Wednesday, September 15th -- Lisbon, Portugal

We made our way back to Carlos' place, meeting his father on the way. Arriving at their home, I met his mother. She speaks no English, although Carlos and his father like to joke about how she thinks she does. Since both of us speak very bad French, we've settled on that as the language of communication. As a result, the word "mange!" uttered by a Portuguese woman will forever be burned into my memory. I slept for a few hours before lunch. Lunch must be the biggest meal of the day. The meal started with a squash soup, then cod with potatoes, carrots, and green beans. They eat it with oil and vinegar poured over everything. Quite good. Afterward, they brought out cheese and fruit. 

Carlos and I went down the street for a cafe (basically and upside-down thick espresso). There's a very nice neighborhood atmosphere here. Everyone knows everybody else. When you meet a man you know, you shake hands in greeting. When you meet a woman, you do the kiss on the cheek thing. We need to adopt this policy in the States. After coffee, we went and had a beer near Benfica stadium where the local soccer team plays. The stadium is the largest of its kind in Europe, with 120,000 person capacity (which Carlos tells me is significantly exceeded during important matches). While having a beer, I tried the local equivalent of having peanuts at the bar. They eat these kind of chic pea things. You peel off the outside and eat the inside. 

We walked back to Carlos' house and I met his sister, brother-in-law, and their young daughter. They had been on vacation in Spain, and had returned bearing gifts. I scored a piece of a very tasty custard cake. Carlos' sister and her daughter have a hilarious little game they play. Neither of them speaks English, but they have a little "Hello, how are you?" exchange in English that they do. 

Carlos has been studying off and on. He attends a University here in Lisbon. He's taken his exams already, but doesn't think he did very well. Supposedly, he may have to take an additional, oral exam. 

That night I ate dinner with the family. It turns out that lunch isn't the main meal of the day -- dinner is just as big! I've discovered that Portuguese mothers fit the same stereotypes as Italians. You have to say that you're full a few helpings before you really are, because they don't take "no thanks" for an answer the first few times. After dinner, we had Porto. It was the first time I'd had really good port, which comes from the city of Oporto in northern Portugal. I really like the bottles it comes in. They are simply black, with the year stenciled in large white letters. 

Carlos and I went out to an area of Lisbon where there are lots of small bars. We got a nice view of Lisbon from atop a hill. We found a hole-in-the-wall bar where they were singing Fado -- traditional Portuguese folk music. There are lots of Fado restaurants where you can pay a lot to listen to the music, but this was the real thing. The place was packed and the people in the bar were taking turns singing. Everyone in the place seems to know the words to all of the songs. 

The next day, we went to Carlos' university so that he could check a grade and register for the next term. We ran into a bunch of his friends, including an ex-girlfriend of his -- quite recently ex. He told me that he broke up with her, but it might have been the other way around. Anyway, it was a slightly tense situation. We then went to an area of town where they had a large monument to the age of Portuguese discovery. They have a huge sculpture depicting the great figures of the famous Portuguese seafarers. We couldn't go into the museum because they had it closed off for the private use of the President of Portugal, who was entertaining the Vice-President of China. In honor of the even, they had a full military parade complete with a band, cavalry, and very mean looking men with very mean looking guns. We saw the President and his honored guest as they did their hand-waving to the crowd. Carlos describes the President as an elected figurehead. Sound much like the US. Carlos and I had our picture taken smiling and shaking hands in the booth they had set up for the gratuitous show of diplomacy. 

We had amazing custard cakes at a cafe that is famous for them. They are called Pastel de Nata and they are to die for. If I ever meet a woman that makes them, I'll be tempted to marry her on the spot. We returned to Carlos' house where I had the pleasure of watching Beverly Hills 90210 with Portuguese subtitles. I guess that it and Baywatch are incredibly popular here. We had spaghetti con carne for dinner. Carlos' mother seems to be on a mission to fatten me up. She's trying to teach me Portuguese as well. She tells me that I have to come back and visit for a month, and I'll speak perfectly. 

That night, we went to a movie with Carlos' friend Michael Pepper (that's how it translates into English) and four girls. We saw Sliver, again with Portuguese subtitles. Afterward, we had a bite to eat at McDonald's. All in all, it was quite the Americanized evening. When we got back, we found out that Carlos got 5 out of 20 on the exam he was worried about. Needless to say, he didn't pass. Nobody was pleased with this news. 

The next day we went to an old castle, St. Jorge, that once housed all of what was Lisbon at the time. The Portuguese sieged it at took it from the Turks who occupied Portugal at one point. There still seems to be strong anti-Arab feeling here. It started pouring down rain, so we decided to go home. We drank ginginha on the way back. It's a liquor made from ginja, a fruit related to a cherry. Good stuff. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching soccer on television. 

The following afternoon, we hooked up with Michael Pepper and went to Cascais, a tourist area a little bit outside of Lisbon. Not very exciting. We'd decided to see Benfica, the local soccer team play, but we were late and so had to go straight there. The problem was that Carlos had forgotten his discount card at home so Michael Pepper and I had to meet up with him at the stadium -- not an easy thing to do. Luckily, we found each other. The game was quite slow and low scoring. Benfica was playing a game against a team from Poland. The opinion was that Benfica was a much better team, so the crowd got more and more upset as the 0-0 tie persisted. Finally, two minutes before the end of the game, Benfica scored and the stadium erupted. 

That night, Carlos' mother prepared a traditional Portuguese meal. It consisted of rice with a number of different kinds of sausages, cabbage, carrots, sweet potatoes, and some kind of meat. Very good. After dinner, Carlos and I played a game of Horse. He beat me. So much for American superiority in basketball. Tomorrow I'm going to go to Lagos, on the southern tip of Portugal. Carlos can't go because of lack of funds (his parents aren't in the mood to facilitate a trip because of his failed class). 

Saturday, September 19th -- Lagos, Portugal

Lagos is a party town. Tourism seems to be its sole reason for existing. They get some visitors from other parts of Portugal, but the people here seem to be mainly Germans with the odd person from another country thrown in. The language of trade is English, and most of the bartenders seem to be Aussies who can't afford to get home. 

The night I arrived, I hooked up with some of the people I met at the train station -- a Kiwi, some people from Holland, and some Germans. We went to a bar that was colorfully named "Sins". One of a the sins was a free jello shot with your first drink. It took us a while to explain to the Germans what a jello shot was. Some things aren't universal, I guess -- probably not a bad thing in the case of jello shots. One drink followed another, and I somehow found myself back in my hostel areound 2:00, just as it closed for the night. 

The next morning I hooked up with the same group and we all went to the beach. We just lay in the sun and swam all day. The water is a bit cold, but it is incredibly beautiful here. On the way back to the hostel, we went shopping and got the fixings for a big pasta dinner. Afterward, I went out drinking with some of my dinner companions. We got back early (around 11:00) and I ran into Peter, a German from before, and the Dutch folks. We all went back out and the B-52's started flying. Peter had a shot called "Only for Heroes". I think he regretted it afterward. Not a hero, apparently. 

I said goodbye to all of my new friends this morning and took a last walk around the coast before going to the train station. 

Monday, September 20th -- Lisbon, Portugal

The bday party barhopped for a while, finally settling in a little, hole-in-the-wall dive. Dark and cozy, just like a bar should be. At one point in the past I had told Carlos about the American drink "Jack with a beer back" (Jack Daniels with a beer chaser). He thought that was pretty cool. Jack Daniels is pretty scarce in Portugal, so we settled for "Abacaso with a beer back". 

A word about this particular kind of alcohol. My guess is that "Abacaso" must mean "Fire Water" in Portuguese. Every country has there version of an Everclear-like substance, and Abacaso is the version in Portugal. Potent stuff. 

Anyway, we got out the poker dice and played Up the River, Down the River with Abacaso. Don't ever do this. After a while, I was having conversations in Portuguese with people I'd never met before (remember, I don't speak more than a few words of Portuguese) and Michael Pepper managed to break his chair. Christo swept us off to another bar, where we managed to lose Carlos. We found him a while later and he explained that he went for a walk and got some air to avoid an unfortunate Abacaso-induced incident. We stopped at a park on the way back home and had a hot dog (don't ask me why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time). Got back around 4:30 and slept until 1:00 the following afternoon. 

Once we felt mostly human again, we went to the train station so that I could make a reservation for couchette to Bordeaux. Afterward, I took Carlos to see Benfica play a team from the algarve called Farense. This game was much better than the first one I saw. Because both teams were Portuguese, there were more people and they were more rowdy. I'm told that when Benfica plays their biggest rival, Porto (the team from Oporto, Portugal, where they make Port), the stadium fills up above its maximum capacity of 120,000 people. Must be quite a sight. Benfica won this game 4-1, much to the pleasure of the fans. 

Copyright (c) 1995, Mike Oliphant