Written 8/16
83 km/h Ext. Temp 28 C
-reads the scrolling marquee on this train
We are on a train in our second leg of our journey out of Portugal and back into Madrid.
Portugal started off rather poorly. We groggily got off the train after an fitful night of rest and went to buy a ticket back to Madrid for the next day. We were supposed to meet Chi Linh Uyen and all the WYD crew in Madrid around 1pm. and were hoping for a time around then, but turns out Lisbon only has one train to Madrid, the sleeper car. It was full for that night. However, I insisted that we needed to be back in Madrid and asked for alternate routes. The ticket person reluctantly did some searching and found that there was a way. 4 stations. 6:45am leave time and 10:00 arrival into Madrid. Great. Also this was after waiting an hour in line where a tiny old woman kept trying to cut and people kept yelling at her. He told us that we didn’t need reservations and mumbled something about it being free with our Eurail passes. No reservations? I don’t know about that… I asked him if we could just buy tickets anyway since I wanted to be sure that we didn’t get into trouble, especially if we needed to be there at 6:45, but he kept saying that we could do it in the morning. So we ended up buying ticket at the self service ticket machine.
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| Overnight trains for the win |
After that headache we jumped on the metro, following Google Map’s instructions, in the direction of Francisco’s home. [Francisco is a friend of a friend and graciously opened up his home to us for the night that we were in Lisbon.] The directions were clear enough. Blue line, switch to the Yellow, ride that to Rato station and then walk down Rua de Lapa. We got to Rato fine, jumped off, but Rua de Lapa was nowhere to be found. We also weren’t equipped with a map since the tourism office wasn’t open yet. What ended up happening was another session of wandering, this time the streets of residential Lisbon, for around two and a half hours. We asked multiple people including policemen and security guards for directions but their attempts were either confusing or they didn’t know of the street. We did stop for food for a bit and talked to a really nice girl behind the counter with solid English skills. At one point we finally stopped and I just pulled out my laptop. Apparently Lisbon is doing a huge WiFi network thing and had a free 10 minute trial. I got walking directions, but it was all up hill, the humungous hill we just went down, so we found an alternate route using a public bus. We went to the stop and waited for 45 minutes. Lucky for us, a) Lisbon transportation is known to be horribly slow b) it was a national holiday so it was even slower. That also explains why it took us 2 hours to find a place to eat since all the stores were closed. We ended up abandoning that and walking up the hill. Still, Google map was difficult since Lisbon is full of small alleyways that are unlabeled or labeled poorly.
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| One of the parks we stopped at to rest our feet while lost. |
Eventually we found the apartment and were greeted with pecks on the cheek by Theresa, Francisco’s mom. Apparently Francisco was out getting food. Theresa went into mom/tour guide-mode and sat us down with a map. She was shocked that we only had less than 24 hours to visit her city and insisted we go fast to see everything. She mapped it out for us, expanding history and little architectural facts about column work and tidbits of cool things. She had so much Portugal pride and everything seemed to link to Portugal’s travels. From their spices to their tiling, every aspect of Portugal was based off of their amazing travel experiences. Francisco came back and immediately we realized he was not his mother’s copy. His favorite music was rock. He dropped out of college and his job in another city to come home. No friends and socially awkward, but his mother made him do couch surfing in order to be less shy. She thought it would help. Throughout the day it was funny/awkward to see the angsty son/fussy mother relationship. We were able to shower and Theresa insisted that Francisco take us to our first area, Betlem. After much fussing he agreed. Fist we needed to get a new subway/train card for Lisa because she already lost it. Or it might’ve been me, so oh well.
We went to the store to try and buy a new card/charge Francisco’s but all the stores were closed on account of the holiday. We went to the tram station instead but it was again close/super slow. We were able to meet three Australian kids who were on their way to Betlem as well and then flying out for World Youth Days. They seemed like a lot of fun and assured us that World Youth Days were a fun time. We abandoned the train and went to the train. Ran into more trouble while buying train tickets with the machine and so it ended up just having Lisa jump on the train ticketless. We luckily weren’t checked for tickets because the fine is a hefty 50 Euros.
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| Famous Pastries. |
Betlem was fun, we had their world-famous pastries, saw the monuments, went to the fine art museum and monastery and church of Jeronimo. Afterwards Lisa and I went to the main plaza in town—Francisco left us after the monument and before the museum—and walked around. Theresa had suggested that we go to the castle of Sao Jorge, but it seemed far and considering how poor our luck with public trans[stands]portation was, we opted not to try and figure it out instead we wandered from the main area into Chiada and to Barrio Alto, finally walking back to the house with the aid of Theresa’s map.
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| Art Museum in Betlem |
When we got back to the house we met the couch surfers who were staying with Francisco and Theresa. Theresa frequently hosts couch surfers, travelers who use couchsurfing.org in order to set up hosts with spare room in their homes. She has hosted over 300 surfers in the past year. Her visitors for that night were three French boys, Pierre, Raphael, and Sylvain, and a 23 year old boy from Columbia. I don't remember his name but he was nice and it was fun practicing my Spanish with someone. The French boys had been hitchhiking the past three weeks and this was their first couch surf.
We helped Theresa prepare a delicious dinner, by cutting up vegetables and setting up the table. The meal she prepared came complete with a traditional Portuguese drink included red wine, prunes, sugar and cinnamon. She also made pasta with a mix spread of things and fruit salad. It was amazing and so great to have a sit down meal family style. French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese conversations were going on all around the table. Afterwards we helped with dishes and all walked to Barrio Alto for a Fado show. Fado is traditional Portuguese music and was heavily rejected in the 60s and 70s during the revolution by the hippy movement. They said that the Three Fs (Football, Fado and Fatima[the holy site is located an hour out of Lisbon]) were used by the government to placate the people. We went to an old tavern one where old men and women sang to us about forsaken love and heart break. The last singer was a woman who’s singing made me want to cry. The smoky bar was great, the singing was moving and it was another one of those moments when I just felt so incredibly lucky.
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| Lisbon at night. |
This morning Theresa got up with us at 5:30 and took us to the train and watched us get in. She did not have to do any of that. Again lucky for us, because we probably wouldn’t have made it to the station alone. She left us the same way she greeted us, with a kiss on either cheek. So strange to think that such a small gesture carries so much kindness, at least in my mind. Theresa is a college professor teaching how to teach. Their house is outfitted for couch surfers complete with cute labels everywhere and a whole separate room with bathroom/supplies/laptops/music player. Perhaps one day I can do the same with my house. I only hope. Last leg of the trip now. Obviously writing on a train is not very easy re: handwriting, but alas the life of a traveler. We never told Chi Linh Uyen we were going to be late, I hope she doesn't flip. Oh well, we are safe, happy, healthy, so there is no need to worry.
Lisbon Album here
Madrid World Youth Days Album here
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