Weeks 2.5 – 3.5: Portugal

Part 1: Coimbra

On the morning of May 30, I flew from Amsterdam to Lisbon and then took the train from Lisbon to Coimbra from the conference I was attending at the University of Coimbra: the I BioAnthrpological Meeting: A Multidisciplinary Approach, or I BAM for short.  When waiting to deplane in Lisbon, I saw that the gentleman in front of me was looking at a train schedule to Coimbra and had a conference schedule in his hand, so I thought perhaps he was going to the same conference as me.  I saw him again at baggage claim and struck up a conversation with him.  Turns out he was from the University of Bordeaux and was attending a conference near Coimbra, but it was a neuroimaging conference!  Well, we got to talking and split a cab to the train station and we wound up taking the same train to Coimbra (although he rode 1^st class, I did not). 

Lisbon Oriente train station.

I got to Coimbra and took a cab to Casa Pombal where Christina and I were staying toward the top of the hill which is the town of Coimbra.  Casa Pombal was actually run by several Dutch women, so it was a nice transition from the Netherlands to Portugal!  As mentioned, the city of Coimbra is built on top of a hill (it’s in a somewhat mountainous region of Iberia) and therefore, people complain about walking down and up the hill (the university is at the top and the downtown is at the bottom).  In fact, the Dean who opened the conference discussed this, stating that the fact that they have a university at the top of the hill instead of a castle, fortress, church, etc. was meaningful, and I liked that he pointed that out, especially because the University of Coimbra was established in 1290 and is therefore one of the oldest universities in continuous operation in the world!

The view from our hotel room at Casa Pombal.

The I BAM conference was on Friday, May 31 and Saturday, June 1.  I presented in the first session, Human Evolution, and I was glad to get it out of the way, especially because my throat was feeling kind of scratchy.  

Here I am during my I BAM talk.

The rest of the day went well too.  It was cool because I got to talk to some colleagues whose work I follow, such as Bernard Wood and Aurelien Mounier, and that night the conference organizers had a group dinner where Christina and I met some new cool colleagues who I wound up spending a lot more time with over the next several days.

On the walk to dinner from the conference.

Remember how I said I had a scratchy voice on Friday?  Well it was completely GONE on Saturday!  Sure enough, I got a cold, so it was really a good thing that I didn’t have to present on Saturday, but Christina did, after which she had to catch a train back to Lisbon to fly out to Rome the following morning.  

Christina's presentation at the I BAM conference.

In the morning of the conference, the session was Paleopathology, the study of disease in past populations, and I gotta say, being under the weather while listening to those talks did nothing for my hypochondria!

By the time Christina left, I had fortunately made some new friends by this point who could more or less understand me even though I essentially had no voice (and English wasn't their first language).  So on Saturday after the conference we went out to dinner (they ordered me lemon tea, which helped!) and then out for a drink, but I had to write down some of what I wanted to say because you really couldn’t hear me!

Sunday was a “free day” so I got to explore Coimbra.  I mostly spent time in the Botanical gardens next to the Anthropologie building (where the conference was held) because they were expansive and really beautiful, but first I toured around campus a bit.

The "old part" of  campus that you can tour.

Facing from the "old part" of campus toward the river and mountains.

At the botanical gardens.

At the botanical gardens.

At the botanical gardens.  The wall is part of an old Roman aqueduct.

At the botanical gardens.

At the botanical gardens.

At the botanical gardens.

That evening I also had dinner with Luis, one of my new colleagues and friends who is a PhD student at the University of Coimbra, and he was also kind enough to buy me some throat lozenges during the day on Sunday which helped during my recovery.

I stayed around Coimbra after the conference because I was going to give a lecture about my research at the National Archaeology Museum in Lisbon on Wednesday, and after the conference the University offered a short course in infectious disease/paleopathology by Keith Manchester, a professor at the University of Bradford in the UK.  It was interesting- he primarily talked about markers of leprosy on the skeleton on Monday afternoon and markers of tuberculosis in the skeleton on Tuesday morning.  However, I was still getting over my cold (and my voice was still not back 100%), and this meant a lot of coughing.  So of course, during his lecture on TB, I wound up having a coughing fit, during which time I had to run out of the building so as not to distract from the lecture or make everyone suspicious that my ailment was more than just a cold.  After that coughing attack though I was good for the rest of the day, and I even correctly answered several anatomy questions during subsequent lectures, so I felt as though I redeemed myself. J 

Back to the hill that is Coimbra, there are different routes one can take to walk up and down, some less steep than others, and therefore, I avoided the steep, but more direct, route for as long as I could because of the way that people talked about it.  However, since I had Monday morning free before the start of the short course, I decided, upon the recommendation of one of the women working at my hotel, to walk down the steep road in the center of town (which was quite lovely with several very old, beautiful churches and touristy souvenir shops).  Later that day I had to walk back up to get to the course, and honestly, I didn’t think it was that bad.  In fact, I thought it wasn’t so bad enough that I walked back down for dinner and back up afterward (the steep way!)  It really only took me about 10 min. but I sure wouldn’t want to have to do it on a regular basis all the time!  Perhaps living at a higher altitude in State College for a bit prior to my trip conditioned me some. 

In all, I had a really great time in Coimbra.  I met many great people and the town was beautiful, but next I was headed to Lisbon to give yet another talk (assuming I had my voice back in time...)

The view from my hotel room of Coimbra at sunset.