Lisboaobilia

one of many cool neon signs
see all photos »

Lisbon is an amazing introduction to Europe. The most photogenic place I´ve ever visited. Filled with tourists, even pre-tourist season, everyone with  a map and a guidebook (mostly in German) and a confused expression.

The Lisboans know how to live, as far as I can tell. They drink plenty of coffee at the coolest cafe´s and patiseries from vintage ceramic restaurant ware standing at the espresso bar. They don´t eat on the go like we americans, they take time to enjoy their coffee and pastry which is quite refreshing and sets an example i wish to follow.  I´ve never seen so many restaurants, cafes, or patiseries in my life. I actaully feel less hungry wandering the streets knowing that my need will be met at the moment it strikes my fancy.

view of lace-curtained windows, peeling plaster facades and laundry hanging out to dry

see all photos »

Despite the constant presence of pastries, capuccino and port I have lost weight since I´ve been here as I walk constantly and wander, mostly without direction or purpose other than seeing the next amazing thing around the corner.

I must go back in time to recount my adventure so far, as I´ve been here 4 days already...and spent two days before that travelling with brief stops in NYC and London, which I won´t describe now as I´d never get to the part about Lisbon!

accordionista in the subway
see all photos »

I arrived at a guesthouse where I had two night´s stay. The propietor, Leo and his wife Paula, both very sweet, spoke enough English to answer most of my questions and get me set up in a trapezoidal shaped room with windows opening out onto the street and view of neighbors lace-curtained windows, peeling plaster facades, laundry hanging out to dry and cafe/grocery where guys hang out in the doorway for hours at a time. The guesthouse is only a block away from one of the main boulevards that is lined with fancy hotels and expensive cafes and a plethora of tourists. It also happens to be located right next to a very hip cineplex that was the focus of the IndieLisbao Film Fest that was going on during my visit.

one of many scenes of deterioration in Lisbon
see all photos »

I managed to take in one movie, which I chose because it was in English and not too late at night (still jet lagged).. a low budget film shot in Butte Montana, about young hipsters out of work because of the closing of the copper mines. What a strange cross-cultural experince to be watching this movie about Butte in a room full of Lisboans!

I am not the most experienced traveller, and have never been in a foreign country by myself. It took me several days to adapt. the simplest things like using a phone or finding an internet cafe become exhausting quests. People in Lisbon are not exceedingly friendly or helpful. The ones who do speak english are most likely to be tourists like myself and of no help at all. The places where there is the greatest concentration of English-speaking Lisboans are the tourist sites that i was trying to avoid. So it was pretty much me and my map and guidebook.

The first night at the guesthouse I met Connie, a wonderful German woman also on her own. She tipped me off as to the location of the best cyber cafe in Lisbon and had a schedule for the Indie Film Festival. Too bad she was leaving the next morning for the coast!

But on my third day I had the pleasure of hooking up with Maria who I had met on the Couchsurfing site, and who has been kind enough to let me stay with her for the rest of my time in Lisbon. A doctor specializing in treatment of AIDS, she is incredibly generous and accomodationg and has given me more of an insiders take on Lisbon than I ever could manage on my own. She lives in a neighborhood that is not so much one of the tourist destinations, but is at the end of a cable-car route and therefore easily accessible. We ate dinner last night in neighborhood restaurant where everyone was glued to the football (soccer) match on the tube. We had a local specialty, a stew of pork and clams with bread and a soft goat cheese spread that is delectable and the requisite botle of wine. Espresso afterwards from one of those cups that has me still swooning.

I´ve only visited one museum so far...the tile museum. It was the only time I´ve been lost in Lisbon. Somehow I got disoriented and kept making the same circle on the second floor of the museum and actually got a little panicy at not being able to find my way out of my maze...of course, eventually I did find the stairway down and didn´t have to spend the night in the museum.

OK, I´ve done all this writing and still haven´t adeqautely described the look of Lisbon. The reason I haven´t wanted to go to museums is that the city is a constant delightful maze of narrow winding cobblestoned streets, the apartments are tall and deteriorating and covered with tiles of every imaginable color and geometric design, there are old people resting their elbows on pillows on the window ledges of the balconies of the old deteriorating buildings amidst the laundry that is hanging to dry and old lace curtains. There is a maze of streets impossible to navigate or apply to a grid on a map which is why I haven´t tried, and why I have done so much walking...though there is a fantastic metro system which I rode from station to station yesterday in order to see the amazing tile work that is completely different at each stop.

There are young people here who are wearing the hippest euro fashions of tight jeans, pointy-toed shoes, dolce and gabana sunglasses talking on cellphones. It is a place that is trying hard to catch up to the hipness and sophistication of Spain and France in the midst of the deteriorating history of a seafaring empire.