Second impressions

After our first full day in Lisbon, I’m kind of feeling around for words to describe the place. At one level it feels very genuine – it’s both aged and textural like an historic city should be, and dirty and grimy in a very authentic way with all the graffiti and litter and general detritus that a working city has. There are a lot of people begging for money, sleeping in doorways and so on, and they look more haggard than I’m used to, but again, perhaps not more than any other similar city. I can’t say whether the recent economic conditions have changed that, or if it’s always been so.

It is also highly tourist oriented in the historic, central areas we wandered through today. It’s the constant tension I find in being a tourist, because there are popular things I want to see, but there is a part of me the wants to crawl up and die when I’m one of the millions. There’s no doubt that the city sees tourists as a commodity, and if there is one thing we have definitively learned, it is that you can’t just show up at any old eating establishment and expect it to be any good. The average time for restaurants to turn around orders is in the vicinity of 8-10 minutes, and the food quality this far fully reflects the time spent lovingly preparing it. More care and attention to choice of venue is very much needed! We’ve made pretty pragmatic choices so far, but we are going to need to step into some little local places and take a different type of punt I think.

For all that, today we found out that the apartment is indeed pretty well located. We walked down the Av da Liberdade towards the historic city, and found it’s only about 2km to the River Tagus. The route is basically a sequence of grand squares with monumental and often fountainous centrepieces connected by narrow cobblestoned streets. Regardless of the food quality, it’s a nice backdrop to eat and drink against.

We filled the day with classic tourist things. We went to the tourist information centre, which is always a great place to meet the locals. Then we walked the main touristy streets, went to one of the museums, listened to Hotel California sung in Portuguese by one of the many street performers, and attempted to locate and purchase items from something that would be a bit like what we think of as a supermarket.

Nothing screams “you’re in Lisbon” quite as much as hearing Hotel California sung in Portuguese on the ancient marble steps that medieval seafaring explorers left and returned from…

Given that day 1’s shopping was done in two minuscule local shops that would both have comfortably fit in the fruit and veg section of our local Coles in Curtin, it was a revelation to find one today that would have also probably spread into some of the jams, soups and alcohol aisle.

The day was capped off by the arrival of Espen, Ragnhild and Marie just before dinner (don’t mention the dinner!). As it always is, it’s like days rather than years, and to see them climb out of the taxi from the third floor window was all the sweeter for knowing this time it wasn’t me carrying a suitcase up those b****y stairs!

Other highlights of the day were taking a photo of what looks like a tram merging with a bus, and the kids coming back at dinner looking like extras from the Mary Poppins chimney sweep song after trying to hide literally under the restaurant in a game. More power to them for trying, and let’s hope the bottle of liquid we bought turns out to actually be washing detergent when we use it as though it was.

So tomorrow the plans are not complicated. Go out, find something for breakfast, see some castles, go to a restaurant that only other members of the fashion elite are expected to attend, that sort of thing. Only time will tell if we succeed in glory or die gloriously in the attempt. Dying pathetically looking the wrong way crossing the road, no matter how feasible, is simply not an option.