So, what exactly is Goa? Because it’s so tiny, I was surprised to learn that it is actually a stand-alone state in India, on the same administrative level as Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, or Maharashtra! Indeed, it is the smallest state in India, and its modern-day borders correspond to the legacy boundaries of Portugal’s once-upon-a-time colony on the Indian Subcontinent.
We mostly associate India’s colonial period with Great Britain, but France and Portugal both had small carve-outs in South India too. When the British finally left India shortly after WWII, the newly independent Indian government had expected Portugal to pull out of Goa as well, but Salazar (dictator of Portugal at the time) had other ideas. Long story short, India reclaimed Goa from Portugal via military force in 1961. The story of Goan identity as it relates to India and Portugal is quite complex, so I won’t delve into it fully here; hopefully in a future article. But I will tell you that Portuguese culture is still part of Goa’s DNA. It’s even got a large catholic population, which is quite out of place in India.
When I first began traveling, my operating assumption was that pretty much everything was a “once in a lifetime experience”. Because, for most people, they are! “Next time” was absolutely never guaranteed. That was definitely the case when I visited the Taj Mahal for the first time in 2015. It’s only just now that I am starting to have the experience of going back to places I’ve already visited. Initially, I was resistant to this, but I’m starting to realize that life is a bit longer than I’d originally thought when I was in my early 20s… I have enough time to do things twice. Or, hell, maybe even 3 or 4 times if I’m lucky! But don’t worry—we’re going to be back to breaking new ground after this article. 😉
I wouldn’t be writing this article at all if I didn’t have a slightly new dimension I wanted to explore on this topic. Unfortunately, it’s pollution. I touched on this while I was in Delhi, but this little excursion was where the issue really slapped me in the face for the first time.
With a metro population of roughly 33 million people… (pause for dramatic affect)… Delhi is the largest city in the largest country on earth. In the overall world rankings, it is 2nd only to Tokyo, but it’s gaining ground fast! In the average Delhi day, there are ~837 births and ~360 deaths, which gives us a natural increase of ~477 people per day. On top of that, there are an additional 200–275 migrants that arrive here per day, mostly from neighboring countries, or rural parts of India. Meanwhile, Tokyo is actually shrinking.
Today we return to football tourism with our quest to visit all the stadiums in the English Premier League. Up to this point we’ve covered Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, Fulham’s Craven Cottage, West Ham’s London Stadium, Spurs’ Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and Brighton’s AmEx Stadium. Now, at long last, we’re visiting Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, which sits in North London, within walking distance of my new flat! We’re going watch the EFL Cup quarter-final against the classic South-London side, Crystal Palace.
So here’s our destination today, along with a couple of nice pictures from the walk over. This match took place on December 23rd, so you will see lots of Christmas imagery & references in the images.
Here’s a fun fact for you: the concept and tradition of the Christmas tree originated right here, in Alsace! The first written records of Christmas Trees anywhere in the world first appear here in 1521, in a small Alsatian village called Sélestat. If you’d imagined there were snowy spruce trees in the Israeli desert for the actual birth of Jesus… I’ve got bad news for you. 😬
Anyway, Sélestat is about a ~20-minute drive from the places we’ll be visiting today! But this is not a historical expedition; we’re going to visit a few more present-day Christmas Markets!
This is (probably) the oldest Christmas Tree anywhere in the world. The first written records of Christmas Trees anywhere in the world first appear here in Alsace in 1521. Those records actually come from a little town called Sélestat which is just south of Strasbourg, but the first records of Strasbourg’s tree follow soon after. At this time, Strasbourg was already the largest city in the region and record keeping was a bit spotty, so I think it’s fair to generally just award the title of “the Birthplace of the Christmas” tree to Alsace in general.
So, this isn’t just a Christmas Tree; this is THE Christmas Tree!
There’s a lot more to Bushwick than I’m going to cover here; it’s known for having a large Latino community, especially Puerto Rican and Dominican, and since the gentrification of Williamsburg, it has also become the new center of indie culture in Brooklyn. But that’s not what this article is about. Today, we’re here to go mural hunting!
We rode the L train to the Jefferson Street station in Bushwick, and basically from the moment I stepped out of the station, I was in mural heaven.
As one of the 5 boroughs of New York City (the others being Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens), it’s home to some 2.6 million people, which—if it were a stand-alone city—would make it America’s 4th largest city, nearly as large as Chicago! It has a stand-alone GDP of approximately ~$120B, which—for context—is more than the country of Ethiopia.
While the ascent of NYC’s Chinatown may have coincided with the shrinkage of Little Italy, giving the impression that the former was “taking over” the latter, the truth is that, by the 1990s, both of them were under equal economic pressure from encroaching gentrification and rising real estate costs. In spite of that Chinatown didn’t start to shrink until the early 2010s. By that point, as had been the case with the Italian immigrants who’d followed a similar path before them to achieve widespread integration into American society, the next generation of this Chinese community soon relocated to other parts of the city, especially Queens and Brooklyn. And just like Italians are now an integral part of the New York identity, this Chinese community is part of the deal now! There are 4th and 5th generation people of Chinese descent walking around New York, which means their families have been here longer even than mine! Cue my recommendation for you to go watch Nora From Queens. Great show.
New York City not just one thing; the whole is formed of many thousands of individual threads woven and intertwined together. All of these parallel realities existing on top of each other is a big part of what makes New York so captivating… but some of these threads are more visible to the outside than others. One of New York’s most visible threads is its status as ground-zero for Italian-American culture. Yes, from Frank Sinatra to George Costanza, few immigrant communities in the US managed to balance the simultaneous integration with American society with the maintenance of a shared collective sense of identity like the Italians. Ironically, Italian-American culture has strayed hilariously far from actual Italian culture at this point; the two groups barely even claim each other at this point! But, within the U.S. at least, this shared homeland is a powerful unifier. Indeed, there are about 16 million Americans (~4.8% of the population) that have some level of Italian lineage, including yours truly. 🍕
