“Saudade is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present.” – Aubrey Bell from his book In Portugal According to Wikipedia saudade “is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. […]
“Each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us – through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as […]
“Walking is falling forward. Each step we take is an arrested plunge, a collapse averted, a disaster braked. In this way, to walk becomes an act of faith.” – Paul Salopek For the first two days of my four-day stay in Lisbon, between my appointment at immigration, and picking Michael and the cats up from […]
When the name is mentioned, it is often quoted as the most Portuguese Village in Portugal, yet this title is almost never explained. Even a New York Times article on 14 June 1998 described it as Portugal’s “most typical village”. It is a misnomer, as Monsanto is not exactly what most people will term typical […]
❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞ – Rita Mae Brown – Learning Portuguese is not optional for us. In rural Portugal hardly anyone speaks English, unlike Lisbon, where most people can speak a couple of languages. And so, I thought, […]
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