Lisbon Portugal

Back on the bus, heading for Lisbon.  The troupes are becoming restless.  A true battle for seats is becoming increasingly evident.  I suspect purses being used as maces will be next.  People have been leaving articles of clothing, bags and other limited value items on the seats to “save their place”.  If the bus driver dares be seen heading to his vehicle, a mob of passengers dashes up behind him, like a line of aggressive duckings, pleading with him that they forgot their life-support-system on the bus, and need to grab it.  All of this, is merely a ploy to leave something on their desired seat or perhaps rearrange others markers, to suit their own desires.  

The bus driver is a kind man; but he doesn’t speak a word of English.  He shrugs, and lets them on. 

Amongst those with us on the tour, are a group of 18 from El Paso.  One of the people brought his guitar along and every once in a while, he will head up to the microphone at the front of the bus and serenade us, sometimes accompanied by an amigo for duets.  That is quite nice. 

Visually, so far, Portugal is quite different from Spain.  The terrain changes quite remarkable as you gradually climb the hill just across the border. It changes again as you begin the descent into the coast. 

The first stop in Portugal, was Faro. We were promised a darling little seaside town with lots of good seafood options for lunch.  Well, it’s small and seaside... lots of old buildings that are quite beautiful.  

We obviously weren’t far enough off of the tourist path. Cute place; some of our tour companions were already there enjoying their lunch.  We were seated beside our companions and mostly ignored, by the staff, from there.  Took a while to get a drink and our food order was forgotten until we saw the “oh damnit” look on the waiters face, at which time, he did an about face and served us whatever was in the service window, assuring us this is exactly what we had ordered.  Our seafood medley was 3 mackerel. The grilled Cod was a piece of questionable Monkfish.  The assorted meats were extremely over cooked, with the exception on one piece of pork. In so many ways, it left a bad taste in our mouths.  The bread and beer were good.  

Just as we were served, it started to rain.  We were sitting next to an umbrella that our friends had sat under.  It of course was next to us, not over us.  We called it quits before we got soaked.  

The bus was about 1/2 hour from departing, so we donned our rain jackets and made way to a pub, that we had eyed earlier, that proclaimed “Stop here for beer” on the front, in English rather than Portuguese.  Inside, we drip dried next to a couple from England.  Had a delightful conversation.  

We’re now heading for Lisbon. 

Lisbon, at least what we have seen so far, looks like my image of what East Berlin must look like.  Drab, rundown tenements and characterless features.  We will be on a tour tomorrow to see the “old town”.  

A buffet dinner was offered through the tour, at the hotel.  We walked into an echo chamber of mobs of people from not only our tour, but from the other two tours that rolled in just before us.  They all were scrambling to see how much warmed over steam table food would fit on their plates.  We fought our way the hell out of there and made way to a restaurant around the corner. 

Portuguese is a strange language.  We expected different sounds from Spanish as their pronunciation of certain letters is different.  The speech sounds like the eastern block country this looks like.  Seldom could we understand a word. Luckily most of the people speak Spanish and English. 

We ordered drinks while waiting for our table.  Along with the drinks, they served us cherales or whitebait.  Little fried fish that you eat head to tail. I love those things; much of the four of us, not so much. 

We weren’t overly hungry and were trying to select something small for dinner.  After a confusing exchange with our waiter, he became impatient and began suggesting items excitedly.  We ended up with a Portuguese soup and two plates of black pork.  Terrific choice!  The soup was a very soothing creamy vegetable.  The black pork was better than anything I’ve had before.  Thin, flank steak type with a simple salt and pepper seasoning.  This was grilled and sliced in to strips.  The flavor was better and more moist than I’ve ever had.

Tomorrow, we tour Lisbon.