Lisbonne, un tour à courir

Hitting you with back-to-back posts today, as I am just getting back to the internet world. I actually left Madrid on Wednesday, and thus wrote that post then, but upon arriving in Lisbon, I realized that my hotel did not have wireless internet. Instead of searching for it across the city, I figured that you all could hold out for a couple days, as I knew my stay was quite short.

Lisbon was the ultimate trip of convenience; the initial plan after Madrid had been to go to Barcelona and visit with more Penn people. However, flights were way too expensive on both ends of the journey to justify such a short stay, and I know that there will be other weekends for Barcelona. Lisbon was cheap, close, and was a nice jumping off point for my next destination. Thus, I dove right in, and I am very glad I did. The whole of my journey lasted just over 36 hours, so I knew I had to make the most of it. By the time I had dropped my bags off and settled into my hotel, the clock had just struck six o’clock in the evening, a perfect time it seemed to explore the city. Two surprises awaited me; it was already pitch-black night, and the city was empty. I guess the time change from Madrid threw me off a bit, but I had been expecting a thriving town at sunset, and instead found a quiet, dark city. No worries however, as I was able to see many of the traffic circles and squares featuring excessively tall statues. Apparently the Portuguese are proud of basically two things: their liberation and their exploration. Still not sure what Portugal was liberating itself from all these times (I’ll get to my struggles with the Portuguese language later), but they do have plenty of statues commemorating it. I saw plenty of them during my first night out, and after a few wrong turns into shady neighborhoods, I hit the bed early to prepare for the big day of tourism.

Each time that I planned out my sightseeing itinerary in Lisbon, I kept looking at maps that made it seem that Lisbon was very much a walking city. Nowhere near the size of Madrid, Lisbon seemed like a nice little coastal city, with most of the touristy stuff crammed into a small area along the water. I set out early in the morning for what I thought would be a leisurely day of seeing the sights and taking in the culture. What the maps all collectively failed to mention, however, was that Lisbon is a city of many hills, and it rivals Lyon in its collection of winding, never-ending staircases. Thus my leisurely tour felt like a running tour, complicated by the fact I kept making wrong turns, which ended up leading me up and down the wrong hills. By the time night fell this time around, I was more than happy to join in the seemingly Lisboan spirit of heading to bed early, exhausted from a marathon of walking.

That being said, all that walking was in fact worth it, as I saw some pretty amazing things along the way. Lisbon has plenty to offer, from numerous cathedrals to the national parliament to a bull fighting ring (sadly, this is only open in the summertime). The highlight was definitely the 11th century Moorish Castle, overlooking the city and home to some of the best panoramas of Lisbon. Perched on a hilltop high above the coast, you could see how this castle was the key to the defending the city back in the day, even if most of the inside had been destroyed by various renegade invaders. The view revealed a city that really did come to life in the daytime, a pleasant surprise after the previous evening. Exploration of that city did provide many worthwhile sights, even if I did not spend too much time at each one. Now I can say that I somewhat understand Portuguese culture, even if I have no chance with the language.

Of all the other languages I have experienced on this trip, Portuguese was the first one that I had never been exposed to before, in any setting. As such, I had no clue what to expect. Right before I left, I bought a Portuguese/French pocket dictionary in the hopes that it would help me survive if needed in this mysterious land. However, it was of little help, as I may have learned more French from it then Portuguese. By the end of my two days, I can marginally understand a written sign (basically anything remotely close to French I’m good with, otherwise no chance), but the spoken word sounds just like Russian to me. A couple people on the street made the mistake of saying something to me in Portuguese, to which I kind of blankly replied in my one word of Portuguese, “sorry?”. The nice thing about businesses was that everyone spoke English; I guess it is almost that the Portuguese realize the minimal international presence of their language (outside of Brazil), and instead of fighting it, everyone spoke English. They did not seem as violently proud of their language as the French (side note: a lot of French people in Portugal, no clue as to why), and as such were more than happy to provide nearly every written posting in both Portuguese and English. For me, that was wonderful.

Yes, it was a short little detour to Lisbon, yet a fun one at that. Initially I had hoped to convince a fellow Quaker to accompany me on my journey, but after that failed (boring things called classes got in the way for some), I went at it alone. It finally hit me as we were landing at the Lisbon airport that I had entered a country where I did not speak the language and knew absolutely no one, quite a daunting proposition. I found that seeing a city solo is an experience in and of itself, and I am glad that I did not let the fear of appearing alone stop me from discovering a new culture.

Another day, another country, and yet another flight. Having fun yet? I sure am.