This week marks three years in Lisbon. It’s no longer new, hardly warranting a post, much less an email update to friends. Tales of pasteis de nata and sunsets over the river have given way to the mechanics of daily grocery shopping, looking for a new apartment, and paying taxes. Yet, even after three years […]
a check-in after three years in Lisbon Read More »
Two years ago today, I sat on a plane in San Francisco, teary-eyed and exhausted, and braced myself for a one-way journey to Lisbon. When we set out on this adventure, we did it with the intention of staying at least two years. The first year would be just enough time to settle into a
Letter from Lisbon Read More »
They stand behind the glass, frozen in stunned silence. I turn away, embarrassed for them, for us, for the world we left behind. I have heard debate about what is considered “essential.” Nail salons? Gun stores? In-person church services? I shake my head, roll my eyes, at the world we left behind. Thousands of short-term
The World We Left Behind Read More »
On a conference call today someone said that, after a week of video and phone calls while in isolation, that it felt like “my world has both contracted and expanded at the same time.” I know this feeling. The world has quickly closed in around us. First the shops and restaurants closed, then the crowds
Contracting and Expanding Read More »
I can hear birds for the first time since we moved into this apartment in the center of Lisbon. The rhythm of the hourly church bells, unheard under the din of marauding drunken tourists and screeching cars, seems to carry a particular poignancy. The uneasy silence that has fallen across the city has allowed the
What is essential? Read More »
Thirty years ago, when I first landed here, I felt a deep sense of recognition. It was where my parents came from, and their parents, and their parents, and so on until my family tree seems to fade around 1600. That was the year that Maria da Silveira e Ávila was born, in Topo, São
Meetings at the Edge Read More »
Out our window I see them — exhausted and disoriented tourists, their rolling luggage clack-clack-clacking on the stone calçadas. They stop at the corner, staring at their phone, then glancing up at the placard on the side of the building that tells them the street name, then back at their phone. They look up and
The Unbearable Darkness of Tourism Read More »
One year ago, on July 12*, I tearfully hugged friends good-bye and boarded a United Airlines flight to Lisbon. Memories of my mom weighed heavily on me as I walked through the airport security lines, alone, toward my gate. I imagined my mother doing the same in reverse back in 1962. My experience was nothing
Reflections After a Year Read More »
Today marks a year when Greg and I landed in Lisbon to start our adventure. One year later, we are settling and feeling like a part of the fabric of community here. We have friends — both local native Lisboetas and expats from around the world. We have an apartment. Emily is officially registered as
One Year Ago Today Read More »
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana April 24 marked 45 years since the so-called “Carnation Revolution” in Portugal, a nearly bloodless coup, which ushered in the start of democracy and the end of nearly five decades of nationalist dictatorship. A march through the main avenue in Lisbon, Avenida da