Sometime in March or April, I mentioned to my friend Bruno, from App, that he should visit Spain. A few messages back and forth decided it--he was coming. In mid-May, I had a visitor! The first weekend he was here, Bruno and I enjoyed a true Madrileño weekend and experienced the fiestas of San Isidro. We spent the weekend walking around Madrid and getting a tan while the locals dressed in their best chulapo outfits to honor their patron saint.
Monday came, and Bruno visited Barcelona while I worked that week. But then, that Thursday, we hopped on a plane to Lisbon for the weekend. I had been wanting to visit Lisbon for a while, so it only made sense for me to go when my Brazilian friend was coming to visit so I could make him talk to everyone for me. I gathered some last-minute advice from people who knew about Portugal and we were off. I was absolutely astounded by Lisbon! It was more beautiful than I imagined (though it probably helped that I didn't know anything about it) and the food was delightful. We spent our first evening walking around and seeing a few things here and there, and I ate feijoada for dinner, however I have to say I prefer the Brazilian style! Oops. Thursday night we went back to the hostel at a decent hour and got some sleep before starting our first big sightseeing day. Also, our hostel was fantastic and I would highly recommend it!
The next day we got up early and saw practically everything. Our first mission was to climb the hill up to Castelo São Jorge which sits high above the city. We spent a few hours there in the morning, climbing towers and warding off enemies, before coming back down to the city to visit Belém. I'd only seen the miniature Torre de Belém in Torrejón's Parque Europa, but the real thing isn't that much bigger! We spent a few hours lazing in the sun in Belém before stopping to fulfill one of our advised itinerary items: Pastéis de Belém.
These little custard tarts were so good. They gave them to us just as they were being made, along with packets of cinnamon and sugar to make them even more delightful. After eating these on a park bench, Bruno and I checked out the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (a big beautiful monastery) where I left my soul. In Portuguese, the word for alm is alma, which is soul in Spanish. So, naturally, when I saw a box marked "almas" I decided to leave something behind. We then took a tram back into Lisbon proper and sat around to rest for a little while before walking around town, finding an acampada protest similar to the ones that are still going on in Madrid, and having dinner in the Bairro Alto at a Brazilian cafe... another excellent choice. After dinner, we went to hear fado, a type of Portuguese music that was traditionally known to be sung by sailors reflecting on their feelings of loss or life at sea, though now it just refers to a specific pattern of the song. We asked the staff at our hostel if they knew of a good place to hear fado that was not in Bairro Alto (thanks for that tip, Dee!) and they gave us the names of three places that were all in the Alfama neighborhood, so we decided to head that way after dinner and see what we'd find. We saw a few completely packed bars with people having dinner and being serenaded, but we'd just eaten so we wouldn't really be able to take up a table in any of those places.
A few turns through the winding, narrow passages of Alfama took us around for nearly an hour until we found one of the streets noted on our pink post-it of a travel guide. We began to head up the hill in search of some fado bar when suddenly we heard it a man's voice singing out over two guitars' accompaniment. We turned around, and there it was! The exact name and address they'd given us. We opened the door and someone inside gave us the last two seats in the extremely dark house and promptly brought us two very cheap and very delicious glasses of red wine while the man sang and the crowd sat mesmerized. After a few tunes, the lights came up and after about five minutes, a man announced the name of the next singer, and a woman at our table stood up and began to sing. Nobody in the bar spoke during the performances, everyone just sat and watched. Some closed their eyes, others sang along. I recorded.
[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/16517245"]
(João Carlos, host of the evening, sings. A woman at our table sings along)
I wish I were more capable of describing our fado evening. Every time someone finished, someone new would jump up and impress me even more. I've never heard anything like this music before, and even though I got some good recordings through the night, all I wanted to do for days after the show was go back and hear it again. Bruno and I only left because it was past two in the morning and we'd been out since 9am that day.
On Saturday we went to Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco. We took a ferry across the river to Almada, where we then took a bus to the top of the hill to visit Cristo Rei and see the 25 de Abril bridge overlook. We went into the church at the bottom of Cristo Rei, but didn't take the elevator to the top because it seemed kind of pointless. Aside from looking up at the blinding sun to check out Cristo Rei, there wasn't much else to do up there except admire the view, so that's what we did for 30 minutes or so. I couldn't get past the fact that the bridge looked exactly like San Francisco (though I've never been there), so my good friend Wikipedia told me that it was actually constructed by the same company that did the Bay Bridge.
The rest of the day was very laid-back since we'd already seen most of the city, and we decided to just walk around to see if there was anything we hadn't yet discovered. We had lunch in Alfama again and got to see the ancient neighborhood in the sunlight. After a little afternoon break in the hostel, we went out to Bairro Alto in search of Lisbon's best caipirinha. We thought we couldn't find it, even though three different people gave us the name of this place and told us it was very near, so we almost gave up and just went into any bar to have one... but of course, there it was. Just as we'd found the fado place almost by accident, we looked over and found the bar we were looking for just as we'd decided to give up. And yeah, the caipirinhas were really, really good. We wandered a bit more around Bairro Alto before we headed back toward our hostel for a late-night kebab (it was the only thing open at 11pm!) and some delightful cans of Fanta Maracujá (passionfruit!) for our last meal in Lisbon. The next morning we sadly boarded a plane very early after a cab ride that felt like we were in The Fast & the Furious: Lisbon. Bruno did some day trips during the week and I worked, and then we set off to Andalucía...
(Click here to see the rest of my pictures from Lisbon!)
How exactly does a trip to Scotland end up as a surprise? Pull up a seat, I'll tell you. What happens is one night you go out to a bar where you used to go all the time with your Scottish friend. You send said friend a text saying, "Guess where I am?" which later turns into a phone call, which the next morning turns into a flight booked for the following weekend. Oh, nostalgia. You never treat me right.
