| Nov 17, 2005 - Lisbon
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 | view of Castelo from the Plaça de Figueira
| | view of old town from the Castelo
| | old streetcars in Lisbon
| | one of the many tile covered houses in Lisbon
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 | | | Monument to the Age of Discovery outside Lisbon
| | closeup of the figures on the monument
| | woman roasting chestnuts
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| If any of you have ever considered coming to Lisbon, hesitate no longer.. I LOVE it here! I arrived early yesterday by overnight train from Madrid. It was a better train ride than my last overnight train, but not very restful. I am just too tall to fit in the little berths, and the trains rock and roll all night long. I managed to sleep a little, but not much. I explored the area around my hotel yesterday and went to bed pretty early. After a good nights sleep, I got up bright and early this morning and have been walking all over the city all day long. I started in the Baixa neighborhood near my hotel, walking all the way down to the river, then walked back and took a trolley up to both the Bairro Alto and Alfama neighborhoods, where there were some great views of the city. It wasn't the best day for taking picutres as it was pretty gray and overcast, but it was cool and great weather for walking. I must have walked at least 10 miles today, which is good considering how many pastries I have been eating. The city is loaded with little cafes, all serving pretty good coffee and loads of differant types of little goodies.
To think that I almost came home early when I was in Madrid... I was feeling pretty burned out and my finances are running low, so when Walter left I seriously considered leaving as well, but I knew I would regret it later if I didn't make it to Lisbon, and now I am so glad I didn't. The city iteself seems a little rundown, but the people are so friendly here. There are trolley cars, just like in San Francisco, and a bridge designed by the same guy who did the Golden Gate bridge, it even looks the same, only it's red not orange. It's amazing how different it feels here than Spain. The people smile and make small talk with me everywhere. I have talked to more locals here in 2 days then I did 3 weeks in Spain. Not to say the Spanish aren't friendly, they just seem rather 'indifferant'. No matter where I travelled in Spain, it seemed that people weren't very interested in helping me. Whether I asked a question or if I tried to strike up a converstaion, they just couldn't be bothered. This is a generalization of course, as I did meet some very nice Spaniards too, but the majority seemed rather cold. This morning, the 2 girls in the little restaurant near my hotel greeted me with huge smiles and giggled at my bad Portuguese. They chatted with me the whole time, politely correcting my errors in speech and asking me questions in English. I hardly spoke any English in Spain and don't know how Americans get by who don't speak Spanish. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough in Spain, I don't know. I do know that I don't have to try hard at all here. Slowly but surely, my ear is becoming accustomed to hearing Portugese and I am surprised at how much I understand (when they speak slowly that is). At first it just sounded like a series of shhhh's and zzzz's, kind of like Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island with a stuffy nose. Everyday I am able to understand more and more. It really makes me want to study it, as it is a very pretty language.
I was finally able to burn my photos to a CD and upload them at an Internet cafe. I tried in Spain, but 2 differant places weren't able to do it. The guy at the first photo shop just gave it back to me, shaking his head and spitting out his words so fast, I couldn't understand a thing he said. The 2nd shop I went to told me that the pictures were taken in movie mode and therefore they couldn't do a thing. I knew for a fact they weren't movies, but when I tried to tell them, the girl just walked away from me without another word. I was beginning to worry that there was something wrong with my disk, and that all the pictures I had taken were lost, but the first day here, I walked into a little photo finishing place next to my hotel and was shocked by how quick the girl behind the counter greeted me and how nice she was. She took my disk and lickity split burned it to a CD without a problem. She then aksed me where I was from, where I had learned to speak Portuguese, where I was going, etc.
I am beat, time for another cafe con leite and another little 'pastel de nata' (a small, custard tart, mmmm}. Tomorrow I will go to Belem, one of the suburbs and if it's sunny, go back up to the Bairro Alto viewpoint to take some pictures of the city. |
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