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Letter from Portugal

 We have made our way from Lisbon to Porto, which was once the home of JK Rowling. 


Apparently, Rowling was teaching here (I think?) when she stumbled on a certain bookstore, and that store inspired her to write the Harry Potter novels. Or something like this. The Porto bookstore has milked Hogwarts for all it is worth; you now have to pay money *just to enter* the store, and there is a massive crowd waiting outside, as if awaiting entry to the British Museum.


Earlier today, we wandered into an exhibit devoted to the works of Aurelia de Souza, a woman who lived from 1866 to 1922. Ms. de Souza painted herself (see the lady attached to this post), painted flowers, painted children gossiping. I was touched by the images of the children, who reminded me of my critters back home. One image had two kids plotting mayhem while a half-interested sitter tried to focus on a little knitting project. Some things never change.

I don't carefully read every tourist nugget, but my new understanding is that a fabulous American opera singer made her way to Portugal in the 1800s, and she talked her way into power. She married the King. But she had an overly intense interest in Romanticism, and she spent the nation's cash on an extra chalet in a vast park. (Romantics like greenery.)

Unlike Marie Antoinette, this opera singer wasn't murdered. But royal members of the subsequent generation *were* murdered. The country became a republic even before the opera singer had abandoned her own corporeal shell. You won't see today's Portuguese citizens wringing their hands over anyone like Camilla, or worrying about some kind of Prince Harry-esque Lisbon celebrity writing a muckraker memoir called "Spare."

One more note on Portugal -- you must try the pastries!







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