***

If I were to document at least a portion of this trip, here is how it would go:

• I travel like a prissy American girl. 
• Despite carrying with me copious amounts of reading materials and math textbooks, and having made lofty plans to get a lot of work done during my layovers, I managed to do absolutely nothing, killing huge chunks of time by listening to music and completely zoning out. It was oddly comforting...
• Speaking of comforting - there is nothing more comforting than the sight of a ham and cheese sandwich that I had in a nondescript eatery near my hotel in Covilha shortly upon my arrival. After bad airplane food, skipped breakfast and the granola bar that I had on the train from Lisbon to here, this piece of fresh baguette stuffed with slices of ham and Swiss cheese was nothing but a slice of heaven itself...
• Four in the morning, local time: "Your green dot is on! I'm jet lagged and hungry and looking for people with green dots to talk to, since it is too early to go look for food. Indulge me please, otherwise I'll have to talk to my uncle." "Not your uncle! What time is it there?" Conversations with Flenner are a delight! 
• I still cannot shake off Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Banana Fish." For the longest time that story bothered me. It was one of Salinger's stories that I read only once, right after reading "Raise the Roof Beam High, Carpenters." Somehow, during all these years, I had the story wrong - in my mind, those two had merged, and I thought that Seymour  killed himself because he was too happy, whereas, in fact, Seymour was too happy to show up to his own wedding. All this time, that's what I thought went on in the story, and all this time I couldn't figure out why one would kill oneself because one is too happy. But then, a couple of weeks ago, I caught myself thinking "I'm so happy I could die..." and "If I were to die today, I would die happy..." And I immediately thought of Seymour Glass - I thought, "Aha, I finally know why!" And then, on Saturday, I reread the story, and it was not at all how I remembered it, for Seymour was clearly far from being happy...
• This place is a bloody good place to feel existential about things...