I'm so sorry I've been away so long - especially since there has been so much chatter about the spaghettios! I do have a very good excuse for being away - I was actually away. And by that I mean out of the country, not just away from the keyboard.
I spent most of last week in Portugal on a field trip for the Making & Managing Places module of my planning course. It's one of the more urban design-y classes, so I enjoyed it a lot. (It turns out that planning is sort of boring. Urban design, though, is cool!) Anyway, we left on Saturday and got back on Thursday and spent pretty much every moment between walking around, taking photos, sketching, drinking very strong sweet coffee, and eating lots of seafood and pastries. The Portugese, people after my own heart, like a lot of flavour in everything. Lots of sugar, lots of salt, lots of garlic - whatever it is, there's a lot! The two most typically Lisbon dishes we had were bacalhau and pasteis de nata. Bacalhau is dried, salted cod which is re-hydrated and served in a variety of ways. I had it grilled, shredded and cooked with potatoes and cream, with spinach and cream, and in fishcakes (not all in the same meal, of course). The pasteis de nata are custard cream tarts - but so much more. They are unbelievably good; incredibly sweet but not cloying and perfect with a double espresso, called a bica and the default drink in Lisbon. I tried lots of other desserts, and they are all pretty good. Many are egg-based and, against all odds, I found one that was actually too sweet to eat. I couldn't believe it, but my sweet tooth had met its match.
Having done a couple of years of high school Spanish, I find that I can sort of read most Romance languages, usually enough of navigate a menu or public transport system, and I can sometimes understand what's being said if I concentrate, but I can't pronounce any except Spanish. I figure I could probably get along as well as any mute, half-deaf, semi-literate Portugese person, though, so I'm pretty proud of that...
I spent most of last week in Portugal on a field trip for the Making & Managing Places module of my planning course. It's one of the more urban design-y classes, so I enjoyed it a lot. (It turns out that planning is sort of boring. Urban design, though, is cool!) Anyway, we left on Saturday and got back on Thursday and spent pretty much every moment between walking around, taking photos, sketching, drinking very strong sweet coffee, and eating lots of seafood and pastries. The Portugese, people after my own heart, like a lot of flavour in everything. Lots of sugar, lots of salt, lots of garlic - whatever it is, there's a lot! The two most typically Lisbon dishes we had were bacalhau and pasteis de nata. Bacalhau is dried, salted cod which is re-hydrated and served in a variety of ways. I had it grilled, shredded and cooked with potatoes and cream, with spinach and cream, and in fishcakes (not all in the same meal, of course). The pasteis de nata are custard cream tarts - but so much more. They are unbelievably good; incredibly sweet but not cloying and perfect with a double espresso, called a bica and the default drink in Lisbon. I tried lots of other desserts, and they are all pretty good. Many are egg-based and, against all odds, I found one that was actually too sweet to eat. I couldn't believe it, but my sweet tooth had met its match.
Having done a couple of years of high school Spanish, I find that I can sort of read most Romance languages, usually enough of navigate a menu or public transport system, and I can sometimes understand what's being said if I concentrate, but I can't pronounce any except Spanish. I figure I could probably get along as well as any mute, half-deaf, semi-literate Portugese person, though, so I'm pretty proud of that...
Like the food, the trip was quite intense. We left the hotel every day at 9am and got back around 5pm. The entire time between was spent walking (Lisbon is very hilly) and looking at interesting buildings or neighbourhoods or streets. (One day we divided into two groups and my group got a short lunch break and no coffee/pastry stops - it was inhumane.) We sketched almost non-stop, too, which was really challenging but good. I will definitely consider taking a sketchbook on holiday in the future; it forces you to look at things much more actively and really imprints them in your mind. Of course, I also took over 250 photos, so those will probably help me remember, too.
I took lots of photos of grafitti - this is one of my favourites:
I took lots of photos of grafitti - this is one of my favourites:
I was in Lisbon for the election but because of the schedule I didn't stay up to watch the results. I did, however, burst into tears of joy when I jumped out of bed and turned on the news first thing Wednesday morning. Everyone in our group kept congratulating me, which was funny. I mean, I voted, but I can't take full credit (unlike Sean Combs). Regardless of your politics, though, I think it will be a little bit easier to be an American abroad now. At the moment, the whole world (except Russia and Iran, that is) is just so happy and want to tell me all about it. I read one article that said it was as if the entire world had won the World Cup. Since it will likely be a very long time before the US or the UK do that, let's enjoy this now, shall we?
