Notes From Everywhere

People often ask me how I developed this passion for cultures and travel, because I created two websites and a YouTube channel dedicated to sharing what I discover around the world. But the truth is simple: my parents are to blame for everything.

The world lived within our walls: in the art, the music, the books, and the endless conversations that filled each day.

My parents’ house is a permanent exhibition: part home, part museum, part creative lab. My mother should have been an artist: creative, intense, gloriously unpredictable. So the result is a beautiful chaos: antique furniture beside sleek modern pieces, extravagant paintings keeping watch over traditional Portuguese tiles, and wild sculptures perched on family tables. When I ask them what the “decorating concept” is, they simply say:

And that’s it... mystery solved. Maybe that “because I like it” is the invisible thread that has guided me all along... the love for beauty, even when no one else understands it.

Then there were the books. My father is obsessed with the Portuguese language: the right words, commas in their proper place, the perfect rhythm of a sentence. His passion was so great that my sisters and I, while still inside my mother’s belly, were already forced to listen to his long reading sessions aloud. Yes, he used to read to the belly. Heavy books, philosophical ones, the kind that would put any adult to sleep, and yet he read them with such conviction that I almost believe that’s where our love for words began.

Culture was everywhere: at the table, on weekends, even on holidays. Theatre, museums and galleries were part of our routine. I remember especially the FITEI - International Festival of Theatre of Iberian Expression: for a whole week, Porto became a mosaic of voices and stages, with groups from every Portuguese and Spanish-speaking country. The heavy curtains, the smell of old wood, the dust floating in the light... pure magic. For me, FITEI was a window to the world.

Then came ballet. Because my mother made me do it. Ah ah… yes, she really did! My mother is intense, you can’t say “no” to her (I’m kidding, mum… you’re not like that… well, maybe just a little 😄). But I’m grateful now. Ballet taught me discipline and the grace that grows out of effort. And it gave me the world: teachers from different countries, international trips, weeks spent sharing dorms with students from everywhere. The Dance Week in Guimarães was like a cheerful mix of accents and laughter.

School, too, was a world of its own: classmates from Angola, Guinea, Brazil, France, England, India. That’s when I first understood that the world has different scents, sounds and rhythms, and they can all live together in one place.

And then there were the family trips. I remember a summer in Paris... a whole month walking under the August heat, backpacks on our shoulders and sandwiches wrapped in cellophane paper. My sisters, my mother and I dreamt of a swimming pool, while my father dreamt of one more museum, one more church, one more story to tell. At the time, it felt like torture; now I know it was love.

Wherever we went, we had to visit monuments, museums, and every possible cultural site... it was non-negotiable! The only place that was pure rest was La Manga, in Spain, where we stayed once a year just for the beach. I suppose it was my parents’ way of recovering from all those museums ah ah!

None of this was coincidence. I was immersed in the world before I could understand it, and grew up with my eyes trained to see detail, contrast, and hidden beauty. This is the first chapter of my Notes From Everywhere: memories, people and places that shaped me. It isn’t nostalgia... it’s gratitude.