We have a saying that goes “Get out there, in here”, meaning there is enough beauty in your country for you to discover. And if you do so with the eyes of a tourist, you will find a place that feels like a whole new country.
A couple of years ago, there was a campaign about all the castles in the country and I did the math, you could visit one every weekend for an entire year! How’s that for an interesting thought?
Today, I will not share pictures of any of the pretty castles but from the beautiful city I have lived in most of my life. I have been away for some years, returned, then went away again, returned… See where this is going?
Get good shoes, yes. But because the sun is usually in a good mood over here in this little corner of Europe, chances are, you get a great day out with all your visiting.
It’s very comfortable and yet you can’t help but feel that something is off…
I know about which way to go, what I’m going to see, I can tell the changes in the landscape and I take mental notes on the pictures I could have taken.
My story, my childhood, my experiences are in their majority, part of this city.
I walked here to go to school. The bus went through there. I rescued a cat and walked this street late at night almost ten years ago. My first job, there.
Samuel, the boy who skated, did it so, in that plaza.
My best friend, we met there.
Everytime I get back it feels like going into a time capsule, and I revisit every moment and feeling as if it were the first time.
As if this was a new book, left on my lap, an unsolicited read.
But I am the hero…ine of my story.
“Pelo Tejo vai-se para o Mundo.
Para além do Tejo há a América
E a fortuna daqueles que a encontram.
Ninguém nunca pensou no que há para além
Do rio da minha aldeia.”
Alberto Caeiro, in “O Guardador de Rebanhos – Poema XX” – Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym
“Through Tejo you go out into the world.
Beyond Tejo there is America
And the fortune of those who find it.
No one has ever thought what lies beyond
The river of my village.”
Now go outside and click, rediscover your city.
Van
Yes, yes, yes! I sometimes do exactly the same in Oslo – getting out there, trying to see the familiar both as familiar and as strange and new at the same time.
I do like the concept of being a tourist in my own country. I get that feeling from your pictures you know? its like youre on holiday all the time haha. everything is new! perfect.
It’s always good to have a place to return to and see it new again. Lovely!
You always make me smile. x