Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
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| From 2025 12 27 Lisbon |
Roasted chestnuts. Not really. But that's the judgment of Caterina, "a pround Portuguese blogger." According to her, "they're a delicious treat served roasted in special portable ovens in the streets of Portugal. They’re called castanhas assadas and I'm not exaggerating when I say this is my favorite thing in the whole world to eat."
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Lisbon during Christmas season. It shows one vendor selling chestnuts roasted on an open fire. Sadly, in America, the chestnut blight killed billions of American chestnut trees in the 20th century. In Europe, however, the tradition is still going strong on the streets of Lisbon (and elsewhere), not only just in song.
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| From 2025 12 27 Lisbon |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the King Pedro IV Square in Lisbon, Portugal. According to Wikipedia, "The King Pedro IV Square, popularly known as Rossio, is a square in the Pombaline Downtown of Lisbon, Portugal. It has been one of its main squares since the Middle Ages. It has been the setting of popular revolts and celebrations, bullfights and executions, and is now a preferred meeting place of Lisbon natives and tourists alike."
Most buildings date from the reconstruction of the downtown carried out after the great 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which levelled most structures in the area. The earthquake shook European thought and literature, challenging the belief that everything happens for the best and prompting new debates about suffering, God, and the apparent indifference of nature. Voltaire famously responded by writing his satirical novel Candide to expose the gap between philosophical platitudes and real human suffering.
For us, the Rossio was just a big, beautiful plaza with the coolest cobblestone pattern that will always remind me of Lisbon.
Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
Richardson Mayor Amir Omar held a town hall meeting at Communion Coworking & Event Venue on August 5, 2026. He answered a lot of questions in two hours. I'm extracting topics, one at a time. Below is ChatGPT's summary of the mayor's town hall remarks on one topic.
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| From 2025 12 27 Lisbon |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, Portugal. According to Wikipedia, "The Jerónimos Monastery is one of the most prominent examples of the late Portuguese Gothic Manueline style of architecture in Lisbon. It was erected in the early 1500s near the launch point of Vasco da Gama's first journey, and its construction funded by a tax on the profits of the yearly Portuguese India Armadas. [Think of that as a tax on billionaires.] In 1880, da Gama's remains and those of the poet LuÃs de Camões (who celebrated da Gama's first voyage in his 1572 epic poem The Lusiad), were moved to new carved tombs in the nave of the monastery's church, only a few meters away from the tombs of the kings Manuel I and John III, whom da Gama had served."
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| From 2025 12 27 Lisbon |
Today's photo-of-the-day is from Lisbon, Portugal, first stop on our New Year's trip this year whose highlight was a river cruise of Portugal's Douro River.