I’ve been in Porto the past few weeks for Bootstrap 2022. The conference has been a wonderful experience so far (aside from the baffling lack of water fountains in university buildings), and if you’d like to watch some of the talks, you can find recordings on the collaboration’s YouTube channel.

I’m really enjoying exploring the city! Climate-wise, Porto is not unlike San Francisco, so it’s been a welcome change from New Haven’s usual summer mugginess. The food and wine are quite good as well—the francesinha is a local sandwhich which deserves to be much better-known in the US, and the region is home to both port and vinho verde, neither of which I’d tried before this trip. I expected more of a language barrier, but it’s been possible to get around with only a few basic phrases.

I’ll be in Boston on Saturday and back in New Haven after that. If you happen to be in either city and we know each other IRL, send me a message and we’ll grab lunch.

Pictures (more to follow):

Porto with a night sky a sky full of lanters Porto, as seen from the Douro river on St. John’s Eve

The Douro, from the north this time The Douro, from the north this time

A steel arch bridge, seen from below Dom Luís I Bridge

A few of us also traveled to Lisbon for the weekend:

altar in a cathedral flanked by columns Lisbon Cathedral

looking down a row of pews from upstairs more from the same cathedral

an alcove with a stained-glass window more from the same cathedral

gilded wood flanking a sculpture of Jesus's entombed body A chapel in the Igreja de São Roque

A stone fortress on a hilltop, framed by trees Castelo dos Mouros, constructed in the 9th century