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• Post #3546980

  I didn’t expect to find the largest and best-stocked Thai grocery I have ever been in (I have not visited Thailand) just north of the Antwerp central train station, but there it was.

• Post #3546979

  The only rational response to it being 34C in Seville. And this is probably the coolest day this week.

• Post #3546978

  We are just back from Seville but will be in Poland in ten days, and Hungary in four weeks. It's going to be hopeless to learn any of either language, but I might try to make some long-overdue progress on the orthography. Thanks to an undergraduate degree in combinatorics and much use of it in my research career, I have a bit of a head start with Hungarian names.

• Post #3546977

  When I go to Spain and attempt to speak Spanish, they hear the traces of Portuguese pronunciation in my voice, and pity me. When I return to Portugal and attempt to speak Portuguese, they hear bits of Spanish pronunciation because I can't switch so easily, and they hate me even more than they did already.

• Post #3546976

  In researching our upcoming trip to Poland, I have learned that "milk bar" did not originate in the writings of Anthony Burgess, but was a Polish term (bar mleczny) for an inexpensive restaurant serving homey food and, while a bit old-fashioned, many of them still survive and thrive. The concept travelled to the US and then to the UK. Also, I have never seen so many menus with steak tartare on them.

• Post #3546975

  Google Maps on my oldest (bedside) phone has gotten confused. It is promoting the nearby Zahir Kebab to me, as it often does, but this time it has added the subtext “Premium z Łodzi”. I’ve been researching Poland, so that’s perhaps understandable (though it’s never happened before with other countries), but I’m not sure what “Premium in the boat” signifies.

• Post #3546974

  I am not a fan of Side 2 of Bowie's "Low" (I'm on Team Side 1), but I had to play "Warszawa" on arriving in the city. In this year of mad travel, this is the first new country I've visited. (I expect there to be at least three more before the year is out.)

• Post #3546973

  This is for @gallais.

• Post #3546972

  Today we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. I will not be posting any more photographs.

• Post #3546971

  Three weeks after we were in the Longjing tea region of Hangzhou, the BBC posted an article on it. Two days after we had jagodianzki (bilberry buns) in Kraków, the BBC posted an article on them (today, quoting bakers from Warszawa, where we were a week ago). They're gaining on us!

• Post #1648352

  I think there were more cormorants on this one "Chinese fishing net" on the west side of Vembanad Lake than I had ever seen in total in my life before. But we saw many more on our lake cruise, perched on piles and sticks, diving in after fish. And also egrets, herons, and other waterfowl.

• Post #1648351

  My India travelogue is almost done (just one more day in Kerala to document) but, annoyingly, it is being interrupted by another trip to Asia. So there will be some live-tooting from Japan and China, not much, and then I will return home, post the last Kerala bits, and then whatever is interesting enough (and not time-sensitive) from this latest trip.

• Post #1648350

  This one is for @ccshan.

• Post #843793

  It used to be that I had to remind myself to not trust anything I saw on the Internet on April 1. But now I can not trust anything I see on the Internet all year round!

• Post #360351

  The Library of Babel as envisioned by Jorge Luis Borges, but everything in it is AI slop

• Post #360350

  The industrial house-brand pasteurized Camembert available at Lidl (on sale this week for 1,69€, 350m from our apartment) is better ripened and tastes better than the Camembert fermier (lait cru) that I bought for 8€+ at the fancy French cheese shop in Rato. That shop is the only place I can get 24-month Comté, so it's not going to leave my rotation, but it's nice to not have to take a 40-min Metro ride (x2) as often.

• Post #313317

  India has quite a good supply of talented programmers, but their e-visa website is a complete horror.

• Post #313316

  I now have my physical Portuguese residency card. But three weeks ago, when I was told it was coming, the PDF receipt that said I had right of residency in the meantime had my old address on it (unlike the AIMA website). I sent AIMA a note, through the "Change Address" feature on the website, pointing out the discrepancy and asking them to please send the card to my current address. Which they did.

• Post #313315

  I started Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad, but had to stop after book 4. This is not Emily's fault; I previously enjoyed her translation of the Odyssey, and the lengthy introduction she wrote for this latest effort. It was the plot. Though I've read other translations, so knew what was coming, somehow right now I couldn't deal with the petulant Greeks and the gods who could do whatever they want. None of them stop Aphrodite? Really?