Notes on Portugal, FWIW

Notes on Portugal for what it's worth

Coffee choices:
Cafe: an espresso.
Pingo or cafe pingado:  a macchatto in Italian, or a cortado in Spanish.  an espresso stained with a spot of milk.
Meia-leite: cafe con leche, or cafe au lait.

Those were all I ordered so if you want a big cup of American coffee I don't know what to do for you.

Very important: if they bring you something like bread, or olives, or cheese, or even little butter packets that you didn't ask for, IT IS NOT FREE.  They charge you if you eat it, and don't charge you if you don't.  First time I was in Portugal, it felt like entrapment.  It's not.  They all do it.  Just push it off to the side if you don't want it.  They'll take it and give it to someone else.  That seems a bit unsanitary, but you get used to it.

I didn't really eat at anything other than Tasca restaurants, so if you're into something fancy, you're gonna have to tripadvisor that shit.  Tascas usually look like little cafeterias, nothing hipster or fancy. Usually a lot of old people.  They usually just make a few dishes of the day, and these places display their offerings on paper, handwritten, on the outside of the restaurant.  These places are cheap as fuck and it's like your mom is cooking for you.  Whatever you order, be aware, it will probably come with rice and/or potatoes of some sort, so be careful of ordering side dishes.  It will probably be a fuck ton of food.  A fuck ton of food that you're probably going to think, if you're like me, needs a little bit of hot sauce.  Portuguese is flavorful but not spicy, unless you consider salt a spice.  Don't let the low prices fool you, you will have trouble finishing your meal. Same goes for wine.  Beer, on the other hand, is usually served in the tiniest bottles or glasses.  Why are you drinking beer, anyway?  You're in Portugal.  Drink the fucking wine.

Side note: the desserts in Portugal are stupidly good, provided that you like egg yolks.  Most desserts are some form of yellow, due to the sheer amount of egg goes into everything.  There's one dessert that's literally candied egg yolks in sugar wrapped in rice paper.  Everyone will tell you to eat a pastel de nata, or just "nata."  And you should.  Eat as many of them as humanly possible.  Once I thought I didn't like egg custard, and then realized what a moron I was.

PORTO

Tascas:
Casa espresso rua das oliveiras 6.  Really awesome.  I was the only American in there.      This is a good thing, although now I've just ruined everything.
Casa mundo: it was ok.  It's in guia de routard, so it's full of French people.  I thought Casa espresso was better.
Casa viuva: I ordered a stupidly good grilled bacalhau.  Prices are not as cheap (as the ones above, but still goddamn cheap) and portions are not as big a the other two, but you can walk away without feeling like passing out.

People are going to tell you to get a francesinha.  There multi-layered meat sandwiches drowned in spicy sauce and with an egg on top if you ask for it.  They're like the sandwich version of poutine. Overrated and gross but they're really proud of them.

I went to a really cute place called museu de avo, and the food was ok (in my opinion not better than these old-fashioned places) but the ambiance was fun and  excellent.  Porto has a lot of hipster-ass restaurants, at half the Brooklyn price.

Things to do
For a close beach, go to matozinhos.  The metro goes there in 25 minutes.  It's on the Atlantic, so the water is cold and choppy. Also, very windy.  Prepare to put your shirt on your face to avoid the sandstorm.  Otherwise, very clean and sandy.  The view isn't great, but whatever, you didn't come to Porto for the beach, you came for wine and food.

Matozinhos is Also a great place to get seafood.  If you're in Portugal for sardine season, for the love of God, go.  They're not the same as canned sardines.  And if you don't know how to eat a fish off the bone, learn for chrissake. I went to restaurante de moçambique and the sardines were amazing and 5 large sardines were €8.  Forgettable sides, like under seasoned sautéed green peppers and the ubiquitous boiled potato, but whatever, more room for sardines.

Wine tasting
Go to the other side of the Douro river to Ramos pintos.  It's one of the many Porto wine cellars.  You can walk there over one of their gorgeous bridges.  A tour of the facilities and two glasses of port: €6.  I don't usually like tours... But this was excellent.  Place is gorgeous and full of history and old shit.   Then go to another port cellar and do the same.  You can taste some very expensive port for less than what you'd pay for one cocktail at home.

Walking tours
There's a group called Porto Walkers that gives FREE TOURS.  Some people tip them, some people don't.  Evidently they get paid by hostels to do what they do.  I'm not sure.  They welcomed us into their group when we were seated next to them at Ramos Pintos.  They're SUPER NICE and do city tours twice a day, wine tours, and pub crawls.  Cindy doesn't pub crawl, but maybe you do.

The party scene is really something.  There's one street in area of ******** lined with bars.  People are in the bars, and also partying on the streets.  All night.  I don't know when these people sleep or how they work.  Sunday nights the restaurants are still packed at midnight.  Also, I started eating dinner at 11 pm and my acid reflux situation trying to sleep on a full stomach of choriço was a problem.  I guess this is why everyone is out until 2.  Have to wait for the food to settle, cause of reflux.

Porto has a good light rail system that I still wasn't really able to figure out.  Someone is usually there to help you.  Although, I'm pretty sure that if you never paid to get on, no one would notice.  The stations work on the honor system and I never saw anyone check tickets.  I am a rule follower, but maybe you aren't.  I know I broke a rule by accident twice, once not paying the right zone fare and once not validating correctly.

GUIMARÃES:
Day trip from Porto.  Very cute. Worth it, if you can manage to get through pronouncing the name of the town.  It's something like zhim-er-EYE-nz.  One year of Brazilian Portuguese wasn't enough to make that shit happen for me, so good luck to you.  There's a castle and an old town and it's very walkable from the train station and not overcrowded.  Ate at restaurant called solar do Arco and there was so much good food I was so sad I couldn't eat it all.  Also, the one vinho verde I ordered there was the size of 2.5 glasses so I spent the rest of the day wandering the summer heat dehydrated and in a fog.  This was not a bad thing, being drunk at a castle.

COIMBRA
I didn't give coimbra a chance, really.  By this point, I was pretty tired of old towns.  The university and it's museum, library, park, etc is a big draw but coimbra is HILLY AS FUCK and I just didn't have it in my any more to climb up and down and up and down to see an old library.  People like it here.  It's fine.  I thought I'd use it as a base to go to other places, but changed my mind after A day.  I stayed at a magnificent hostel on the top of the hill, luggage hostel and Suites.  The fact that it was up a hill and away from the center of things kept it much more like a hotel than a hostel.  Breakfast was awesome, good aircon, and the place is gorgeous.  Down side was that if you went down to town, eventually you had to walk back up.

Tasca: Quim dos ossos on rua Antonio vasconcelos.  Meal of the day, including drink, €6.  I told him I didn't want dessert.  So he only charged me 5€!!  That was nice!

tapas mendes, recommended by the hostel.  It wasn't awful, but don't waste your time.  Also had the local amaro called licor beiras: also don't waste your time.  Thin and weak.

LISBON
I don't know what you're into, but if you're into partying and shopping stay near the baixa-chiado station.  It's on the blue and green metro line.  In general, the blue line is a great place to stay near.  Lots of bars, restaurants, a mall, etc.  it's more expensive to eat here, and if you venture a little closer to Rossio station the prices are much cheaper.

I went to Tasca Ze dos Cornos near Rossio and it was so good I'm going back tomorrow.  I ate the freshest grilled sea bass for 9€. The place is small, get there early.

ABeach:  go to Cascais.  The water is nice but really cold.  It is GREAT.  Make sure you have a metro card with enough money on it to go the 4 zones... About €5 round trip.  I learned the hard way... I waited on line with everyone else for 45 minutes before I realized the metro ticket is integrated with the light rail.

Go to sintra.  Read about it.  It's great.  Tourist hell, but you're one also.

Lisbon

Lisbon

God, I love Lisbon.  And I love it more and more each time I visit.

The first time I came to Lisbon is was on an overnight train from Salamanca, where I was studying Spanish for the first time.  I went with a friend from the program, Dennis.  I was about 26, Dennis about 37, a gorgeous, fit gay man out looking for a good time.  The good time involved us in a cramped car for 6, 4 of whom were very young, very annoying French girls.  Dennis on the floor with his head tilted back on the seat, and my legs on either side of his head, the best possible position for us to try to sleep on this train.  He kept joking he was going to perform oral sex on me while I slept, as he was basically in my crotch already.  He did not.

We knew NOTHING about Lisbon, as it had been a last minute decision and we had no guide book.  All I remember was that it was spectacularly beautiful, with its colorful, geometric tiled walls, everywhere, and that the guy in the plaza who was offing to sell us "chocolate" was actually selling weed.  And it was hilly.  Very hilly.

Justin always tells me to get off trip advisor, and in Portugal, I basically have.  There's very nice restaurants, there's more simple restaurants, and there's tascas, which is even more low brow than that, and they're everywhere.  One of the great things about eating at a Tasca is that their menu is posted outside, and it's very traditional Portuguese stuff.  I went to one trip advisor place, and I had to walk inside to see the menu, and I didn't want anything they had there, and I felt badly walking out.  So I've basically been walking into places that look full of Portuguese speaking people and reading the menu, posted outside.

New hostel, new worry that it will be full of people that suck.  I had decided to go to Lisbon earlier than I thought, and the hostel I had already booked for three nights was full, so This one was for one night only.  The last time I stayed in Lisbon, I wasn't thrilled with Part,of town I was in, so I picked a different one this time.

Or so I thought, because this hostel was right down the block from the one I stayed in a couple of years ago.  But this is the greatest thing about google maps.  You can get a real feel for what is around you just by looking at the map.  Restaurants, stores, etc... The last time I was here I had NO IDEA that there was a lot of stuff around me and that the main sights area was really super close to me.  I thought I was in the middle of nowhere.

The hostel is on the 5th avenue of Lisbon.  I'm paying about $22 a night for this hostel, and I'm flanked by Miu Miu and Prada.  That's just CRAZY.  the balcony overlooks the tree-lined pedestrian walk.  Unlike last night, my 6-bed girls only dorm room is fully occupied.  I walk in and no one says a thing.  I exchanged a hello or two, and that was it.  This is officially the most unfriendly hostel I have ever been in.  None of the 5 girls in my room said one word to me or each other from the moment I walked in to the moment I left unless I said something to them first.  The only girl who talked to me was some New Zealander who was eating her dinner in the shared bathroom while I was trying to wash my hands.  And, this is nuts, all 5 girls were out like a light by 11 pm.  There was a part of me that wanted to go out to see a forró band, and a part of me that just wanted to sleep.  When I saw that all of these quiet ass girls were asleep, I got so excited thinking that I would get a full nights uninterrupted sleep, I just stayed home.

9 hours.  I slept 9 hours and it was AMAZING.  3 girls packed up and checked out so quietly, I didn't even hear them.

I leave for hostel number 2.  This is my last place in Portugal.  I drop off my bags and head for Cascais, a beach town about an hour away.  I don't really care when I get there, and I can't really stay at a beach for more than two hours, so I'm taking my time.  I walk to the cais do sodre train station, an 8 minute walk down the hill.

It's a good thing I'm in no hurry; the train station is PACKED.  like grand central at 5 pm on a Friday.  Of course, my instinct is to turn around and devise a new day's plan, but fuck it.  I'll get there eventually.

The line for the ticket booth, sinuous and long.  The lines for the 4 automated machines, long and full of tourists who I'm sure can't figure out the system.  I wait on the line for a person.  FOR 40 MINUTES.  I cannot BELIEVE I waited patiently for that long.  Eating the most amazing pastries from café A Brasileira I bought helped.  A pastel de nata where the top was crunchy like a creme brûlée and an amazingly dense, moist, and sticky queijada de laranga, like an orange egg custard flavored tapioca cake.  And yes. I ate them both.  Probably a bad idea.  A couple from Amsterdam complains to me that the Amsterdam system is so much better, that this would never happen.  I joke that in New York someone would be dead by now.  I argue that this is the trade off: you can't have low priced food, wine, and accommodations and then have perfectly logical infrastructure.  They agree.

I get to the window to discover that if you have a declining balance card with enough money on it, YOU DONT HAVE TO BUY A SEPARATE TICKET.  I basically waited on line for nothing.  I already had the declining balance card, and all I needed to to was walk to the nearest metro about 3 minutes away and fill it.  I'm not even mad; I think this is hilarious.  All they needed was one person to direct all of these people to the metro to buy a declining balance card for an extra 60 cents or so.  I miss the train by 10 seconds.

No matter, the next train is leaving in 20 minutes and I get a seat instead of having to stand.  This new, patient Cindy is a novelty.  She isn't long for this world.

Cascais is a resort town.  And it's fantastic.  There are 7 beaches connected by a walking path.  I choose the first because it's hot out and I know when I'm burned and tired I'm not going to want to walk all the way back to the train.  It's full of families.  I like that because I feel like my things are going to be safe and no one bothers me.  No one talks to me except a girl, about 6, who walks by with her whale-shaped floaty device to "wwwwwwooooooooahhhhhh" at my floaty device.  She is mesmerized.  My floaty device rules here in Portugal, too.

The beach is sandy and narrow, with lots of beach bars.  There are water sport shacks doing stand up paddle boarding and the like.  The water is clean, not crystal clear, and it is COLD.  Like 60 degrees cold.  Very refreshing on a very hot day but its significantly colder than the catalunya coast. I just love it.

On the way back, I wander around a couple of the other, smaller beaches on the Estoril coast.  They're rocky, but cute, and the water isn't as clear but it's full of locals.  I get a little lost on the way back to the train, but I'm rewarded with views of these incredibly houses.  I'm sure really rich people live and vacation here.  Making a note for the future.

Considering I only ate pastry all day, I'm starving, and I patiently wait for what might be an appropriate dinner time.  I'm in baixa-chiado, the center of tourism and nightlife, and I'm across the street from a restaurant with a €100 tasting menu.  A 10 minute walk away from this part of town puts me at Tasca Ze dos Cornos, and I get a huge, impossibly fresh and delicious sea bass for €9.  I also eat almost all of the hunk of cheese I'm given, some kind of aged goat with a spicy rind.  It's the only spicy thing I've had in Portugal and this cheese is amazing.  The guy is busting his ass waiting all the tables at this tiny place, with only 20 seats.  He's super nice and I'm laughing to myself at the French girls who have absolutely no idea what the menu says, either in Portuguese or in English.  Even the Korean couple next to me is doing better than they are.

I go back to the hostel.  My room is quiet.  There's two nice French girls, and two who won't speak or respond to me.  Bitches, I know you know how to say hello in English.  It's better this way.  The Italian girl is sick.  Everyone is ready for bed by 11.  I don't know how I got so lucky that over the last couple of days, all of the young girls I'm staying with have no desire to go out and party.  I decide to try to dance forró.  The flyer says the doors open at 10:30.  I show up at 11:30, and there's 6 people there and it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time in the foreseeable future.  It's across the street from the long-distance train station, and I just don't think it's wise for me to be sitting around, by myself, at the train station at midnight, so I go home.

I wander around barrio alto a bit, and it's crazy.  People drinking on the street, on the metro, in bars. I'm not taking part.  I don't need to be partying until 4am, trying to talk to people.  I think in my heart, I'm a loner.  At this point, I am so content to wander around, eat great food, see beautiful things, and I'm more than ready to go home, eat some sushi, see my loved ones, and not see a boiled potato for a long time.

Coimbra

I spent my last night in Porto with Mia and my roommates du jour, Wade and Dominique from Vancouver.  We're brought together by our mutual disdain of our now ex-roommate "Wonderwall," who no longer wears shoes, and puts his feet on the table.  I have had more conversations with him in his underwear than in pants, which he has not changed since arrival.  The pants, not the underwear.  I wasn't looking that closely.  Wade and Dominique report that everyone who has witnessed these Australians with their schmoozing and guitar playing has turned to the german girls to ask them what the fuck they're doing hanging out with these guys.  No one seems to understand.

We are laughing heartily.   This is my gift in life: I bring others to say what they are thinking but wouldn't dare say out loud.  I am a muse.  So I buy my new friends a drink at the hostel bar.  This is more generous than it sounds at €1.50 a glass, but they're tickled anyway.  We spent the night at that bar, laughing with Mia who has been my buddy over the last couple of days, and when Australian #2 pulls out his iPhone to play "wonderwall" on speaker while lackadaisically and Inattentively playing uno with the German girls we can't hold it in any more.  We're dying, and I call my boyfriend and tell him he has to make a video of himself playing wonderwall for me.  He and our friend Mike oblige.  I'm a very lucky woman.

I absolutely LOVED Porto.  But it was time to move on.

Coimbra is between Porto and Lisbon.  It's the university town and I believe used to be one of the old capitals of Portugal.

The hostel in Porto is on top of a hill, and I'm happy that the train station is DOWN the hill this time, because coming up it with the luggage was a bitch.  I get to the train station with plenty of time, and the line to buy the ticket is LONG.  I feel like somewhere there is a machine I should be able to use, but I haven't been able to figure these things out yet.  I quickly realize that there's no way in hell I'm making the train at this point, but luckily there's free wifi, and I see that the bus station is a 7-minute walk away, and the next bus is in 1/2 hour.

Of course, that bus station is 7 minutes UP the hill.  Fuck.

I make it in time, and I don't know why I didn't research better.  The bus was practically empty, cheaper, comfortable, and the ride is shorter and goes directly to Coimbra with no stops.  I got to lie down and sleep.  It arrives early.

I take a taxi to the hostel.  It's going up, down, left, right,  up, down again.  Coimbra is hilly as FUCK.   And I'm in the university area, With the old town far below.  So glad I had the sense to take a taxi, but I was further getting the sense that I was NOT going to want to deal.

I've got a little over a week left, and I'm TIRED.  Not even tired of traveling.  Tired of WALKING.  tired of old towns.  Tired of churches.  At this point, a church had better be spec-fucking-tabular to excite me.  I'm over it.  I'm now planning my days around what I'm going to eat.  And truth be told, that's really just fine by me.  The food is the best part!

The Luggage hostel is spectacular.  Were it not for the fact that I'm in a dorm room with bunk beds, you'd think I were in some southern estate or a Cuban mansion.  It's GORGEOUS.  perched on a hill, with a view of the city.  Completely decked out with mid century modern furniture, a patio in the front of the house, one in the back, and two living rooms.  In the early 70s, the fascist regime commandeered this house for their headquarters, and there are jail cells in the basement.  Aaaaaaaand I'm only paying about $20 a night, including a full breakfast.  But the BEST PART about this place is that because it's not in the center of town, it isn't attracting the backpacker type.  Quite frankly, it doesn't seem to attract too many people.  This place is practically empty.  Coimbra, being a university town, is a little dead in August.  Most of western Europe, if inland, is dead in August.  Everyone goes to the coast for vacation.

A quick google search gets me to a Tasca just down the road.  I order their Brazilian feijoada and a water.  The menu says its €6, and he brings me a cazuela (casserole dish?) FULL of it.  I was really hoping this feijoada didn't have innards, because traditionally they do, but I poked around and the black-stained meat seemed like flesh. And not offal.  Whatever, it all tasted like meat-soaked beans.  It was great.  He says "no coffee? No dessert?" And when I say no, he charges me only €5.  I ask if he's sure.  I still can't figure this out.... During the day, is water and coffee included?  This is the second time I've refused coffee or dessert and have been charged LESS than the posted price.  Whatever, I love this place.

I google map my way to the center.  Instead of mapping the route, I just follow the little blue dot.  But The roads are all twisty and windy and dead end in certain places and Google tells you nothing about elevation.  I'm walking up hills, down hills, back up again.  It takes me forever.  I'm unimpressed when I get there.  Boo.  I go to dinner at the place the hostel recommends.  I am also unimpressed.  I get the appetizer platter even though I'm a control freak and only hear a couple of things I think i like.  I'll be carefree!  Well, evidently pâté here means mayo-based salad.  I hate surprise mayo.  There's some fritter situation which I like less than surprise mayo.  The padrón peppers are under salted and over-oiled.  It's fine. I'll live.  I try the local digestive, licor beiras.  It's watered down and kind of bland,  One mediocre meal in weeks.  I'll live.

So the next day I plan only to go read in the sun.  I'm not going to even venture out to the closest coast, Figueira da Foz, about an hour away.  The hostel makes me a reservation to see fado, which I've never done.  I'm sure it will be terrible, but it's only €10, and usually these things accompany a shitty dinner reservation for much more money, and what else am I doing?

I had booked a third night in Coimbra at a different hostel a day earlier, and I call them to cancel it. I decide to go to Lisbon a day early.  I speak to them in Spanish, I tell them I'm cancelling, they say no problem.  No email confirmation.  I email them twice to ask for the confirmation of cancellation, which they ignore.  It's only $20 a night, and if that's the price to pay to get out of here early, that's fine by me, although I'm definitely complaining to the booking agent.  Because that's what I do.

I'm in a 6-bed dorm room and on the first night, one tiny Japanese girl shows up with a rather large, old-school, hard-sided luggage.  No wheels.  It's PACKED with about 100 space bags, and she's digging through them to find her glasses.  She can't, and immediately goes to sleep at 9 pm.  This is GREAT, I think.  That is, until 8am where she is desperately trying to get all of those crinkly, plastic space bags back into her suitcase, which she CANT, and the locks don't seem to work.  I was going to ask her to take it outside, but it's like waiting for the bus.  You wait long enough, you just think it's going to show up.  This bitch was trying to close that thing for 40 MINUTES.  I want to get up and stuff her in there and lock her in.  pro tip: if you need space bags to get all your shit into a piece of luggage, YOU HAVE TOO MUCH SHIT.

I plan my whole day around getting lunch, to the only place Trip advisor highly recommends.  I don't think this is a big food town.  I finally figured out the easiest way to get to the old town, and of COURSE I don't have to go up any hills, just around the perimeter.  You know, math.  You never really need to go up to go down. Getting to the restaurant, that's a different story.  It's on some tiny street, and I can't figure out the most direct route.  It takes me 40 minutes to an hour, instead of the 20 it should have.  Even that doesn't bother me, because I was out in the sun and this was basically my activity.  Working up an appetite, working on my tan.

I get there and it's closed.  I'm nonplussed for some reason.  I wind up at a tiny little place called 007 around the corner where the day's menu is scribbled on white paper.  These places are like a beacon to me.  It's full 9of Portuguese people.  I order the chanfana, a local delicacy of roast kid in wine sauce.  Another enormous cazuela of meat, more boiled potatoes.  It's delicious.  You could stew dog shit in Wine and rosemary and it would be delicious, but this was really Nice.  More people should eat goat.

I go to the fado show. It's run by the cultural center.  Fado is a portugal's sad, evocative, traditional guitar music, kind of like Spain's flamenco, without the dancing.  In Coimbra, it's traditionally sung by men, where in the rest of the country, it's traditionally sung by women.  And in Coimbra, it's a serenade, either to a woman, or to the town, or to the university which fado is a big part of.  There's a special, wide fado guitar, accompanied by a traditional Spanish flamenco guitar.  The set was about an hour, and I really enjoyed it.  It was was really beautifully sung, and the guitar playing was lovely, especially since all I'd heard on a guitar for the past week was "wonderwall."  Certainly exceeded my very low expectations.  Afterwards, they invite you into the patio for a tiny shot of port, which I quickly down and walk out.  I wanted to make it to the the pastry shop near the hostel before it closed.

Right before I get to the pastry shop, it occurs to me that I never paid for the show.  I had a reservation, and I noticed that the people in line with me we're giving the lady some paper ticket, but when I was about to tell the woman at the door that my hostel made a reservation, she cut me off and said, "American? Please fill out this survey when the show is over."  I sat down and figured they'd charge me later, but they never did and I totally forgot about it.  The hostel didn't pay on my behalf, either.  I felt really badly; I enjoyed the show!

I go to a nearby bar to watch the sunset in their very large patio overlooking the city.  One vinho verde, filled to the rim, 90 euro cents.  I can't believe this town.  I walk back to the hostel, and I have a glass of port with the owner.  I decided to skip dinner and drunkenly FaceTime friends in my now COMPLETELY UNOCCUPIED dorm room while I stuff my face with Portuguese desserts. I don't even know what they are, some kinds of cake with a lot of bright yellow stuff on it.  Portuguese desserts, unless chocolate based, are almost always filled with and topped with, some combination of egg yolk, cream, sugar.  Both of these cakes were great, and I got through about 2/3 of each of them.  Because it's a totally reasonable, grown up decision to have wine and cake for dinner.

I was so excited to have my own room.  That is, until about 1 am where all of the sugar I consumed (I was warned by Mia that vinho verde was particularly difficult on the gut but I did not heed her warning) burned my insides.  And simultaneously, I got it into my head that this lovely hostel was too good to be true.  Remember that movie "hostel"? The one where everyone at the hostel was tortured?  Yeah, clearly that was what was going to happen to me.  It was too quiet and peaceful and perfect there.  So I didn't sleep for two and a half hours, and I had a blazing headache and indigestion.

I swear off vinho verde and desserts, and I excitedly head towards Lisbon.

Portugal, I love you. But I don't want to die here.

Diogo recommends “deserted beach,” but after my Lagos adventure, I wanted the closest thing possible. I take the ferry to Faro beach. It's a 35-minute ride. No problem. It's pretty damned empty. And gorgeous, of course. It's chilly, until you lie still in the sun. The water is cold. I get a tan. OK. On the way there, I meet the two girls from my room who don't really want to talk to me. They're fine, just into doing their own thing, I guess. So I sit next to them on the ferry and read my book. I guess this would be awkward if I gave a shit about talking to them. But I don't. When I am returning from the beach, they get on the same ferry. Once again, we don't really talk other than “oh, hi again.” The ferry docks, and I walk a small distance behind them, so as to not have a conversation with them, and to NOT not have a conversation with them. I had just been thinking to myself about my impending birthday. I had a great idea, and I was just kindof thinking that I was really happy with my life. That I felt really great. That I had so much to look forward to. This has been the shittiest of shitty years, and for a number of months, without getting too deep or depressing, I was really doubtful that I had anything left to really look forward to. So I was just pontificating, reflecting, looking at the ground to make sure I didn't trip over any cobblestones. I hear a car horn honk, and one of the girls stops short and says “Oh,” rather softly. It was her “oh,” not the little honk that stopped me in my tracks. IT WAS THE FUCKING TRAIN. Going at top speed. No barrier arm. No flashing lights. No repetitive ding-dong-ding-ing that tells you TO FUCKING STOP WALKING. The car horn was, in fact, the train that would have hit me had these girls not given me pause. I know that in America, we have warnings on shampoo bottles, instructions on cigarrette packs and eggs for chrissake. But there was no warning whatsoever that this train was about to run my ass over. It really freaked me the fuck out, and I quietly walked back with these girls who were like “it's fine, you would've seen it,” but I don't think I would have. My knees were wobbly for the next hour. I thanked these girls for saving my life. They didn't really seem to give a shit about that either. I immediately get on the computer and email a certain someone and tell him I want him to have everything I own should I meet my untimely death. And then I see Evelyn, the girl I hung out with in Granada!! Small world, and it's pretty much the only thing that made me feel a little better.

Faro and Lagos, Portugal

I figure out that instead of going up through Spain through dry country that I can go from Sevilla to the Algarve coastline in Portugal, up to Lisbon, and take a night train to my final destination in Madrid. I'd never been to the Algarve, and I spent one full day in Lisbon the first time I went to Spain. I can't buy a bus ticket online. I go to the bus station, and she says that tomorrow's first departure is at 3 in the afternoon. I'm pissed, because I couldn't lose another day in Seville. I don't know why I even thought to ask, but I asked if there was a different bus company that left earlier. There was!! I could leave at 8 am. So I'm ahead of the game. I get on the bus, and I'm not even really tired, so I write all the thoughts in my head down, and I look at my watch. 2 hours go by in an instead! Only one more hour to go! Winning! Of course, the bus does not take another hour. It takes two. A minor setback. I made the hostel reservation just the other day, and I don't have a printout with directions. But I was smart enough to keep the page open with the instructions. But I still have trouble finding it, because I'm a complete spazz, and now I'm sweating and OF COURSE the streets are all cobblestoned, the one thing my brand new 360 degree spinning luggage can't handle. I use my shitty portuguese, and successfully ask a man where this street is. He says “I think it's down there!” I argue, as I was just there. I ask someone else. She says the same. The old man basically says “I told you so.” I go to the square I was just in, and I realized I had passed it twice. I can't check in the hostel, which is fine because I already pre-packed for the beach!! All my stuff was in my day bag, I was already wearing my bathing suit under my clothes, and with a room all to myself yesterday I had the luxury of depilating whatever needed to go yesterday!! It turns out there is no actual beach without another bus ride or a ferry ride. The ferry doesn't come for another 45 minutes, and takes 35 minutes to get there. Fuck. I figure maybe instead, this is a good time to go to Lagos, which Seline and Jesse described as the most beautiful beach they have ever seen. OK! I'm starving, having missed breakfast, and I find this little cafeteria full of amazing looking sweets and a menu of the day- they only have a couple of different dishes each day, and that's all you have to choose from. I love places like this! And today is bacalhao day! I somehow am able to avoid eating all of the sweets, and order soup and bacalhao. That's right, soup in the middle of the summer. Yesterday, in Sevilla, it was about 92 degrees and I'm fighting heat exhaustion. Now I'm ordering soup. Evidently, they really like soup in Portugal. Everyone has a soup of the day. Special summer soups. It's almost chilly here, certainly by Iberian standards. The soup is some kind of bean soup, thin but nice. Then comes the bacalhao- an ENORMOUS portion of something- consistency somewhere between a stew and a salad- it was the salt cod, and a cream sauce made of carrots and onions. So good! And only 4 euros. I could barely eat half, and I waas starving! It's called Cinderela. Like me! I'm going back for dessert later. I am having a GREAT DAY!! Portugal is an hour behind Spain! I gained an hour! HAHA! Back to the bus station, only a 6 minute walk withouth my suitcase, armed with my newly acquired sense of where shit is, a daypack, rudimentary portuguese, and a fresh bikini like, I get to the station at 12:30. The bus is at the station, ready to go. I ask the bus driver if I can buy a ticket on the bus. He said yes! I made it! I am SO CLEVER! This is where things start going south. I ask the driver how long it will be, reading somewhere that it was about an hour away. Wrong. He says about 2 hours. But really, it's almost 3. It's the local. I get to Lagos, and the beach is not right there. It's a port. I have to walk 15 minutes. I think enough to ask when the bus back to Faro is. The bus is at 5:15, only about 2 hours away. IT'S THE LAST BUS BACK. Faro is a dinky little down, evidently, and Lagos is where all the people go to spend their weekend. Guess I got all THAT backwards. So, in summary, today I got up, took a 3 hour bus ride to Faro, and now have to travel about 5 hours back and forth, just to be on the beach for less than two hours. Yeah, the beach was nice. Who gives a shit at this point. The water's cold. Fuck. I go into the bathroom. There are urinals. Why are there urinals in the woman's bathroom? Portugal is weird. I get out, and see the little man sign outside. It's not like I even confused the words. Due to the other day's gastrointestinal distress, I spend the whole time at the beach feeling like I am going to barf up the bacalhao, like I ate so much that there's a piece in my throat and there's no room for it to go down. And I didn't eat that much. I almost do throw up on the beach. I sit behind three English girls, one of whom is freaking the fuck out because she had a crazydrunkhostelnight last night, and she got SO drunk, that something happened that left her bruised and all scratched up and horribly embarassed. She had a bruise on her leg about 2 fists in diameter, and she was truly horrified, and I guess did some regrettable things with some guy, so much that she couldn't seem to take her hungover head out of her hands the whole time. Her friend deletes all pictures showcasing the incident. They now tell each other all of their torrid, tawdry, salacious shagging stories in gruesome and significant detail. I pretend I don't understand any of it, so they keep going. Really, the highlight of my day so far. I am now paranoid that I am going to be stuck here, so I leave the beach early, having at least gotten a little beijo from the Portuguese sun. Whatever. It's pretty. I'm not going to be all miserable about a couple of bad choices today. There's no problem getting a bus back. No one goes TO Faro for the weekend. But me. I start talking to the bus driver in Portuguese. He asks me if I am sozinha, a delicate way to ask “are you here alone by yourself?” and I say yes. He can't believe an american girl is here sozinha. I have a feeling in Portugal as well, a girl is not sozinha for long. The hostel is sparkling clean, and only a year old. It's playing a non-stop soundtrack of U2 and Bob Marley. Not a good sign. What the fuck is it with Europe and U2? Everywhere I go... it's one thing to be playing American music the whole time, but U2 from the early 90's?? I mean, I like all that as much as the next guy but my god. The man carries my bag up the stairs so I don't have to. I think my room only has a total of three people in it. An American who has been stufying in Amsterdam and her friend from there who is German. They don't have much interest in talking to me. Which is fine. It's freezing outside, and I wear pants and long sleeves for the first time in my whole trip. I ask the guy for a recommendation for dinner, even though I still haven't regained my appetite from this shitty stomach situation. Maybe a good meal is the answer. The girl from the hostel looks diappointed that I don't want to have their nightly dinner with the hostel people. This is the last thing I want. He recommends a little place around the corner, Cantinho da Ronha, away from the oceanfront, where everything is twice the price. Sounds great. This dinner was ridiculously good. More soup (I'm COLD now!) and a plate of about 8 large sardines, fresh off the grill, olives, delicious crusty and chewy bread for dipping in grill juice. The local beggar cat is my new best friend. It takes the waiter until dessert time to finally speak to me in his excellent English... it was so nice he let me practice. He said he had to practice his English, as all he gets are the french. And he's “up to here” with the french. Me, too. I refuse dessert, because I was worried about upsetting my stomach. He says “I hope you are not worried about getting fat, because you are perfect.” Well, that was a nice end to a spectacular meal. I walk around outside, looking for a place to have a nice glass of wine. There is preactically NOTHING going on. It's Friday night. A small cafeteria or two had a couple of people, but really not much to speak of. I go back to the hostel. There's a tapped keg, and a mess of boys, mostly Australian and Dutch, partying on the patio- some drinking game where each person has a sound and you have to remember the sounds and repeat them or something, I think I've played it before, but basically it sounds like Jurassic park on the patio. I help myself to a rather lofty glass of port and ask the girl at the desk what I owe her. Nothing, she says. I see two guys, a little older than me, carving into a ginormous watermelon. One is Diogo, who is 1/3 owner of the hostel. He opened the hostal a year ago, it's not even finished yet, but he's spend day and night for over a year doing all the work on the building with his partners. He lives there, and has been hiring local people who come to him knocking on the door, begging for jobs. The building is a famous and important house in the community, and it was vacant for a long time, and the neighborhood, instead of being annoyed at the idea of a hostel opening in the community, is really excited to see the home being reconstructed and business brought to the community. Diogo is warm, and friendly, and treats everyone, including these drunk, stupid, kids like longtime friends. I asked, “how can you take living with all this all the time?” He says, “some nights, I join them.” Diogo tells me that Portugal has the best hostels in the world, and that there's a commitment to service that Spain and other places do not have. This is not the last time I will hear about the Portuguese talking shit about Spaniards. I wind up hanging out with Diogo the whole time...he was very smart, and very interesting. In the end, I was treated to a fake and very drunk argument between two Dutch boys and a French guy. The French guy couldn't have had more of a pepe-le-pew accent if he tried. It went something like this: “Everyone hates the French!”“Everyone LOVES the French!” “You French guys are so short. Look at you. How tall are you anyway?”“And what about the Dutch... with your weed, and your heroin, and your whores, and your BICYCLES?” I nearly fell off my bean cushion. Sometimes, a night in a hostel is EXACTLY what you need.