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@ -615,3 +615,79 @@ only disturbed by one or two couples sharing the view in all that time. |
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I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking |
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I had originally planned to head back to Munich after Granada, but after talking |
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with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to |
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with a lot of people who told me I _had_ to go to Portugal, I booked a bus to |
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Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did. |
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Lisbon at the last minute and set off. And damn I'm glad I did. |
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## Lisbon, Portugal |
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Sometimes called the San Fransisco of Europe, Lisbon is a city with beaches, |
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historical buildings, perfect weather all-year round, earthquakes, and a large |
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orange-red suspension bridge across a bay. Unlike San Fransisco, it's an |
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affordable place to visit and the people who live there haven't been priced out |
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by tech companies ([yet][google-lisbon]). |
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Part of why I liked Lisbon so much is that, while tourism is an absolutely huge |
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industry, it didn't really feel that way. The Baixa district, where my hostel |
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was, was certainly an area just for tourists. But it wasn't very big, and once |
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outside of it you find yourself in somewhere like Alfama, which has been a |
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blue-collar district since the Moorish invasion, and retains its winding |
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cobblestone streets and narrow alleys. If you look at the skyline of Lisbon you |
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won't find any highrises or office buildings, just 4 to 5 story apartment |
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buildings and churches. It's a city meant for people to live, first and |
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foremost, with business being secondary. And so, despite being the biggest city |
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in the country, and 9th most visited city in Southern Europe, it still feels |
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quiet and cozy. |
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{% include image.html |
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src="mr-worldwide/lisbon-2018.jpg" |
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descr="The facade of a museum I was too poor to go in. Lisbon, 2018" |
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%} |
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Another part of what made Lisbon stand out to me was the hostel I stayed in, and |
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the people I met there. The hostel was _cozy_. There was a small dining area |
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with a single long table, a small living room with couches and chairs |
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arranges in a circle, a decked out kitchen that anyone could use, and free |
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sangria every evening. Rather than focus on partying and yolo and whatever, the |
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owners focused on making it a home, where people would cook and eat and talk and |
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hang out together. So that's what we did, every night, and in the mornings we'd |
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meet up one more time to eat unlimited free pancakes from the kitchen. It was an |
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amazing time. |
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While I was there, a museum had an exhibit devoted to M.C. Escher, the Dutch |
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artist known for his tesselations, fractals, and generally paradoxical work. |
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Escher had always been an artist I was aware of, and then I read the book |
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_Gödel, Escher, Bach_ by Douglas Hofstadter and became even more interested. So |
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I couldn't pass up the chance to see his work in person. And boy, did it leave |
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an impression on me. |
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Having traveled to Córdoba and Granada in his early twenties, Escher was |
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impressed by the Moorish architecture, specifically the tesselating tile |
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patterns they used in decoration. He began trying to replicate their work, and |
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ended up following what amounted to a mathematical investigation of geometry, in |
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the context of art. The museum presented his work in largely chronological |
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order, and, in seeing the progression of his ideas over decades, it really |
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struck me both what a genius he was and how dedicated he must have been to have |
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spun his wheels on the same problems for most of his life. |
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<div style="text-align: center;"> |
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{% include image.html |
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src="mr-worldwide/lisbon-escher-2018-0.jpg" |
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inline=true |
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%} |
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{% include image.html |
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src="mr-worldwide/lisbon-escher-2018-1.jpg" |
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inline=true |
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%} |
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<p><em>Tesselations, paradoxes, and tricks of perspective, Lisbon, 2018</em></p> |
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</div> |
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For the rest of my trip, even through Asia, I would spend my time doodling |
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tesselations of my own, trying to find the tricks that Escher found which let |
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him make such complex images. I would find some, but certainly Escher still has |
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the leg up on me. |
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Having traveled most of Southern Europe at this point I flew back to homebase, |
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Munich, to recuperate and take figure out what my next steps would be. I left |
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Lisbon promising myself that I'd be back, even considering finding a way to live |
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there one day. While my life plans have since changed, it's not something I've |
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totally ruled out. |
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[google-lisbon]: https://econews.pt/2018/01/29/from-google-to-amazon-technological-companies-are-moving-to-portugal-why/ |
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