reverse culture shock is strange and makes me feel queasy. no sir i don't like it. just last week i sat on shimmering cobblestones, sipped espresso, and people watched beside a historic church of hand-painted tiles. now i am in hell. hell, contrary to popular belief, is so very cold. it is also filled with void satiating materialistic crap, not to mention an excess of townies. these where am i? how the hell did i get here? moments reached their pinnacle and hit me like a brick to the head early this morning.

having developed permanent jet-lag, i now groggily rise from slumber at approximately 6am. this not only means i consume about three breakfasts, but also that i view a totally unacceptable amount of morning television (which might i add is god awful and chock full of infomercials). this morning my mother requested that i flip the channel from good morning america over to what she referred to as the religious channel. this is fundamentally wrong on a variety of levels, and i sighed in disappointment that this, of all her four hundred channels to choose from, was the newest addition to the only two networks she actually watches: lifetime & hallmark. both of these, in the opinion of anyone with a smidgen of taste, are gut-wrenchingly nauseating. and i regret to admit that the holidays are the worst time of year for these channels to exist, as on a daily basis they air what my mother refers to as cute christmas stories, her face warming at the mere mention of them. essentially, they serve solely as a home for the multitude of D list celebrities who fell from grace, or those whom have climbed the actoral ladder from soap operas, to produce a wealth of unremarkably painful made-for-tv movies. good for them.

the religious channel consisted of walks through jerusalem and a montage of jesus in various art forms, set to a monotone group chanting of the rosary. hail mary full of grace hail mary full of grace, on and on and on. having contracted the flu (perhaps swine?) i lay there and felt as though i were being exorcised, intermittently heaving and hacking up delivish phlegm, linda blair style. my mother may as well have been hanging over me, splashing holy water upon my overtaken body. and so...i am home, home bitter home.

i am severely behind the times when it comes to traveling. unlike the slew of my relatively wealthy and privileged friends of yore, i myself was unable to travel or even study abroad during college. perhaps it is my own fault for never having a clue as to the direction my life was headed, or for my post-collegiate inability to take time off from the series of heinous businesses that have employed me. or perhaps i'm just a frugal bitch, hoarding my unimpressive amount of hard-earned savings in anticipation for 2012 when we will all turn into dust. nevertheless, i am by no means worldly.

the only notable trip i had ever taken was when i was eleven years old, and my family traveled from southern switzerland down to sicily over the course of a sweltering three week tour-bus haul. the extent of my memories of this experience can be counted on one hand. there was my notable infatuation with a fellow tour adolescent named topher; blonde hair, buck teeth, and a total pre-teen hunk. topher and i were enjoying a magical after-school-special romance until he confessed his love for the snotty girl with the polo shirts and pretty pony hair. and then there was our guide roberto, whose jheri curl mullet was righteous beyond belief. he wore a baby blue banana hammock swimsuit, and i swear the man perspired olive oil. or how about the time my father accidentally filmed his tighty whitey-clad reflection in a mirror while trying to capture the amazingness of our venice bathroom. or another time when my sister marisa, having been gravely disappointed with the no-photographing rule in the vatican, violently ripped a camera out of a chinese tourist's hands, reprimanded her, and spent the following week cussing racial slurs. all the most precious of moments, but ask me what the sisteen chapel smells like and welp i haven't a damn clue. i can sure as hell tell you, however, that on that specific day topher wore a navy t-shirt depicting wolves in front of an undulating american flag, no problem.

perhaps it is my lack of travel, my naivete, or my downright laziness that has resulted in my being entirely unprepared for language immersion. or perhaps it is a combination of all these factors. nevertheless, learning a language in adulthood is much more difficult than i had anticipated. the portuguese language is insanely, mind-bogglingly impossible. while my knowledge of spanish has helped significantly, i still find myself wanting to bang my head against the wall with the multiple word meanings, formalities, and countless rules of grammar. they seem to have no rhyme or reason. i've been practicing, however, by reading children's comic books. at the moment i'm delving into the shenanigans of donald duck and co., and maybe just maybe it's helping um bocadinho.

* * * * * *

i hate the european union's travel regulations for americans. i suppose i should be specifically targeting portugal here. if i were to overstay my 90 day tourist visa before returning to the homeland (which i had completely planned on until hearing some horror stories and researching the consequences further), i would likely be fined a large sum of money and perhaps even prohibited from re-entering the country for a long period of time. complete and utter balarky. since my man, at this point, has become as vital to me as a major organ, this is certainly not an option. and thus, despite the fact that we've just officially settled in lovely porto, in one week i'll be returning to the states to apply for a student visa. what a joy that will be; we've phoned the general consulate of portugal in new york city so frequently that the secretary has identified us and insisted that we stop calling and visit the office in person.

on the up side of things, upon my return to portugal i will begin classes at engenho e arte; school of contemporary jewelry, in their two-year professional program in metals. all of the classes are taught in portuguese; however, the lovely owners (one of whom speaks english) have graciously offered to work with me one to one! i will confess that i'm shaking in my boots just a little bit, but i am flat out jazzed to finally have some creative stimulation in my life. i have a lot of ideas and can't wait to jump on in. blessed be.

and this

i am devastated that i will miss halloween in the states this year. i had grand plans indeed; it was a toss-up up between being tina turner or angus young of AC/DC. either would have been fab. it's so strange/awesome how we use the term, "I´m going to be...", as if we aren't just pretending. last year i was nigel tufnel of spinal tap. oh the righteous mullet, skeleton tee, low IQ, walking around all night saying "but this one goes to eleven"...halloween should really come at the end of every month, for serious.

i'm pretty much destroyed all around for missing fall in new england. summer is swell and all, but the month of october pretty much makes life worth living, especially when followed by seven cruel months of frigid temperatures. granted, i will be enjoying those months in a country that never sees snow, but i'd give my left tit for a steaming pile of pumpkin pancakes, a mug of fresh apple cider, and a glimpse of that beauteous foliage. and ohh shipyard pumpkinhead ale, come to mama. gagaga. for me, no season smells or feels better than autumn. perhaps it's just my fixation on nostalgia, but i can't help that i want to pick apples, roll around in piles of leaves, and stuff my face with candy corn. i love you brach's. i miss you. i need you. let us never be apart again.

it is possible that i may have predicted europe to feel more my speed (whatever the hell that means) because both of my parents were immigrants. i had always felt significantly ostracized from the norm of suburban living, whether it was the other children laughing at my nutella sandwiches or my pre-pubescent italian femme-stache or the fact that my mother forced me to give the bus driver a giant, garishly wrapped panettone every christmas, i was no suzie-high-school. but i had not anticipated for europe to make me feel so god damn american. perhaps i'm just home sick, but whereas in the states i would likely shun everything 'merican, i now find myself glorifying it. our waitress tonight told us of how she was moving to new york in a couple of weeks. ooo how great! was my response, and my face lit up at the thought of the city, the electricity, the filthiness, the crudeness. she snarled and proceeded to explain how unenthused she was to leave europe for the ughUnitedStatesugh, because really there's no comparison, gesticulating with her palms up a scale of incomparability. and then i felt stupid. and then i felt angry. and then i was consumed with the urge to curl up in an american flag snuggie and cheer myself up with disney's hocus pocus. hmph.

porto beckons

the ribeira

emotion garden plaques

restricted taxidermy shenanigans

mona thugs out with a brewsky

"future places" exhibit

street marionette

an email from jolena

so i was thinking about my halloween costume and couldn't find a non slutty marie antoinette costume for an affordable price. i decided to shift gears. i thought about what i have to work with and came up with this:

1. giant rack - check
2. blue sequin dress- check

then it dawned on me... i am going to be dolly parton. i got a giant blonde wig and a awesome pair of red cowboy boots on the way. for the small fee of $150, i'd been in the market for a pair a red cowboy boots anyway and really what better timing?!

i love taxidermy. i originally began this post with an apologetic sentence excusing this infatuation, but upon second thought i decided to retract it; enough apologies for my eccentricities. granted the concept is absolutely terrible, i get it. but with this horror comes an undeniable intrigue. i recall sitting in my grandmother's living room for hours when i was a child, staring at the taxidermied deer head that hung over her mantle. i was endlessly distracted from my television shows, from the snack i was consuming, from whatever business i needed to conduct in that room. all because of those eyes, glassy and so unbearably pitiful, glaring at me always. this preoccupation reached all-time intensity when my uncle went ahead and hung his gold bocce ball medals around the deer's neck (yes, bocce ball). from that point forward i couldn't help but feel as though i'd done something wrong.


yesterday we paid a visit to porto's museum of natural history. there was absolutely no one working or monitoring anything. if i wanted to ride the mountain lion, i most certainly could have. the place smelled of moth balls and formaldehyde and feces. literally the entire exhibit was of taxidermied animals with little to no explanations, and barely legible tags. with each phase of this experience, the exhibits became increasing less and less organized and exceeding more chaotic. it began with a few animals: a sloth, koala, a couple of macaws. OK. then, two giant walls of insects. next, a wall of monkeys, and an entire room of birds. the next room was slightly more cluttered: wolves, deer, more birds. the next room was locked, but looked promising. we left for five minutes and when we returned, a field trip group of middle schoolers seemed to have barbarically broken through the door, and were well on their way to posing for camera phone shots beside their dead animal of choice. the room was packed and so poorly planned that one needed to weave in and out of of a giant whale skeleton, and island cases of taxidermied seals and alligators to view the wall displays. the wall displays, however, were no disappointment. to see zebra, twenty species of rodents, various types of jungle cat, and giant polar bears all existing in harmony was a real treat. what a lovely little ghost zoo, sheesh. not to get too animal whisperer like here, but let's just say the mood of the room was...well...heavy.

afterward, we snuck into the attic because we could. the staircase up was completely drenched in bird shit and the half of the room was missing roof. the other half contained the amount and variety of animals shown in the entire exhibit, but all out in the open, piled on top of one another, crammed into unlocked cases, onto broken shelving units, and strewn about on the floor. though i was shitting twelve bricks and half expected an attack of zombie animals, this was maybe the most incredible thing i have ever seen. it took a lot of will power not to snatch up a furry friend of my own; i could use the company in my new barren apartment.

these images are by a british artist named angela singer. she is an animal rights activist and creates most of her pieces by recylcing old hunting taxidermy. her art is a shockingly beautiful commentary on the closeness between humans and the animal world.

harem pants + external catheter = genius??

dear europe,

please stop it with the harem pants. this is not alright. your women all look as if they have exceeded the crap capacity of their adult diapers. this is truly a fashion tragedy. if giorgio armani and ralph lauren were to stitch me a custom pair with their very own genius fingers, i would use them as a schmata to clean my floors. please advise.

fondly yours,
kiki

i am not a fan of public toilets to begin with. but of course, when nature calls, nature calls, and business must be tended to. i'm no princess, but considering the abundance of potty banter i incite, one might be surprised at my level of public bathroom anxiety. i think these sacred rooms should be comfortable, loungey, a place that seems to say hey you, come on in and take 'er easy. how about those complimentary baskets one might find at a high class establishment or (forgive me) the type that graced every counter of the bar and bat mitzvahs of yore...hand sanitizer, body spray, lotion, and if you were feeling saucy perhaps a little power spritz of aqua-net, no big deal. a long velvet-upholstered bench or couch perhaps, in case you were to experience any pre-toilet jitters and/or post-toilet fatigue. no big deal, take a load off.

when i was in high school i had a strange infatuation with my sister marisa's bathroom. so many people magazines, and a toilet seat so plush it made your ass too spoiled to even bear the thought of a hard, cold porcelain seat ever again. thanksgiving day trips to this room simply to even pee turned into hour-long [religious] experiences and left me with a new found wealth of knowledge concerning jennifer aniston's bitter divorce and mariah carey's series of fashion faux-pas. how lovely of my sisters to give me that very christmas, the priceless gift of my very own cushioned toilet seat. it didn't even match the shape of our bowl, but that didn't stop me from rockin' it good and hard. though, this was quite a long time ago and bathroom ventures since have become mundane and rather uninspiring. i envy my boyfriend who views his potty time as a retreat, bringing with him nothing lighter than the new york times crossword of the moment. he even taught himself to speak french by reading french comics all whilst sur les toilettes. incroyable!

multiple-stall public bathrooms put a new twist on everything. my college roommate coined the fated amish standoff. scene: two people enter neighboring stalls at the very same time. coincidentally both have not only entered for the quick, casual relief of their bladders. there is silence. they peep at each other's shoes; no movement. more silence. beads of sweat form on upper lips. neither will make their move. the braver of the two may cue the unnecessary racket of a toilet paper dispenser, or maybe even a sudden fit of coughing to disguise the, ahem, sounds. mustering up all my gall, i myself would likely opt for unnecessary nose-blowing route. or perhaps one may ultimately raise their white flag of defeat and exit vexed and unsatiated, nursing an aching stomach. regardless, this is a tense situation and should be avoided at all costs.

the good news about portugal is that most bathrooms are single rooms. the bad news is that requiring the bathroom will almost certainly find you in awkward circumstances. there are a multitude of things that can go awry here. first off, you're likely to have difficulty even locating the bathroom. you may spot a sign in the distance that points to somewhere specific, a beacon of hope. suddenly you are lost entirely. you ask someone in your broken portuguese, onde e a casa de banho? follow their pointing straight ahead, simple enough. you then find yourself walking through narrow corridors, up and down stairs, and/or standing in the restaurant's kitchen beside a tin bowl of raw pork and an old lady wearing a mumu and apron, pointing her cleaver in the right direction. if you do manage to find it, you're just as likely to unintentionally wander into a poorly marked men's room, homens. once inside the correct bathroom, clutching your swollen bladder, you can possibly discover that it costs money to enter. you will most definitely contemplate peeing on the floor as payback for such unjust stipulations. health care is free in europe, you might rationalize; if i have a right to live, i have a right to urinate.

if you successfully make it into a normal bathroom, you may be confused by the toilet bowl. just today i walked out of a public restroom because i was horrified by its appearance; two feet indentations beside a hole in the earth, stuffed with a mess of tissue and ____. other times, the toilet might look like a urinal and you will wonder if you found your way to the incorrect room. you will probably not want to utilize the alternate toilet bowl's faucet to clean your bum afterwards, but the option is there if you so desire. then, it is very possible that the automatic sensor lights will turn off while you are still sitting. this will require you to stand up mid-pee and wave your hands in the air like a winner. there may be multiple flushing buttons atop or around the toilet region, and fifty percent of the time the toilet will not flush. if you've survived this experience unscathed, parabens.

fado

to dream

http://www.designspongeonline.com
nicolette camille

Lined with 23k Gold Leaf, this speckled quail egg necklace casts a warm glow from within. Pendant hangs from 18 inch 14 karat gold chain. Made from actual Japanese Quail eggs, they vary slightly in color and size - approximately 1 inch. The entire shell has been coated in plastic for strength.

i'm incapable of not blogging about food. food is delicious. sometimes in portugal the food is delicious. other times, not so much. take my dinner two nights ago, explained to be "skewered turkey with peppers & onions." sounds tasty, right? hm. what if by "skewered turkey" they really meant dark, duck-like lardy meat and by "onions" they meant "slices of ambiguous animal fat that look like onion slices"? it took some pensive, thorough mastication before i realized that no, my onions were not peculiarly greasy and fibrous. cue five hour stomach ache, writhing and contemplating which receptacle i might vomit in if need be. lucky for my hostel owner, the bed-side crystal dolphin bowl remains sparkling clean.

last night i ate microwaveable squid. also, maybe not the best idea. as for wine, vinho verde! it is specific to northern portugal, fruity, fresh, and intended to be drunk within a year. and ah, sobremesa. you might think you can't go wrong with pastries, but the portuguese LOVE them their eggs, and many are too egg-heavy for me to even stomach i.e. bright yellow yolk-fest 2012. there is one, however, that changed my life. the pastel de belém, sweet baby jesus:



there are two other types of food here that i'd sell my first born for when famished. first, the octopus (polvo), straight up with olive oil, lemon, and parsley. i have become a serious octopus freak, and i'm not afraid to admit it. next, a portuguese sausage called alheira. alheira was originally invented by jews as a way to avoid the portuguese inquisition. since jews were not allowed to eat pork, it made them incredibly identifiable because they did not prepare and smoke the sausages in smokehouses. thus, they invented this faux sausage in which they replaced the pork with various other meats such as veal, chicken, turkey, duck, and/or rabbit, and then mixed it with bread. in these parts, you can still find alheira, usually served with potatoes, and sometimes an egg (surprise surprise). its flavor and consistency is like nothing else i have ever tried.

in love with banksy.

inspired by the prevalence of graffiti art in lisbon & porto, i have become obsessed. i'm especially smitten with large scale stencils. these vibrant tags which have defaced nearly every beautifully aged building in town, are abundant on both concrete and tile. while i'm not quite sure if the locals find this to be art or vandalism (i myself am not keen on the idea of destroying the already lovely hand-painted tiles) many of them are incredible, and oft times witty.




it is indeed conflicting because while i completely understand the desire to preserve history, the pieces can be undeniably charming and therefore all the more shocking given their surroundings. but why not? the streets are alive. just as i see bare skin as the perfect canvas to adorn oneself with tattoos, blank concrete walls are just begging for some character.

mute.

rachel freire.

oooooh.

Phillip Tournaire

nom nom nom.

this is what i ate for dinner last night. i’m not proud of it, but it happened. and it happened something serious, like a brick, like a delicious bundle of artery clogging joy. it’s called a “francesinha”, and is the token dish of porto. you can order it everywhere, and likely for under 4 euro. it’s as common as goddamn water…or mcdonald’s (which yago refers to as my “embassy”). as if being american isn’t embarrassing enough. anyways, this little number comes in the form of two giant slices of white bread filled with ham, chourico & steak, is smothered in cheese and drenched in a white-wine gravy. it usually comes with a mountain of french fries, but i figured i’d opt for the “diet” version. holy heart-attack batman; i can hear my ass growing. do you know what that sounds like?

but for serious, gorging on bread sopped with gravy is a nice change of pace for me. to be perfectly frank, i feel like i’ve been starving to death since i arrived in portugal. it’s been like fat camp, only minus archery and plus gypsies. all my blouses look like maternity-wear anyhow, so it’s unlikely that my adoptive family would take any notice. it’s probably their conspiratorial plan to make me more attractive, more european. yago’s mother must be 100 pounds soaking wet, and his sister too. and here is the american girlfriend, drooling over the second helpings she will not consume. oh no mr. & mrs. de quay, i swear, i’m really full. my two square inches of fish were incredibly filling, i mean it, i musn’t.

what have i learned? being consistently hungry can make a person rather unpleasant. and by “rather unpleasant”, i mean “god awful.” just imagine your worst PMS, times it by ten, and add a generous dash of fatigue. what you’ve got is a really fun time and sister insisting via skype that she express mail you costco granola bars. fiber one, she insists, your favorite. good times.

so to you, francesinha, i salute you. SHAH-WING!

thank you, my dear ashley

"To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.
You need not die today.
Stay here — through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green’s your color. You are Spring.

why my boyfriend shouldn't sell things on craig's list

Unused Ionizer Humidifier with Air Purifier- $30 (Cambridge)


I'm leaving the country and I need to get rid of it. I used a few times and it works great! It's not only a humidifier with bear ears but it also purifies the air. The blue tank has a special antibacterial coating that prevents moss.

Email me or call me (Yago) at 617-901-9061





Fish Bowl Set- $15 (Cambridge)

My fish died an I'm leaving the country. Includes:

- Fish Bowl

- Assorted color decorative pebbles

- Decorative Conch Shell & Vegetation

- Fizzy cleansing packet

All that your fish needs to have a healthy start : )

Email me or contact me (Yago) at 617-901-9061