the_lisbon_connection blog

I have to say I was positively surprised with Croatia. As you know, travelling Europe in August can be scary if you are the type of person who hates crowds of tourists. I thought Croatia, being such a famous destination these days would be super packed, so I was preparing for the worse! I couldn’t be more wrong! Our trip was amazing! Here are a few things which will help you on your trip to Croatia: -        -  If you are travelling in August I recommend planning your trip and booking both transportation and accommodation in advance. It will avoid you a lot of time in lines and internet searching when you are already there. Plus, having to change your plans because there is no ferry or bus seats can be a bump. o    You can buy all ticket online but be careful as some bus companies ask you to print out your ticket and charge you an extra 2/3€ for taking your luggage or other “weird internet expenses”. Just go with it and don’t tr...

After watching Gone Girl , which I thought was one of the best movies of 2014, I was eager to investigate a bit on the author of the book,  Gillian Flynn ’s other work. So after being done with Paula Hawkins Girl on the Train , I dove into Sharp Objects and Dark Places . They are both very well written. Flynn's greatest gift seems to be creating deep and well developed characters. You can almost picture her scribbling on some paper an enormous amount of background story on each character she invents. In Dark Places she carefully takes us through the minds of several members of the Day family, focusing on the current life of disturbed Libby (the youngest daughter of the family who survived the massacre), and happenings on the fatidic day for Patty (the mother and head of the household) and Ben (the oldest brother and presumed killer).  For Patty and Ben the book evolves in a good pace, as in each chapter you find out yet another detail of their lives that helps put to...

Another art exhibition I truly recommend is Genesis from Sebastião Salgado.  "A love letter to the world" is how the Brazilian photographer sees his new work.  When you check out his exhibition, you will understand what he means. All black and white, his passionate shots are a mixture of very sudden captures and others where the world (and its inhabitants) just seem to be posing for the picture.  Salgado seems to have been everywhere, photographing simply nature in its pure state at the Amazonia jungle,  the glaciers, the grand canyon, the lost tribes - including the Zo'é which was only found 20 years ago in Brazil, and wild animals such as penguin communities or Uganda's last free gorillas. Yet, when you leave the exhibition you have a new perspective on how big our world is, and how many lost   paradises are still out there. I felt like grabbing my camera and just going out there to finish the work!

This past week my mother and I had the opportunity to check this year's World Press Photo awards in Lisbon at Museu da Eletricidade . From Malaysia airline's crash destructions, sports photojournalism, to a photographer who decided to use a drone to photograph American daily activities from above, this exhibition compiles a set of powerful testaments of lives surrounding us. Sometimes lives and situations which we ignored or others we knew about but never really looked in that perspective. A circus monkey terrified as he watches his trainer coming his way; an Iranian mother holding her long missing son's clothes; a picture taken from above of a very full boat which has been trafficking desperate refugees into Europe across the Mediterranean sea; a collection of moments in the life of  a woman/ mother/ daughter with AIDS and the red picture of a Christmas ornament factory worker in China are some of the works still vivid in my mind. To complete these amazing ...

We left Paris in the morning and after what seemed like a short train ride cross country we arrived at Fontainebleau- Avon station. A bit lost alongside with a few other tourists we all got in a bus and 5/10 minutes later we arrived at the castle.  Here is a little of this amazing place... I must say one of the things I regreted was not having taken a bottle of wine and some snacks and have a picnic in this amazing spot! Next time...

Today I leave you with an interest opinion from this nice shop owner we met at a store in Amman, about why Jordan manages to keep peace while most of its surrounding countries face war and social crisis. In his opinion it's all about the monarchy. I was surprised but he explained that Jordanians, as most people from countries around that area, all come from “tribes” that inhabited the deserts for centuries. Most families still trace back to some tribe from the desert and old tribal disputes and alliances still apply (a bit like Game of Thrones I guess).So even though they share the same country, doesn’t mean these people feel they have the same identity as a nation. Long story short, in the beginning of the twentieth century (1921 precisely), the Saudi Arabian king - Sherif Hussein   sent his children to become kings of the lands that were going to be divided from the old Ottoman Empire: Syria, Jordan and Iraq. This means that the Jordanian kings don’...