Dr. Nicole Basaraba

Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, TCD

Paris: the picturesque city

The Eiffel Tower is brown! In all the photos I’ve seen, the tower looks charcoal grey or black. I think it’s the least romantic place to get engaged. The man on his knee getting hit in the head with a girl’s purse and his soon-to-be fiancé dazed by the flash from someone’s camera. I preferred to look at the tower from outside than to look out from it...

Visiting the “Nether lands” of Amsterdam

First of all, I didn’t visit Amsterdam to hit the coffeeshops (drug houses) or the redlight district (harlot houses), which could be called the "nether lands" or "nether regions" of Amsterdam. In fact I only visited the red-light district during daylight hours and I was quick to leave the area, which was full of weird men looking around. Its quite shocking...