Disregard everything I said about “easy” experiences. This week, we arrived seven minutes early for our EasyBus to Luton Airport and then watched the 7:15 and 7:45 speed past us and splash through the puddles as we stood in a miserable rain. Our backpacks, which did not fit within the shelter of our umbrellas, would never fully recover from their dampness. Obvious as this sounds, even our liquids got wet.
At this point we feared we would miss our train, so we decided to share a minicab with a cosmopolitan Russian couple we had befriended. We shared such experiences as watching garbage men struggle with inadequately sealed bags of rubbish, watching many people successfully board buses to Stansted Airport, and, most importantly, being twice ignored by the Luton bus. This was a sufficient bond and we allowed the man to call several minicab services until finding one that could arrive in the next ten minutes that claimed to be already “on the way.” Indeed, within five minutes a cab came, and we were very impressed. However, ten minutes later we received a phone call saying that our cab had arrived and asking, “Where are you” We said, “We are in your cab.” They said, “No, you are not.” We again negated this and continued on like this for some time until we realized that we were basically being driven by a man who lived near Luton who must have been familiar with disgruntled EasyBus customers. In retrospect, it had seemed odd to us that he assured us that we would be there in time so that he could get to mass.
I neglected to mention that the man resembled a certain Frenchman who lives on the South 40 and that the lady resembled my choir director from the Catholic Student Center who now makes chocolate. We had an interesting discussion about how to make you car start on winter mornings in Russia and about how St. Petersburg is “The Venice of the North” (more on this in another post).
Our flight was quite bad. One woman became ill but did not speak any English. Naturally everyone was rubbernecking and loitering around near her row. During the landing there was a lot of turbulence, and I almost expected the plane to do a barrel turn.
My motion sickness had subsided by the time we missed out bus stop and decided to walk around in the lovely weather. “What did they mean, 35-kph winds and hail?” we asked ourselves. But then we understood because it began sun-hailing, if that exists, sort of related to sun-showering. We flocked to the Metro, which was actually right next to us. This was always the case for us in Lisbon. I don’t know why but whenever we wanted the Metro it was never more than five meters from us. This was one of the major attractions of Lisbon: transportation that seems to exist at the will of its users. I have often said that if I could have any superpower, it would be the power to always be on time (usually I say this when pressed because I cannot come up with something better off the top of my head, and this question does come up surprisingly often). To clarify, I do not wish that I was comparatively more prompt, which I could achieve merely with better planning; rather I would enjoy it if buses and trains and things would always arrive when I did and would never leave without me.
In any case, I do not have this superpower, so traveling is as annoying for me as it is for anyone. We walked up the alley to our hotel, Rua does Anjos. Fortunately, it was near the Metro and easy to find. Unfortunately, Kelly had read reviews of the hotel and had told me about them. I do not know the exact quote, but it was something like, “Despite the pretty location and colorful buildings… unsafe… hookers… shady.” You fill in the blanks. We saw the colorful buildings but comforted ourselves by hoping that hookers wouldn’t be out and about on Sunday afternoons when it was hailing. In all honesty, I can say that Pouso dos Anjoes would have been completely charming if it were not January or if the rooms were heated. (Again, ignorance is bliss and I really would have been happier not know about bed bugs when we were forced by the coldness of the night to use the heavy blankets in the closet.)
We ventured to Casa Suiça, recommended both by my guidebook and by the concierge (that is perhaps too generous a term to describe him). Happy to be seated, we ordered cheese omelettes. From here on out, I will only not the times that Kelly I and did not order the same thing, because it will be a shorter list. These omelets were essentially eggs with a powdered parmesan cheese sprinkling on top (for an additional two euros). It should be said that the café smelled like Dr. Venegoni. If you do not know what that means, know that it smelled like Geoffrey Beene’s Grey Flannel. If you still don’t know what that means, it’s not that important.
For dinner we attempted to go to a place called Rosa da Rua on Rua da Rosa. We were very frightened because our concierge had told us certain areas not to walk without a group of at least five and because an old man we passed warned us to be careful. (Hallie, if you are reading this, it had Paris Drake written all over it except this time I listened to Kelly instead of driving her past a prison and the ghetto all for the sake of a rug that wasn’t even 8’ x 10’ as advertised.) So we gave up and went to a place called Solar do Duque where we were placed in front of the doors to draw people in. This was all very flattering, but it was also very drafty, especially for people going home to a cold hotel. But we enjoyed a long dinner – we ordered pork Portuguese style and pork Alentejana style (the latter has clams). Being a bit averse to seafood and briny flavourings, I did not eat much of my meal but compensated for this by drinking all of Kelly’s port, which she did not like.
On the way back, thanks to my defective Metro pass, I could not escape, so I was rescued by a self-described bastard of Portuguese-British origin (but his mother lives in Australia now) who wore a lot of leather and got closer to me than I was comfortable with.
Monday we met with the head of the Portuguese unit of enlargement and the Western Balkans. He introduced himself as Francisco, “like the American city, except not the saint.” I will not go into detail about the meeting. Lunch was not worth mentioning except to describe the difficulty of walking on cobblestone in heels and the unpleasantness of being honked at and waved at by truck drivers, although I this is not really exclusive to Portugal.
After accidentally falling asleep for several hours, we flipped on the television to discover a man with a potato-shaped head clad in leather and motorcycle goggles threatening a small boy. We were immediately captivated. All of a sudden, there was a couple on screen and we sensed an artificial tension between the two. They could only be the romantic leads. The man’s presence was very unexpected for us on Portuguese television – blond and blue-eyed, he had the same traits that caused people to gape at us rudely in the streets.
For dinner that night we at last succeeded at finding a restaurant that we were looking for – we ate rumpsteaks in a Ribadouro sauce at Ribadouro and tried to prolong the experience as much as possible because it was warm. We managed to talk above two hours despite already having spent much time in each other’s company that month.
In our last 12 hours in Lisbon, we had nothing to do except visit the Castelo de São Jorge and eat at the Pastelaria Versailles. The castelo was very entertaining, and I continued my tradition of doing stupid poses in front of famous monuments. When I wasn’t posing, I was hyperventilating to Kelly because of my fear of heights. In fact, there may be traces of this fear in my face in some of the photographs. I am including a map, which is numbered, and I will document what happened to us at selected locations in chronological order:
1) Where we entered. There was a woman in a red coat with an incredibly ornate updo who was playing with masks the entire time we were in the castelo.
15) The stairs we climbed up that were as steep as my calf is long.
3) This tower was labeled “dangerous,” but danger is my middle name (Sarah Danger Michalczuk), so I went up anyway.
2) Don’t go to this tower. Ever. Even when it isn’t a cloudy day.
8) So many things on this map are labeled 8. Dammit. I’m adding my own labels. Let’s use the Greek alphabet so you can distinguish between their labels and mine.
A) I wanted to get the flags in the background and stuck my head through the little dentelles, but this hardly showed up in the picture.
B) Where there were some stairs that didn’t go anywhere, but I went up them anyway.
Γ) Where we started singing Beauty and the Beast.
Δ) Where we posed under the arch.
5) There was a well here. This was where I was pretending to fall.
15) We climbed down the same stairs, and Kelly might have some pictures of me where I look terrified.
The pastelaria was completely gilded and full of people more formally attired than either of us. I ordered a port consumé, which really tasted like warm port. Since this was not enough for sustenance and since Kelly had delicious-smelling bacon, I had to order eggs as well. Then I was able to use my French in the mission Kelly sent me on to order “the two best pastries.” French seemed safer than Kelly’s plan, which was to yell the Portuguese word for “best,” which, as well as I could understand, phonetically sounded like, “my whore.”
In order to kill time, we took two unnecessary 45-minute walks, one back to the hotel, and one from the hotel to the bus stop with our luggage. Together, this would have been 11 Metro stops. We saved 1.60 euros! The only cost was the use of my legs.
On Friday we began our long journey to Athens. This began with our trip to Baker Street, not to be confused with Baker’s Row, which is around the block from us. Baker Street was the point of departure of the EasyBus. It was to be one of two first-time “easy” experiences that day – EasyBus and EasyJet. This is, of course, a hilarious prefix. However, unlike “Easy Annie’s,” which totally does not sound like macaroni, this actually sort of sounds like what it was. Anyway, I gave the driver the wrong ticket, which he marked and thus gave me reason to worry that I would not be able to take the bus back on Sunday. This was actually a good thing, because I always need something to worry about, and this was relatively minor in comparison to say, fear of failing at life and living in a cardboard box (my sister’s main fear).
Anyway, at the airport, Danielle, Erin, and I rushed to security and then wondered where everyone else was. This foreshadowed many of the events that were to follow that weekend.
Danielle finished a book on the plane and let me look at it. She said I might not be interested because it was about Jewish vocations. I read the summary, which discussed a woman who was in training to perform circumcisions. She falls in love with a man who has some sort of terrible, life-ruining secret. I asked Danielle if the secret was that he was uncircumcised. She said no.
The trip from the airport to the Marriott was fairly straightforward; I will say only that it involved Johnnie Walker suitcases, indoor smoking stations, and a somewhat beautiful Metro ticket salesman. We then participated in an elaborate ruse to make the hotel think that we only had two people per room (rather than the actual 3.5). Ryan, who managed to get us this special arrangement, had to sign a lot of little postcards. I had to sign one, which prompted a question that we would repeat to each other in various states of sobriety for the rest of the weekend: “MEE-SES Sarah, are you staying with MEE-STERrr Ryan?”
We then ended up at a restaurant nearby the hotel (which is not downtown) called Seralia. The hotel clerk who recommended it totally wanted to go along. She kept talking about flavors. We had two bottles of a Greek wine from the Nemea region. We would later realize that it was overpriced, but at the time I only cared about making it the fourth day running of being drunk. I had baby lamb. People were chain-smoking.
Due to a misunderstanding about time zones, Nick, Ryan, and Caryn thought we were total bitches the next morning for waking them up at 7:40 when we didn’t have to be anywhere until 10:15. It was actually 9:40, so that was pretty funny. The airport shuttle took us to a somewhat not-near-the-Acropolis location, and we befriended a local man named John who led us to pastries and told us that we could get free internet at a travel agency nearby. My pastry was full of “yellow cheese.”
Then we hiked up to the Acropolis. I will not go into too much detail, partly because there are so many pictures of it, and partly because we never do audio tours so I have no clue what I’m looking at. I will only say that there was a striking young man wearing an absolutely hideous hat lurking somewhere near the Acropolis, but this was before I had perfected the art of photographing strangers. I want to say it was a Russian fur hat, which was totally unnecessary given the weather. We soon realized that we all knew exactly who “the hot guy in the ugly hat” was. Well, except for Ryan, who thought we were talking about some guy in a propeller hat.
The other important thing about the trip to the Acropolis was that it was the origin of many “Sarah let Rick Steves into her pants too easily” jokes, thanks to my Rick Steves money belt. This was about ten million times less funny to people who weren’t Danielle and me because they didn’t know who Rick Steves was.
Danielle and I dragged everyone to a tavern that had been recommended to me by my roommate’s friend – Taverna Filipou. They found this a bit unpleasant as it was quite a long walk, up hills and past the posh shopping district. On the way, we got pictures of the strikers in Syntagma Square. We technically should have avoided Syntagma Square because of the riots, but it’s kind of impossible to get anywhere if you do that. The food was delicious. Danielle and I split a Greek salad and some pasta, and in a candid moment when we switched plates I desperately yelled out, “Save the olives for me!” which was really cruel. But she did, and I still feel bad about it. I also ordered myself a carafe of wine, which no one would help me with until I said they didn’t have to pay. Even though they helped, I still ended up sort of drunk.
For dinner we had reservations at a tavern in Gazi, one of the nightclub districts. Once again, the person who made the reservation for us at the desk seemed to really want to join our party. She said, “Ah yes, Gazi is very fun, for young people.” She sighed, which was ambiguous, because she herself did not appear very old. Anyway, the Green Line, that which would have taken us closest to Taverna Skoufias, was closed, so instead we had to walk through very sketchy areas to get to the restaurant. There was much whining from everyone. We walked past a place called “Brothel” that was probably not a brothel, and we stopped to get directions from a chain-smoking pharmacist. Chain-smoking is the best adjective to describe Greece.
We got there late for our nine o’clock reservation, which hardly seemed to matter when the restaurant was completely empty. This did not bode well. The menu was completely in Greek, so our waiter painstakingly translated each item for us. “Yellow cheese” was a recurring ingredient. I really must figure out what this is. Around eleven, we realized that the restaurant was packed, and that no matter how late we try to eat in European countries, we will never be able to successfully find the popular time. We asked our waiter for ouzo after dinner, but instead he treated us to tsipouro, which was absolutely fine with me. It is distilled from must and tastes like it.
Rather sated but still desiring to have some Greek fun, we wandered back to the center of Gazi with all of the clubs and bars. The most popular one was “Soho,” so we attacked and obtained an outdoor table. Erin and I were immediately drawn into the bar by the dance music and by the fact that it was a bar. We realized the next day that they were playing American music outside and Greek music inside, but we don’t know what purpose this served. In any case, they gave you your money’s worth there. A rum and coke was way more rum than it was coke. After several trips to the bar, we were slightly violated by some Greek men who tried to dance with us. I ran back to our table and sat on Danielle’s lap. One of the men followed, and we were forced to make him go away. This was no easy task since he was persistent and didn’t speak English. Fortunately, just as we were getting rid of him, one of our friends became very ill and started nursing an ice-bucket.
We decided to take her home immediately by cab, and successfully rejected several cab drivers who were going to rip us off. The night continued until the early morning with a deck of Greek Lover cards. Some of us played rummy, some of us lay around talking incoherently, and one of us hung out in the bathroom due to other rum-related experiences.
Story about the Greek Lover cards: the lady who sold them to me made fun of my money belt. She asked me if I was “afraid.” I considered interpreting this as an accusation of cowardice and starting a fight, but I was holding off on my semi-serious plan to get arrested in Europe, at least for a few more weeks.
Another story about the Greek Lover cards: it’s impossible to play games with these things without having spontaneous laughing fits when you realize what is on your card.
I rose at 8:15 the next morning despite the time change being in the opposite direction and despite going to bed only four hours before that. Lurking in the room for an hour, I unintentionally enacted on Danielle Ryan’s worst fear: waking up to someone staring at you. Erin and Danielle and I went out to get breakfast, and on the way back picked up a stray dog. I guess you should never carry a pastry in your pocket on Greek highways. The hotel bellman chased off the dog, but the receptionists could barely control their glee when they asked us, “Have you made a new… friend?” This statement was followed by muffled giggling, but in a good way. Danielle observed that we were bringing a lot of life to the Marriott and that they would miss us when we left.
Upon arriving at the archeological museum, Kelly and Erin and I quickly tired of looking at statues and instead people-watched from the steps. This mostly consisted of little-girl watching, which does sound strange but is an accurate description of what we did. One little girl came and sat down next to us, but we did not get on very well with her as she only spoke Greek. She wore pink and pigtails. Another highlight was the man doing physical therapy. It took us a while to figure out what the woman helping him walk was dragging him by. Come to think of it, we never figured that out.
It should also be mentioned that when asking for directions that day, this woman wacked me from behind with her infant that was mummified in a bright yellow snowsuit, which was completely uncalled for (both seasonally inappropriate baby bundling and use of babies as weapons).
While trying to go to a good restaurant for lunch, we were intercepted by another man who wanted to be our friend. When the restaurant was closed for Sundays, he told us to follow him. As the roads kept winding and as he kept speaking to us in broken English, we began to wonder what was going on, and, more importantly, whether we would have to tip him. Fortunately, we didn’t. We ended up at a family restaurant where we insisted upon eating baklavas even though it made us miss the 24-hour window of our Metro passes. I gave Danielle an olive, but still felt guilty about the previous day. It was a day of sacrifice and atonement.
Everything that happened after that was a blur, but somehow I am in London.
