Prancing in Portugal (Part I)
Just got back from Portugal. My room in Valladolid is still a mess; I have so many things to unpack and fix and keep and throw away. I still feel tired. I spent all my four days walking and running and prancing down Lisbon’s paved avenues and Fatima’s nature trail. The weather was extremely nice, lotsa sunshine and just enough sea breeze to keep things cool. I have to say that my original plan was just to see the Western-most point of Europe and attend the First Saturday devotion in Fatima. But after seeing Portugal, I think that the country has a lot of beautiful things to offer. Here’s a brief account of that escapade:
October 4: I represented Asia and the Agencia Española in the General Assembly for the international student body in Valladolid. (I will post a copy of the speech ASAP.) I thought all the while that it was just an informal gathering from what I gathered two weeks ago from the Office of International Relations, but after I received the invitation two days before the program, I realized that the Rector and other top honchos of the University would be present, so I had to prepare something decent.
I did fairly well, I guess, and the Vice Rector for International Affairs came to congratulate me after the program (which was nice, right?). After the assembly, I was cornered by mediamen asking for an interview and a copy of the speech. After that, I was cornered by some professors and student-leaders. I was able to evade other interviewers ages later and proceeded to party with other students. I drank so much that evening, hahaha. At about 11:30 PM, I returned to the dorm to do some last-minute packing. My train to Portugal would leave at 2:30 AM and I would have to go to Lisbon with a hangover.
October 5: I thought I could get rid of the hangover by sleeping in my cabin but it turns out that it was already full when the train passed by Valladolid. The cabin was good for eight people, but if you’re travelling seven hours with all the luggage, the train ride would surely be hellish. There were four Englishmen and three Portuguese. I was the only Asian, the youngest and — to make things worse — the only one who could translate for the whole group. Therefore, the English guys (they’re around my age) would ask me to ask the Portuguese for directions in Lisboa. I would speak in Spanish, the Portuguese would answer in Spanish and Portuguese and I would translate it to English. So, in short, I arrived at Lisboa at 11:30 AM nearly insane, sleepy and with a terrible hangover.
It’s a good thing Lisboa is a friendly city. The Portuguese are famous for being happy and accommodating; they seem very talkative to Spaniards, I was told, but to a Filipino whose culture is very much like that of the Portuguese, such warmth after a grueling seven-hour travel is comforting.
Everything in Portugal is relatively cheaper: a taxi ride that would have cost 20 euros in Paris was just 5 euros in Lisboa (tip included!). So I took a cab to my hostel and it turns out that I couldn’t check in until 2PM, so I was told to take a walk while waiting. Which is exactly what I did after eating lunch.
I walked from my hostel to the Avenida da Liberdade, Lisboa’s main avenue, that leads to the Praça de Rossio, the city’s main square. There I found a nice open-air seafood restaurant that had a very interesting menu. I have to say at this point that the Portuguese eat very well at a very affordable price. My first meal in Lisboa was bacalhau omelet. I was expecting three dinky patties to be served, given the price in the menu (as a rule, my meal should not exceed 10 euros) but when the waiter placed the clay plate on the table, I just couldn’t believe it! I have an omelet half the size of a football, mounds of crispy potatoes and a hefty serving of garden-fresh salad! The clay dish where the meal was serve was as big as a Pyrex lasagna dish and was hand-painted with the emblems of Lisboa and the restaurant. The meal came with water or soda, leche flan and a demitasse of Brazilian coffee. The omelet tasted heavenly: there’s authentic codfish fillet, cream, potato bits, pepper, onions and garlic in it. It’s fried in such a way that that outer layer was crispy, the middle layer, chewy and the innermost layer, creamy.
After stuffing myself to bursting, I decided not to return to the hostel. I took the next train from the Cais do Sodré to Cascais (pronounced as Cash-ca-eesh), a coastal town an hour away from the capital. Three stops from Cascais is Estoril, probably the most famous beach of Lisboa. The beach is free and anyone can go there to sunbathe, swim or people-watch. Me, I just took pictures.
Upon reaching Cascais, I took the 403 bus that goes to Cabo da Roca. Cabo da Roca is famous for being the Western-most point of continental Europe. There aren’t a lot of tourists that go there, since one must be brave enough to take public transport that passes through the dangerous ravines of Lisboa. Besides, when you have a hangover, going to a mountain isn’t exactly what the doctor ordered.
But all worries evaporated when I reached Cabo da Roca. It’s an exquisite cliff covered by green grass and yellowish succulents. The rocky terrain is punctuated with the azure Portuguese sky above and the gorgeous blue and blue-green hues of the Atlantic Ocean below. Europeans during the Middle Ages thought that it was in this place that the Earth ended and the boundless ocean began (so says the official certificate that the local tourism office issues to tourists who reach the spot). So there I was, on the secluded part of the cliff, talking like a madman to the Atlantic and shounting Thank you, I love you, This is it, and other things that seemed apt at the moment.
Having achieved my immediate goal in Portugal, I took the bus and the train to Lisboa. Since I really couldn’t bear my aching head and feet by then, I was ready to call it a day. I went to the Praça de Rossio, ordered a big platter of soupy rice with seafood, a big mug of beer, strong black coffee, bread with butter and sardine fillet, and a bottle of cold water. The Brazilian waiter was very kind, so kind in fact that he began to tell me his life story. Every now and then, he would pause and invite tourists to sample the menu.
In another universe I would have kicked the daylights out of him, to be honest, but on the cobbled streets of Lisboa illumined by lights, lanterns and buntings, the cool breeze blowing from the Tagus River, and the melancholic sound of the fado, the typical song of yearning among Portuguese, heard from a solitary accordion, hearing the autobiography of a Brazilian immigrant over a plate of glutinous rice seemed to make perfect sense.
To be continued…
