Lisbon

The flight from Madrid lasted all of two-hours, which is about the amount of sleep we had gotten before from our sort of marathon night in Madrid. When we arrived, we were pleased to find that a cab to our hostel, Next, cost only ten euro. The cabs, which were all extremely ununiform (quite charmingly so) and ranging from old 80’s and 90’s Mercedes to old equally old Fiats or Seats, were not the only thing that was noticeably cheaper here in Portugal. Not only was this place beautiful, but very inexpensive. This became most clearly apparent to me two days later when I headed out to the grocery store to buy proper breakfast food to have in the hostel. I was floored and a little suspicious to find that four yogurts, eggs, French bread, bananas and oranges rang up at about 2.50 euro. Our hostel, a private triple in a great area with free cereal and coffee, was only 10 euro a night for each of us –Heidi, Gen and I that is. Alghough drinking and eating out was pretty much equally expensive to other cities, paying so little for these other necessities made a huge difference.

But what I loved about Lisbon most was not its affordability; it was the architecture, culture and general ambience that the two created together that led me to end up falling in love with the place, and almost immediately I might add. A few minutes’ walk out of our hostel and the contrast between here and the Andalucian towns I’d spent the majority of my semester in was clear. In place of little white-washed homes, caves and winding roads with floral patterning were bold, colorful buildings and wider cobblestone streets. The infrastructure, with its underground metro, magnetic trams whizzing about above ground and of course the giant wrought iron tower, known as the Elevador de Santa Justa, which takes you from the town’s central neighborhood, Baixa, to the Bairo Alto, seemed to me like the forgotten dream or discarded schematics of some eccentric industrial age architect more than something that could actually exist and function today. Some of the city lights, like those running up the Elevador and those that comprise the giant, color changing heart that rests over the Praca Luís de Camoes in the Bairo Alto, seemed to be permanent fixtures for the city at night. And since we were traveling during the Christmas season, we had the added charm of even more lights, wreathes and strange glittering balls strewn over street after street.

Our first night in Lisbon, we took the Elevador up to Bairo Alto (I couldn’t get over the idea of an elevator that took you from one neighborhood to another, but there we were riding it), ate and began cruising the bars, which there were a whole lot of. We were lured in by the one that had the sweet sound of live Brazilian folk pouring out of its door. Inside, the guitar player, singer behind the mic was half bantering, half singing in a sort of spoken voice reverie that, accompanied by his melodious licks on the guitar and a drummer with brushes and a simple amped floor tom, two-cymbal and one-snare set up, sounded fantastic . Perhaps the most impressive aspect about the music was the curly haired, wide-faced singers ability to add horn accompaniment out of his own lungs and voice-box. Pursing his lips and closing his eyes, he created what sounded uncannily similar to an alto sax. After some hours of this intoxicating stuff, we stepped out to find the streets filled with revelers. Ambling down the light strewn blocks, we passed wave after wave of plastic cup carrying bar hoppers (the disposable cups apparently made it easy to go from bar to bar without hassle), each speaking loudly and emitting sweet smelling clouds of hash. In a conversation with a couple sitting outside a bar that had lived in the area for some time, a man responded to my astonishment by simply stating: “it’s magic isn’t it.” I couldn’t agree more with this simple and yet totally adequate description. Sometimes the atmosphere or general sights and sounds of a place cut into you much more than any specific events that occurred while you were there. For me Lisbon was one of those places. In the dead of December, her Bairo Alto was alive with voice and music and, yes, magic.

We awoke lazily the next morning and then washed and breakfasted even more lazily. It had been a long night I guess. However finally we headed off to the metro and caught a line to the Belem district of Lisbon, farther west of the city proper and closer to the open Atlantic. Besides the monuments and historical places of interest in this area, of which there were several, I think what Heidi what most or perhaps even more so excited for was its famous puff pastries. As for me I’m not much for sweets. We got them, and they were pretty tasty. So they came from a recipe perfected in the nearby monastery and were made for us just as they would have been in 1827…I’m sorry but I think I’d rather have some chorizo or better yet, a Chicago hot dog. Anyway, Heidi seemed to enjoy hers a whole lot, and that was good to see.

We entered the sprawling, gothic Mosteiro Dos Jeronimos, or at least its church, which was impressive enough. Inside was the tomb of Vasco de Gama, epic explorer, with his statue laying flat, hands erect in prayer to the heavens, miniature lions holding up his great marble casket. Across the street from the monastery, we went up the 50m tower in the plaza of discoveries, which commemorates Prince Henry the Navigator’s death some 550 years ago. From the tower’s top, a spectacular aerial view of the very bay that these long-buried explorers set out from could be had. Gen and I were feeling some of the explorer's spirit as we pointed out to the open Atlantic challengingly.


But apparently neither of us would have made very spectacular explorers, because we couldn't even find the Torre de Belem, a historic defensive outpost of old Lisbon. In fact, we thought we were on the Torre de Belem as we pointed out to the sea so proudly, but only later found out that we had in fact been on top of the Henry the Navigator monument in the plaza of discoveries, and that the Torre de Belem, albeit surprisingly small, had been right in front of us just a bit farther down the bay. Because of the great size of the monument, we assumed it must be the Torre Belem without reading any further into the situation. This is like when Columbus arrived at what he thought was India but was in fact in the Americas, except on a much smaller scale and a bit dumber. Actually, this wasn't like that at all.

From Belem we headed back down the metro and caught a train to Sintra, the UNESCO World Heritage awarded village about an hour outside Lisbon. The place could be described as sharing a lot of the colorful and romantic architecture of Lisbon, but amplified and with a touch of something like Brothers Grimm thrown in. Once again, the atmosphere of the place hit me harder than any specific events, but that might have something to do with the fact that we had arrived too late to see any museums or exhibits. Regardless, taking a stroll and relaxing in cafe's here was a dream. The last train back to Lisbon wasn't until around midnight, so we weren't pressed.