PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’31” W
October 14, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
I had toyed with the idea of exploring the Arribes del Duero on our way to Lisbon, so our first stop after leaving Zamora was Fermoselle. It’s a slightly touristy town on the Duero and on the borderRead more
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’35” W October 21, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ 🌧 17 °C
That stands for Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnología. We met an old friend from Champaign there. She has been living in the Lisbon area for 4 years but it was only last year that we reconnected.Read more
Traveler Descriptions of the city remind me of our visit there in 1975, just weeks after the revolution and the return of democracy. Everyone was on strike, no telephone, little electricity, garbage everywhere, but very interesting and exciting. The soldiers, returned from Africa had beards, sandals, and beads. How about coming home one of these days?
Nils Jacobsen The MAAT looks fascinating. Vasconcelos' works seem to have a somewhat orientalizing aspect.
Nils Jacobsen Is your jotel practically across the street from the university? That looks like a busy street.
Laurie Reynolds The hotel is on a busy street that doesn’t go to the university. From that busy street I have to walk up two flights of stairs to an elevated road that takes me to the University eventually. It is not a pedestrian paradise around here. And when it rains, the sidewalks are impassable, so I just take my shoes off and go barefoot.
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’35” W October 22, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
About 8 Km outside of Lisbon, the Queluz Palace is “Portugal’s Versailles,” much as La Granja is Spain’s. None of the crowds and not as excessively ornate, with gorgeous gardens that weRead more
Traveler
looks delicious! I actually made Brazilian cheese rolls for lunch and they look very similar to your breakfast rolls
Traveler
Those tiles are fantastic! In Spain and South America they are called "azulejos." Perhaps because the original ones are blue? These two cultures are so close, I bet the Portuguese have a similar-sounding name for "tile." Lovely!
Laurie Reynolds Tile is azulejo in Portuguese — with a voiced zzzzz and a “j” like in John and the final o pronounced as “u.” So yes it’s the same word!
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’34” W PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’45” N 9°9’34” W
October 23, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C
A couple of my friends want to know more about the class I’m here to teach. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since they are educators themselves! So here goes— The class is part of theRead more
Traveler Thanks, Laurie. I'm not a lawyer, so I may get the terminology wrong as I try to articulate a couple of questions. I'm assuming Portuguese law is Code-based, like Spanish, French, Argentine, etc. law. That means law students need to know the Civil, Criminal (Penal), Commercial, etc. Codes in order to be allowed to practice law. In the U.S. and England, there are no such Codes governing the law, but instead jurisprudence. That is why you teach U.S. law case by case (please correct any of what I just wrote if it is not true). My two questions are: 1. Do you think Codes are mostly found in countries heavily influenced by Ancient Rome (where Romance languages are official) vs. Anglo-Saxon countries? 2. Do your Portuguese students (and others from "Latin" countries) find it difficult to process U.S. law, in the absence of Codes?
Laurie Reynolds We can have a good long chat when I’m back but here’s my non-comparativist take on this. Imho (but it’s an uneducated opinion) the differences between civil and common law systems in terms of legal analysis are not so tremendously different. The US probably has more statutes per person than Portugal. But there is a layer of uncodified common law principles that underlies, coexists with, supplements, modifies, or is abolished by statutory law (depending on the situation). So that makes for some fancy footwork analysis that’s not needed in a civil law country. In terms of statutory analysis, when I say “ balancing test” my civil law students say “ concordance” or “subsidiarity” or “ proportionality” but we all look at the same things. I do think common law judges feel less constrained and freer to do their own thing than civil law judges but I think that in the final analysis there is no such thing as neutral objective legal principles - they are all value-laden. And civil law judges have values just like common law judges.
Laurie Reynolds One big difference is in terms of precedential value of cases/ judicial legal opinions. At least as far as I understand it, civil law cases have little or no precedential value for future cases, while they are extremely constraining for common law judges.
Laurie Reynolds But I am just shooting from the hip so someone who knows their stuff may totally disagree
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’45” N 9°9’35” W October 15, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C
Today was a grey, drizzly Sunday, not exactly perfect weather for exploring our neighborhood, but we did. Joe's phone shows he walked 5.3 miles, slow and steady, but he did it!
An important part ofRead more
Traveler Have a good start of your two weeks of teaching, Laurie! Hopefully when the weather clears up you will be able to take pictures of places you visit in Lisbon.
Traveler
Interesting mural. Its themes (work, industry, liberation -- see the bird motif) remind me of a mural in the lobby of a large building on the campus of Purdue Univ., as well as a famous mural by Diego Rivera (who of course was a communist) featuring a portrait of Lenin, along with similar allusions to technological progress. This mural might have been destroyed, I can't remember.
Laurie Reynolds I think you’re right. Joe remembered that it was in Rockefeller Center, and Rockefeller was not amused by Lenin’s depiction. Rivera redid it down in Mexico, where it’s still on the view. Amazing what little tidbits are still in Joe’s memory!
Laurie Reynolds It was done by more than 20 artists, so it’s kind of got a scattershot theme. But it’s very pretty, especially bright in this drab neighborhood of ours!
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’48” N 9°9’52” W
November 12, 2022 in Portugal ⋅ 🌙 16 °C
The Tram museum is not a 5* attraction but it’s really interesting. It’s housed in the actual huge Carris maintenance and garage facility. You can see some of the original cars (and actually get aRead more
Traveler Beautiful shots of Lisbon as usual. The tram museum sounds like something Nils would really enjoy; I'll make sure he reads your post and looks at the photos. RE Bosch: I love his paintings! Your story about going to an art museum and finding out that the "star" is missing happened to me in July 2000. I was in Madrid, already in El Prado, and what do you know? "The Garden of Earthly Delights" was being restored. Aaargh!
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’49” N 9°9’51” W November 8, 2022 in Portugal ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C
Two days of teaching, which I am enjoying immensely, and a lot of rain. Today at about 3 pm, the skies cleared, and we hopped in an Uber (there were no cabs outside the hotel, so we had no choice) andRead more
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’49” N 9°9’51” W
November 13, 2022 in Portugal ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
First, the persistence. Joe kept insisting he was sure where he left his glasses, so I decided the best option was to go take a look. It would have been a great story! No luck, though the woman in theRead more
Traveler The Museum of the Resistance reminds me of the "Museo de la memoria" here in Córdoba. So many atrocities committed by the military, so much cruelty, so much impunity. It's important to be aware of these events from the recent past. Your description of old narrow passageways being turned into hip areas reminded me of tiny houses, some dating from the Middle Ages, carefully restored, that can be seen all over Germany. Love your pictures of Lisbon.
Traveler So, the big question might be how they got rid of the dictatorship without violence. The main answer is likely the role of the army (not all of them? I think), but I think another element was widespread strikes. Some of these were still on
Laurie Reynolds I am no historian, as you know, but the museum did not make a big deal about public or widespread citizen unrest before the revolution, though there were panels describing student movements, the underground resistance, etc. The focus seemed to be the freedom movements in the African colonies and how those had cascading effects on the military’s resolve to continue the colonial regime. But I defer to those who know what they are talking about.
PortugalLisbon DistrictCampo Grande38°44’52” N 9°10’6” W November 9, 2022 in Portugal ⋅ 🌙 15 °C
Since I’m teaching from 10-1, mornings are out. But I try to get us out and about in the afternoons.
Today we went to the Tile Museum, where we hadn’t been for 15 years. It’s in a 17th CRead more
Traveler
That looks like a big juicy steak to me (not the fish kind)... Glad to read and see that Joe has a healthy appetite!
Traveler Gorgeous pictures, Laurie. And all that walking means you two can eat whatever you want and not worry about gaining weight. I'm happy you are enjoying your teaching, after all these years.
You might also know this place by the following names:
Campo Grande, Кампу-Гранде
Traveler Laurie is right: enhorabuena is insufficient…I like to translate it to “in this good present moment in time”…thanks for bringing us along, especially this final day of walking, on your Camino! Huge abrazos fuertes. Enjoy!
Traveler Laurie, How do you transport the olive oil?
Laurie Reynolds I just wrap it up in dirty clothes and some bubble wrap. I’ve never had anything break but saying that may jinx it! Most of it is in plastic bottles but I do usually have a couple of glass.