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Portugal
November 14, 2006 Seville, Spain
We arrived here this morning from Lisbon, at about 5:30 a.m. Fortunately, the bus station opened just after we arrived, so we had somewhere to sit out of the cold (11° C, or 52° F). We have now left the first country of our trip for good — although we left Spain before, we knew we would return. Portugal, however, is now in our rear-view mirror, at least for this trip.
In Portugal, we spent only eight days, visiting Porto, Coimbra, and Lisbon. In so many ways, Portugal is a different world from Spain, despite the geographic proximity. There are few transportation options between the two countries, as we found out yesterday. When we tried to get a ticket from Lisbon to Seville, we were told there are only two buses per day — one early morning and one late night — and the late one had already sold-out. We tried to find a train to Seville, but there is no such train; only one to Madrid where you can transfer to Seville, which ends up costing more than three-times the bus fare!
As we rode all over Lisbon's subways and buses, we saw a very curious spectacle. An older lady — in her early 70s or so — on a very crowded bus had found a unique way of entertaining herself. She was quite well-dressed with large amethyst earrings, thin but well-groomed white hair, with large, rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses. At first she began her fun by pulling on the purse straps of a young girl in front of her, trying to imitate the act of a pickpocket. When the girl didn't notice or didn't respond, however, the old lady lost interest. Instead, she would just wait for people to get on and try to squeeze past her, and when they would say “Excuse me,” she would pretend not to have heard and put all her force into bumping into the stranger, knocking them off-balance. Some would continue past and merely grumble, while others would curse her, which only made her happier! She would fight with them, call them all sorts of names, and try to get others on the bus to take her side in the fight! Eventually, all of this prankster's adversaries would move to the back of the bus, and she would stalk out her next victim! When one of these unsuspecting passersby lost her balance and grabbed at whatever she could to avoid falling, the old lady responded: “Go ahead, grab me by the waist. I'm used to such abuse by now!”
Eventually we went back to the bus station and got the happy news that two people had returned their tickets for that night's bus, making room for us on the bus to Seville!
Lisbon is a very interesting place. Portugal itself is on the fringe of Europe in more than just a geographical sense, and this is very evident in Lisbon. In many places it seems that there are more Brazilians and Angolans than Portuguese. The level of poverty is greater, and there is a greater sense of danger on the streets. We truly enjoyed Portugal, but were impressed by the contrast between it and Spain.
Lisbon is full of beautiful scenes, and we're glad we got to see it. One of the highlights was taking in a Fado show at a bar called “Caldo Verde” (Fado is often described as a melancholy, soul-searching type of blues, typical in Coimbra and Lisbon).
We also met a lot of great people and spent wonderful, relaxing afternoons in Belém and Bairro Alto. While we didn't get to see some of the more typical tourist sites, like the Castelo de São Jorge or Sintra, we had a great time in Portugal and hope to return there some day!