Lisbon, Portugal

It’s been 14 years since I was last here (for the 1995 Icograda Congress) and the city has changed a lot, though mostly in a good way I would say (thanks largely to Portugal’s integration with the EU, it seems). Façades are brighter and there also seems to be more optimism in people’s faces (in spite of the global economic crisis). While we have attended most of the OFFF conference, Ev and I have snuck away for some delightful (low cost) touristic actvities. After a death-defying taxi ride with a drunk and angry Russian cab driver (local cabbies would not help him with directions) on Friday night, we’ve concluded that Lisbon’s efficient Metro is the saner and more efficient way to get about…

Images, from top: Ev on a midnight stroll, framed by the Arco da Rua Augusta; “Free Hugs” in a plaza the day we arrived; a sign that caught our eye; mothers and children (worth defending, one assumes) as ornament above the gates to the Military Museum; a Smart alternative to SUVs; Ev taking in the permanent collection at the very fine Museu Calouste Gulbenkian; a portrait by Victor Brauner, Avant-garde Romanian painter, from the current exhibition at the Museu do Chiado/Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea.