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July 17 - Exploring Un-Shallows


When i visit new places, I do not plan at all. Then two days before I am due to travel i go into a frenzy. Not because i might miss the best monument in the town/city but because i may not eat the best Gelato! Such concerns. Priorities matter after all. So then I proceed to do some exploration via Google search and blogs looking for the places the locals like the best - trying to avoid the tourist traps. Some of those results clash of course, because some really good places that locals also like get discovered by tourists - yes I realise I am a tourist too! So between Google maps and all these blogs, I have a bunch of starred places that I want to check out - some sightseeing stuff and a lot of food - coffee, brunch, wines, tapas, ice-creams and everything else. Which is exactly what I did for Lisbon and i am not disappointed at all.  All I am going to do over the next three days is walk around those starred places, eating my way through Lisbon. Google already showed me a weight-loss tip


ok then Google, right after i said I was a fan girl, this is what you do to me. Doesn't stop me from eating one more Pastéis de Belém! In fact, while I am at it, I will have two, thank you very much.


Seriously, it was so good, I regretted not having more. So I am going back for more tomorrow and I'll bring some home to munch on as I write tomorrow's post - food, especially sugar, helps me with writing. Truly. No kidding. I did loads of other eating and sightseeing, including drinking a cup full of fresh cheese or fresh cream. Need to do that again too.

I realised as I entered Jeronimos monastery (which is gorgeous) that Vasco Da Gama's grave was in Lisbon (the part of his tomb with the family crest is to below)




 

The monument above is Alfonso De Albuquerque - also an explorer (explain by there are ships right next to the angels), as well as being the Duke of Goa. It had skipped my mind that the Portuguese were very successful and avid explorers and in fact got to it much before the other European nations did! A friend's friend took me around Lisbon this first day and he told me an interesting fact. He said because Portugal was such a small nation and hence lacked in sheer strength of numbers what the other European nations did during the age of exploration and discovery, they made up for it by assimilating into (by marrying) the populations of the areas they ruled. Which is true for India - because a lot of Goa is Portuguese descendant. It might have been a political thing to do - but it also showed, maybe, how broad minded they were, as compared to the English who always believed that they were much higher (and greater) than Indians. But this is really my very small understanding of things - i am sure there are certain other factors at play and there is also a prominent Anglo-Indian community in India still!  

Overall, it was lovely day. But I got home and crashed immediately - woke up after two hours with a crazy headache and terrible fever and could barely get myself out of the bed. But dragged myself out and had a bowl of spaghetti my friend had so lovingly prepared for me and then walked myself back into bed for a 9 hour sleep. I'm glad I did because i had a great day today. The book I brought along for this trip is Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography (Ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about politics), not really exploration in the 15th century but maybe an analysis of what's happening in the world right now with geopolitics. It really is unputdownable and I highly recommend it.

                                                        


The second part of my title today - Un-Shallows, is inspired, of-course, by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's A Star is Born, and their Oscar performance for the song Shallow. This trip to Lisbon has come at a time when i am exploring some depths in my desires and my dreams, almost like telling myself (rephrasing the song here)- come away from the shallows, be in the deep end. It's similar to what i told myself when i felt what i felt in Nepal in 2017. I looked at the mountains and felt the silence all around me, a silence that was screaming at me to dive into the deep end. And I did. Very rarely do our innermost emotions speak to us and ask us to do things we are not quite ready for yet. But when they do, you gotta listen. And you gotta listen hard. Because if you are too busy and distracted, then you'll not notice it - it can be a scream or it can be a whisper - there needs to be enough noise and enough silence within you for you to hear it. 

But while i did dive into that last emotion, i am not quite sure about this one. It can be as big and can be as life-changing and like the last time, I am not ready it. So as i walk through the streets of Lisbon, I will be asking myself "tell me somethin' girl, are you happy in this modern world, or do you need more, is there somethin' else you're searchin' for?''

Goodnight.




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