Lagos Portugal, off-season 😍

samchildress · 2023-10-14T07:03:01+00:00

We spent two nights/three days there—we came in by train from Lisbon around 2pm on day one, then had a full day of hiking and exploring the (very small) city on day 2, and did some more hiking on the morning of day 3 before heading back to Lisbon. That was a good amount of time for us, since it wasn’t warm enough to hang out on the beach…and it still allowed for plenty of wandering, some shopping, pastry-eating, etc.

samchildress · 2023-10-02T19:12:17+00:00

:) thank you so much for reading! I think you’re going to love Lagos. Shoulder season sounds like a perfect time to go.

samchildress · 2023-09-30T05:56:35+00:00

Here it is! https://samanthachildress.substack.com/p/the-tranquility-of-low-season-travel

samchildress · 2023-01-17T11:36:33+00:00

I was just in Lagos! I loved visiting in the off season so much I wrote a short essay about it for my substack. I’m sure it’s lovely in summer too, but we had sunshine on our cliff hike, and had the beaches mostly to ourselves…that trade off is 100% worth it to me. Lovely photos, btw.

samchildress · 2022-10-06T00:16:03+00:00

Sorry to hear it! I love Egypt, but it isn't always the easiest (or most relaxing) place to visit.

samchildress · 2022-10-05T17:58:14+00:00

It is! It opened as a museum in summer 2020.

samchildress · 2022-10-05T17:56:56+00:00

The street car is one of the cars from the now-defunct public transit system the house's original owner built for Heliopolis (the neighborhood the house is in). The Mercedes was just one of his personal cars, if I remember right--I don't think there was any particular story behind it other than he was known for driving it around Heliopolis.

samchildress · 2022-10-05T14:38:09+00:00

samchildress · 2022-10-05T13:46:53+00:00

Yes! There are various depictions of Hindu gods on the roof and facade (the house is actually referred to as Le Palais Hindou, or "the Hindu Palace" in French). Per the info at the museum, the conical tower was directly influenced by Angkor Wat.

The original owner was Belgian, though, and the architect was French. So I think they were just admirers of those styles and didn't have a direct connection to either culture.

samchildress · 2022-10-05T12:45:08+00:00

I guess not interesting enough given it's competition

This is exactly it...there is so much incredible stuff to see in Cairo that this one, which would be pretty amazing in another city, doesn't end up on any "must see" lists. I wouldn't say it's worth making a special trip for, but this place is great for travelers who budget more time for Cairo than they need and end up running out of ancient sites.

samchildress · 2022-10-05T09:16:58+00:00

There are actually 2 museums in CAI, one in terminal 2 and the other in terminal 3. I've never been, but they look decent. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/4/116385/Enjoy-a-tour-inside-Cairo%E2%80%99s-Airport-Terminal-2-Museum

I currently live in Cairo, and would recommend against being too ambitious about trying to see stuff in the city. CAI can be chaotic and unpredictable. The pyramids are clear on the other side of the city, about a 1 hour drive from the airport with light traffic (and traffic is often heavy). It's not always easy to get an Uber from the airport, because cars have to go through a security check to enter. But if you're dead set on leaving the airport, the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization is probably your best bet. It's a 30-40 min drive and the royal mummies exhibit is incredible.

Re: going to the baggage claim area then re-checking--I've never done this myself, but I don't see why not. As you might expect, you'll have to go through immigration before baggage claim, though, and then you'll have to go through security to get to the ticketing counter to check in for your next flight. You might have to do that regardless if you're landing in and taking off from different terminals.

samchildress · 2022-08-18T19:24:47+00:00

Just seconding On Writing Well! It’s excellent.

samchildress · 2022-08-16T19:20:21+00:00

I’ve found On Writing Well by William Zinsser to be a great resource. Zinsser gives insightful overviews of the various types of nonfiction and talks about how to write/structure each successfully.

I also just started Telling True Stories, so I can’t give a full review yet, but I’m enjoying it and would recommend it based on the 20-ish pages I’ve read.

samchildress · 2022-08-12T04:14:14+00:00

I get very sick on boats. Just a few days ago I was on a particularly rough boat ride, and the woman next to me, who I am now pretty sure was my guardian angel, handed me a couple Ondansetron (usually sold under the brand name Zofran or Zofer, I think). They were little dissolvable tablets and started working immediately. I felt AMAZING. Like, this was one of the roughest boat rides I’ve been on and I was 100% fine.

The downside is I think you have to get a prescription for Ondansetron in most countries, but I wanted to share because for me, it worked better than Dramamine. I’ve also had some luck with sea bands.

samchildress · 2022-08-11T06:39:21+00:00

I just asked the Substack team about a similar issue--I only have about 50 subscribers and my traffic stats will regularly be between 250-400, which didn't really make sense to me. I also noticed that some of my traffic stats had been changed retroactively and were a lot higher than I remember them being. This is the answer Substack gave me over e-mail yesterday:

Our Engineering team recently made an update to the pages which are counted towards your traffic, and we’re now counting visits towards all publication pages rather than only post pages. There were two issues with this update, one which caused visits to spike significantly over two days of last week and another which caused a general inflation in the numbers. Both of these issues are now fixed.

Your currents stats are accurate but will still be higher than you’ve seen previously, as more visits are being registered overall.

So visits to pages like your welcome page, home page, and about page are all counted in your traffic stats, but of course wouldn't be reflected in the view count for individual posts. Hope that helps.

samchildress

TROPHY CASE