If you know me, you know I’m into vegetables. I’ll often fill an entire plate with veggies at the dining hall–for me, choosing between carrots and broccoli is like choosing a favorite child. I just can’t. Because of this, eating in Spain has been immensely frustrating. Spaniards hardly eat vegetables; their occasional vegetable consumption consists of…
What does Europe have that the United States doesn’t? Bidets, Magnum ice cream bars, and towns like Óbidos, Portugal. I’m not sure whether there’s less tourism to the U.S. or whether it’s just different tourism. Our big cities are much more spread out, plus our shorter history yields fewer noteworthy sites for tourists to visit. In Europe, small towns thrive…
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…
“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.…
I have a lot of day-to-day expectations. Some are basic, like having adequate food and water and a place to sleep. Others are higher-level, like that I can communicate with people around me and they will understand and respect me. I rarely consciously think about these day-to-day expectations, and that’s because they stem from various…
Victim to Charm 