I just like plantain.

Strolling through the shady district of Martim Moniz the other day on the way to work, I couldn't help stopping to sniff, squeeze and shake the exotic selection of fruit and veg that Lisbon's resident African population has brought with it from the ex-colonies of Angola, Mozambique and Cabo Verde.

Some particularly tasty-looking plantain caught my eye (black, yellow and green!) and I couldn't resist picking up a few sweet ones to fry up as crispy patacones.

As I apporached the till, a beaming black man came up behind me, showing off all his discoloured teeth as he grinned.
"Plantain!" He gasped in muffled African Portuguese. "You're taking home plantain!"
"Sim. Eu gosto muito das bananas." I replied in slightly more muffled Spanish Portuguese.
Without hesitation the smiley guy said "You like plantain! Es africana?!"
"Uh?" I must have misheard.
"Are you African? You're buying plantain!"
"Um, no" (I'm giggling a bit now) "I just like plantain..."

So this got me pondering, as many things do, about what it is that defines us as being from one place or another. As far as I'm concerned, I look about as English as you can get, though since moving to Portugal my tell-tale lisp and habit of saying "sabes?" or "vale?" at the end of every sentence has meant that on several occasions, and in spite of my clear lack of Latina colouring (or bottom), I have been mistaken for a Spaniard.

In Lisbon it is amusingly easy to spot the main immigrant nationalities. The Brazilians always wear beachwear, even on the chilliest December morning (hey, if you've got an authentic pair of Havaianas, you might as well show them off) while the Africans simply refuse to take off their enormous black quilted coats, even while the rest of the city swelters in the Mediterranean heat and humidity.

But what is it really that defines us as being where we are from? I know ex-pats who have lived in their adopted country for longer than in their native land, married foreigners, changed their passports. They've had foreign babies whose first words are not English, and have subsequently grown up to be fully fledged foreign adults. But these ex-pats always seem to be the most exceedingly English people you could ever hope to meet, as if they wish to compensate for their self-imposed exile with an excess of patriotic beaviour. I know people who were born and raised in one country by foreign parents, whose nationality they still claim to feel closer to than their own. And then there are the swarms of 20-30-something nomads, who have spent a few years roaming the planet, lose touch, need a couple of days' practice before feeling fully comfortable using their own language again, and yet have not managed to adopt any other nationality as their own and are now stuck in some kind of limbo. It's a fabulous, exciting, curious state to experiment with for a while, but when does it start to become draining, confusing, unsatisfying?

We don't choose where we are from. We choose where we are. We choose what we eat, what we wear, where we shop. So maybe a plantain, catching my eye in Martim Moniz, is just as good a clue as any other as to who I am.

Science, maths and just a little bit of chocolate

You know that theory that if you eat a stick of celery you actaully burn more calories chewing it than you gain from the nutritionally-challenged vegetable itself?
Well, I have developed my own, slightly more indulgent version of this, involving a hell of a lot more sugar and fat... and pleasure.
I live on the third floor of an old building, which therefore has no lift. My reasoning is that by descending three flights of stairs, speed-walking to the bakery at the end of the street, and dashing back up to the flat, I have actually burned more calories than I will gain from whatever cream-filled and chocolate-coated piece of yumminess I choose to buy from the bakery.
This means that, in theory, this activity could be repeated endlessly throughout the day, with no increase in calories whatsoever, and a damn good pair of thighs at the end of it.
Isn´t that the perfect solution to winter blues?!

And where are YOU from?

"Where are you from?"
"Are you from England?"
"¿De dónde eres?"
"Are you Spanish?"
"De ónde és?"

Origin, for anyone venturing outside of their own country, is a hot topic. How many days can go by without me being asked at least one of the above questions? My nationality ranks above my job, my marital status, my education and my ambitions in the list of Top Ten Questions To Ask A New Person. It´s a conversation starter, when confronted by so many new faces on such a regular basis. It´s a conversation filler, when the new face turns out to be a bit short of small-talk. If you´re from the same place - well, hey! Wow! That´s something to talk about then, isn´t it!? What a coincidence! If you´re from different places - cool! What´s it like there? How´s the weather? The beaches? The food?

"Where are you from?" has become one of the most detested questions amongst seasoned nomads. It reeks of unoriginality, boredom, desperation. You´ve reeled off the answer so many times, with catchy little soundbytes devised for your village/region/country/continent, depending on the distance of the questioner´s own origin, and level of geographical comprehension. Thus, in London, I am from Kent. In Portugal, I am from London. In the States, I am British, though the closer I edge inland, the more I become European. In Chile I was, as the most recognised point of reference, from Spain. In Ecuador I was from some where so incomprehensibly distant that it simply became Not Ecuador.

The soundbytes themselves are lame attempts at either self-deprecation, humour, or patriotism, a trait rarely witnessed within England but which is forced to flourish once abroad. A typical soundbyte about my village will also depend, once again, on the other player´s own origin. It could be as follows:

Slough: "Yeah, Kent. Just this crappy little village in the middle of nowhere with one poxy bus an hour to the nearest town. An you only go there if you fancy getting bottled by a couple of orange girls with thongs sticking out above their miniskirts."

Spain: "It´s sort of between London and France. So it´s not as cold as the North. And the food is really ok, no, honestly, you should have a Sunday roast at my grandma´s sometime. No, the beef doesn´t have mad cow disease..."

USA: "It´s this pretty little village with one pub serving traditional pints of Kentish ale, yeah, surrounded by forest and farmland, and at the bottom of the hill, past this really old church, there´s this iron-age burial site with STONES..."

Ecuador: "We have lots of trees in my village too but we have these things called, er, seasons, and, uh, the leaves fall off the trees... yeah, it´s totally weird, and we have glass in our windows cos it´s quite cold, and, um, that´s why we can´t wash our clothes in the river. Well, actually, machines do our washing. Magic."