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.
