Lisboa

So, unfortunately we only had 3 meager days in Lisboa (of which 2 of them were rainy), but it definitely qualified itself as worthy of a return trip. I FINALLY convinced MinoriTeam to take a tour on one of those horribly, cheesy, double-decker buses (and of course it started raining half-way through...), and we were able to see most of the highlights of Lisboa. During our day trip to Belém we were able to visit the Jerónimos Monastery, the Art Museum and get some of their famous nata pastries.

We stayed at the lovely Poet's Hostel (definitely recommended) and spent a day at the Flea Market (where I bought a couple of rings and an Amália Rodrigues album).

Strangest part of the trip: Flying back to Madrid and feeling like I was coming back home.



Current Musik: "Beggin" - Madcon

Oporto

Ok. So somewhere in the 20 young years of my life, I came under the impression that I'd seen a pretty diverse range of countries/beauty. New Zealand, Greece, Sri Lanka... you get it. Well, turns out I was wrong. And Portugal (specifically Oporto) was the slap in the face that let me know just that.

Instead of going on and on with a detailed itinerary, I'll leave it at this: We walked around, drank some great port wine, and really fell in love with the city. We found a great vegetarian restaurant, I probably ate my weight's worth in roasted chestnuts and made the unfortunate discovery that Spanish men have NOTHING on their Portuguese counterparts (just puttin that out there...)

Next stop... Lisboa!

Current Musik: Who else, but the fabulous Amália Rodrigues? "Canção Do Mar"
(the genre is Fado)

Toledo

So awhile ago, I took a quick day trip to Toledo with a couple of my favorite ladies. Only about an hour train ride out of Madrid, it reminded me a lot of Segovia. Although mostly known for its famous cathedral (I didn't bother putting up any pictures as mine were awful) we were also lucky enough to see the AMAZING Ana Alcaide performing in the street. She plays a viola de teclas and many traditional sephardic songs.

We ended up enjoying a relaxing day and mostly walked around the city (most of the sites/museums we wanted to see were closed as it was a Sunday) and I visited my first Synagogue. Overall, a pretty, quaint Spanish city that was great to spend a day in, but definitely not somewhere I would want to live for an entire year.


Current Musik: Ana Alcaide "Como La Luna y El Sol"

CaixaForum - Infancia

A little while ago (Ok, a month) the MinoriTeam decided to take a quick dip in something cultural and ventured off to the CaixaForum (a free, contemporary, art museum owned by a Spanish bank). There were two exhibits running, Dalí/Lorca and Infancia, photos by Isabel Muñoz.

So the basic premise of her exhibit was to take high-quality (ignore my blurred, photographer's too ignorant to work the flash on her camera, picture), close up shots of various children from all around the world, blow them up and smush them in a room walled in mirrors. Oh, and of course paste their stories of being orphaned by AIDS, impoverished or sexually assaulted on small plaques on the sides of the photos. Hmmmm.

Now don't get me wrong. These were gorgeous pictures. But I can't say that I'm ecstatic over the idea of thousands of citizens from the Global North adding another set of images to the "Developing World" section of their philanthropic sympathies. I hate always questioning the line between solidarity from those with privilege to the blatant othering of entire peoples, but REALLY?

In some of the pictures, the children (especially young boys who had been assaulted) covered their faces to hide their identities. And as much as I want to give the photographer the benefit of the doubt that she obtained willing consent and acknowledge how powerful and image like that can be, if the boy doesn't want his face shown then I'm wondering how he'd feel about the picture being blown up to 6 feet...

I don't know... After shit like this goes down I feel like I have to seriously reevaluate every exotic piece of propaganda some westerner elicits from the east.



Current Musik: Rihanna "What's My Name"
(anyone else catch the irony that of all the 3,000 some songs on my computer Rihanna pops up while I'm writing about the exotification of children of color through art/popular culture? damnit for being such a dang catchy song)

El Rastro/Lavapiés

So about a month ago, when the weather was still gorgeous, I went on a Sunday afternoon adventure with a couple of friends to El Rastro and Lavapiés.

El Rastro is an enormous bazaar (I posted one of my pictures to the left) where vendors offer everything from fans and scarves to leather goods and shoes. It had your typical, chaotic hubbub of any outdoor market, but was definitely peppered with a couple of crazies to keep things interesting (ie: the Romani (gypsy) lady who set up some kind of music box/cart smack dab in the middle of the street and my favorite-the group of Hari Krishna fanatics who danced down the street and tried to convert little, Spanish children). While I spent the good part of our time there conflicted over the irony of a vegetarian buying leather products, I finally caved and unleashed my inner-Indian-bargain-demon when my eyes caught sight of a beautiful, leather duffel-bag. As I was being conservative with the powers of persuasion, I ended up paying 24 Euro for a 36 Euro bag (I'm sure my Nani wouldn't have settled for anything that wasn't under the 20 Euro mark...) but I left more than satisfied with my purchases.

We hopped back on the metro and grabbed lunch at the first falafel joint (with probably the blandest hummus I've ever had) we saw in Lavapiés. Now before we got here, the Coordinator of our program told us it was a predominately North African neighborhood and notorious for being very dangerous. However, the only things I saw were Indian restaurants, Indian grocery stores, Indian video shops and Indian people. EVERYWHERE. (I mean there was graffiti in devnagari on almost every wall) Whatever pangs of homesickness I had creeping up were instantly diminished and it's definitely reassuring to know that there's an entire barrio that can take care of any cravings I'll inevitably get for hindustani khana.


Current Musik: "Ain't Nothin Like You (Hoochie Coo)" The Black Keys ft Mos Def & Jim Jones