day. As buildings shook and crashed to the ground, they erupted in flames, and the people of Lisbon ran down to the large open plaza near…
My family arrived at the monastery in Belém on Sunday morning. It was the first thing we did after arriving in Lisbon besides dropping our bags at our hotel. We were exhausted, definitely, but we were also thrilled to be in a new place with nothing to do but experience its culture. The monastery in Belém…
I’ve been in Lisbon, Portugal for less than 48 hours and I’m already frustrated. The problem is the language. I speak Spanish, which is extraordinarily similar to written Portuguese, but my Spanish background doesn’t actually help me communicate with anyone here. The pronunciation is so different: s sounds like sh, h sounds like y, and…
“Don’t blink, you might miss it.” I have a lot of trouble with this phrase. The fear of missing out is a crippling one, and “don’t blink” only empowers the anxiety we naturally feel about not being able to do everything. While the phrase is supposed to encourage us to live in the moment and…
I love when a film is tragic and moves everyone in the theater to tears, and then ends abruptly, leaving nothing but the slow scrolling white text of the credits and the sounds of sniffling, soft comforting whispers, and the rustling of jackets. People will linger a few moments longer than necessary, because the theater is heavy with…
I love prospective students. From my dorm window I can see the soon-to-be college freshmen huddling in small tour groups, listening to the obscure facts rapidly spewing from their guide’s mouth and trying to discern which slivers of information makes my college more special than any other medium-sized liberal arts college in the mid-Atlantic region.…
Victim to Charm 