Steven's Travels: Europe 2025

I'm generally fine with routine and familiarity; even during COVID where each day was basically limited to the gym in the morning, office throughout the day, and sitting in front of my computer at home in the evening, my mental state wasn't really negatively impacted. I mean, you're talking about someone who survived 19 consecutive days of quarantine at one point. Sure, that's a lot easier to do when it's time spent in a clean, quiet hotel room, but I do think there are some that would struggle immensely with being stuck in a room all that time.

That being said, I also enjoy traveling and seeing new things. I might have said that just means I'm chill and am fine with whatever life throws my way, but to be honest, if I'm traveling for work going to the same places doing the same thing over and over again, that would get rather weary.

Thankfully, work took me to two new countries for the first time this year - Portugal and Spain!

The first stop was Coimbra, Portugal.

One of the very first intriguing things to catch my eye was that the university students looked like they stepped out of the pages of Harry Potter.

Students wearing Capa e Batina

Apparently, the black cape and academic uniform students wear is a tradition that started nearly 500 years ago; J.K. Rowling (having lived in Portugal for some series) apparently did have this look in mind as she was writing the books. It's essentially the conclusion of initiation week for 1st-year students who are "baptized" and earn the privilege to wear their "capa e batina". Each university has unique variations of the uniform and each has its own tradition about wearing it. (uniforms are sold in stores and can technically be purchased and worn by anyone)

Coimbra is home to the oldest academic institution in the Portuguese-speaking world, and the city has quite a rich cultural tapestry.

View of the Mondego River

Dinner at Passporte Coimbra

The vegetarian course at the restaurant was a tofu dish with interesting taste and texture. Not bad, but rather salty!

I love wandering old streets in Europe. There's something to be said about the charm of walking around in streets that are old enough to have been designed before cars were a thing. It just feels like the buildings themselves are beings beyond the human realm that observe us passively as we come and go throughout the ages.

It's always fun to see Bubble Tea appearing around the world

But it's also fun to see the more modern touches in these old cities, such as contemporary graffiti or ways to deal with traffic.

In addition to the stopwalk light, more lights can be found on the ground for reference

At least some places in the world still remember that Nazis are bad

Something else I enjoy about "older" places is how many of them have a great sense of aesthetic and design. I'm not sure if it's just a cultural appreciation for artwork, or something like economic factors; if you can't compete purely on low price, then you need to make your product more appealing in other ways, such as design.

Live performance corner at the hotel

Sardines in beautiful tin cans

Spain was the next stop, first to Sabadell for work and then Barcelona for the weekend.

I really enjoy visiting grocery stores and restaurant in different countries. What's an inexpensive staple and what's a luxury food? What things are really cheap in my home country, really expensive in another country, and vice versa? Prices can tell you a lot about a country's natural agricultural structure, and/or the government's subsidization strategies which are designed to encourage/discourage certain purchasing behaviors.

Frozen pizzas

Poke bowls are relatively expensive; I paid 11 EUR for this (it was rather delicious, admittedly)

On the other hand, I paid 10.5 EUR for this big-ass marguerita pizza

Considering the climate, I find that fruits tend to be cheaper in Europe than I expect

Catered lunch at our client's office

Something else that was new to me was that apparently, breakfast is typically optional at hotels in Barcelona. That's pretty typical for budget hotels all over the world of course, but I found it interesting that this was also the case for two of the reasonably high-end hotels I stayed at as well. Perhaps a large enough number of travelers skip breakfast and would thus prefer it not be included in the hotel cost, therefore turning "room only" into the default?

Fruit & Salad bar at breakfast

For 16 EUR, breakfast options were actually fairly simple. I definitely wouldn't have bought it normally if traveling myself for fun

Another thing I keep an eye out for when visiting a new city is how they handle transportation. Although the number of scooters on the streets is tiny in Europe compared to Taiwan and Southeast Asia, they're still reasonably common to the point where roads will be designed with them in mind. When there are enough similarities, we can think about what designs can be learned from.

Streets in European cities aren't necessarily wider than in Taiwan, but much more of them are 1-way, thus leaving space for parking without sacrificing pedestrian sidewalks

To my untrained eye, it seems that scooters can park pretty much anywhere. Probably only feasible in places where the number of scooters is fairly limited

Dedicated bike lanes are certainly more common here than I've found in Asia or America

I recall this type of design (scooter parking inside a bike lane) floated and criticized in Taiwan, but Barcelona seems to demonstrate that it's actually not a bad idea, providing cars don't use the bike lane as free parking.

As a vegetarian, I oftentimes "miss out" on famous local cuisine when traveling, since many of them are meat-based dishes. As such, I was pleasantly surprised to find a place (shoutout to "Miku Maku") that offered Vegetarian Paella, which was quite delicious! I will say that it's hard for my body to get quickly accustomed to having heavy dinners at 9pm as is typical in Spain; it just can't digest food fast enough for me to not feel bloated when sleeping.

Vegetarian Paella at Miku Maku, Barcelona

It's super-cool how beautiful architecture can be found just randomly in the streets of Barcelona. Like, it's not some sort of tourist attraction or spectacle; it was simply just designed and maintained to be this way. Now of course, it takes a certain amount of intentional effort to keep old buildings looking that way; I would assume that there are regulations regarding what materials and colors are allowed to be used for either new builds or renovation, and that can certainly be more annoying for someone trying to do work (compared to tourists who just get to enjoy looking at it), but it certainly is nice to look at.

Streets of Barcelona

I will note how utterly embarrassing it is that when people think of "America" nowaday, they think of our fucked up politics, junk food, and Mr. Beast. How far we've fallen.

Now as far as sightseeing goes, I actually enjoy "touristy" things to a certain extent, though my biggest dealbreakers are either (1) really long lines, and (2) extravagant prices. So I enjoyed going to Sagrada Familia and seeing it from the outside, but didn't go inside, choosing instead to go to the nearby Recinte Modernista de Sant, which is a beautiful historical hospital converted into a museum.

 

Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau

I won't say that Sagrada Familiar was necessarily underwhelming; it's more that it's so well documented that you kind of already know what to expect already. What struck me more in the moment was the meta concept of such projects - what does it feel like to work for something that you will never personally see come to completion? I think of scientists working on space probes to Pluto, who will be long-retired by the time their probe even reaches the (no longer a) planet.

Great societies are those where the old plant trees for the youth, knowing they'll be gone by the time the trees bear shade. Judge how wonderful a place is not just by its dazzling skyscrapers, but how it treats the less fortunate in our society, however that manifests itself. Among the various challenges life can throw our way, I think about disability the most. Any of us are a freak accident away from becoming disabled, whether mentally or physically. The disabled community is the only minority group that any of us can join at any time, and it would be best if we all kept that in mind.

Other than typically "touristy" locations, I also like more mundane places like parks, just to watch people being themselves. There's something rather calming about seeing how people everywhere in the world are not so different, for the most part.

After Barcelona was Greece. Unfortunately the itinerary was basically packed full with work and there wasn't much time for sightseeing, but then again, there are sights everywhere; whether or not you find it fun is what matters!

For example, I like small prop planes where you have to walk up to them and enter via built-in ladder. There's just something about the wind and sound and closeness that takes me back to my days in the military jumping out of C-130s.

And of course, the sight out of an airplane window never ceases to fascinate me!

I'm not one to really gatekeep "authenticity" when it comes to cuisines from different cultures, but I do take particular interest in observing the differences between how a type of food is prepared in country A compared to country B. For example, in Taiwan, a "Greek salad" typically includes tomatoes, onions, cucumber, some olive oil, onions, and bits of feta cheese. After going to Greece, I confirmed that this is indeed a normal salad in Greece. Except... depending on the restaurant, the feta cheese might be a chonker, and it's a pool of olive oil rather than a drizzling!

Lunch in Alexandroupoli; I ordered "peas" from the menu, and... well, I got a literal plate of peas.

It was also fun to zip around nearly empty highways at 150km (full disclosure: I wasn't the one driving; if I were, I would have been driving the 130 km speed limit). The point wasn't necessarily the speed itself, but just experiencing something that I normally wouldn't have back at home.

And of courses, a nice sunrise or sunset is appreciated, no matter where you are in the world.

I have called many places "home" temporarily, but I remember my Dad saying that despite spending 15 years in America, he knew that he would eventually be returning to Taiwan after seeing the central mountain range out of his airplane window and instinctively feeling that sense of home that he didn't feel elsewhere.

For a long time, I never had the same feelings about anywhere. I lived in 4 different cities during my first 11 years in America, and then went back and forth between Taiwan and America during my college years. For all that time, I enjoyed wherever I was, but nothing ever gave me that feeling my Dad described.

But now, after 15 years in Taiwan, serving a year in the military, laying down deep roots in local communities and giving as much as I've been given, it's there. That view out the window tells me that this is home, and my decision to make this land my adopted home was the right one for me.

Islands of Penghu