Lisbon is three hours away from Porto by train. Mawii and I were pleasantly surprised to find that we got a discount on our tickets (applicable to anyone below 26…oh youth, you are slipping by, and I have such little time to take advantage of the discounts you have to offer).
Predictably, I slept through the train journey, although I’d fully intended on keeping awake so I could see more of Portugal: nothing like trains for discovering a country. But it was not to be.
To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to Lisbon. Porto had been small, quaint, and colourful. I didn’t expect Lisbon to be like that. How wrong I was. Because I have never fallen in love with a city as quickly as I did with the Portuguese capital.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
We got off at the station and took a bus to where our Air B&B was. Mawii had her trusty map as usual, and she’d spoken to the owner.
“Look for a red church,” she said to me.
I dutifully looked around for the red church.
“I can’t see it,” I said. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“It’s next to you,” said Mawii patiently.
And it was.
We turned the corner and walked up a narrow cobbled street. The houses were just like the ones in Porto: bright, picturesque, with old-world charm and flower-baskets at the windows. The sun was warm, the wind was not, and it was all quite perfect. I’d been off the bus for just a few minutes, and the love affair was already taking root.
The place where we were staying was wonderful too. It was an old house, tall and narrow, with a bright green door. Our host was a woman called Claudia. She was blonde hair and blue eyed and tall and well-built. She didn’t look Portuguese, she looked like she was from a Nordic country.
“She’s from a Nordic country,” I whispered to Mawii.
“How do you know?”
“It’s obvious,” I said condescendingly. “Her ancestors were Vikings, I guarantee it. I know all about Vikings.”
It turned out she was from Brazil, and I don’t think the Vikings ever got there, but much of history is still unwritten and unknown. I pointed this out to Mawii, Mawii called me a fool, and we let it rest there.
Anyway, we freshened up and decided to see what waited for us outside.
I've already described the cobbled streets, the picturesque houses, the warm sun, so I'm just going to skip ahead to a little bar/cafe - more like a food truck with alcohol really - that stood in the middle of a big patch of garden. There were steep steps that led down to it directly from the pavement. There was a two-year-old trying to pull herself up those steps.
We avoided the child, and got ourselves two huge glasses of wine and a table.
Picture contentment, peacefulness, and a deep, slow sense of enjoyment. I could have had all these things.
But, as always, there is one obstacle that, more than anything else, prevents me from having what I deserve.
The fucking birds.
There were all these obese pigeons (had they recently migrated from America? Wouldn't put it past them) hopping around. And there was one that insisted on hopping around under the table. But not Mawii's side of the table, oh no. My side. Near my feet.
"Why don't you kick out at it?" said Mawii, after ten minutes of my squirming around and saying shoo and go away and leave me alone, in my most authoritative voice.
"Have you seen all the pigeons here? It's a goddamn army, Mawii," I said incredulously. "They'll all peck me to death."
Mawii sighed (I know I keep saying it, but she keeps doing it, and I'm being a mostly faithful narrator), and bent down.
"Shoo," she said.
The pigeon shooed.
Can all the various scientists who have uncovered at least some of the Universe's secrets explain that?
I think not.
We left after two glasses of wine, and I will once again skip the part where we walked around a lot, and get to The Square.
The Square was basically this, uh, square, that overlooked the river. It was teeming over with young people. They were all sitting around. Some of them were smoking what was definitely marijuana (I looked longingly at Mawii who shook her head very sternly), most of them were drinking beer (there was another food/beverage truck at the edge of the square). A couple of them were skate-boarding. Some of them were playing the guitar. It was, to use a phrase I despise, a chill scene, man. Mawii and I got ourselves a beer each and found a patch to sit on.
Now comes the good part.
The men.
Maybe I'm being politically incorrect, but I live in India, and your average man is rarely part of anything good.
I've never seen so many good looking men gathered in one spot. I put on my sunglasses and leched.
That's right. I leched at a crowd of good looking foreign men. It was amazing. It crossed my mind that I was doing what shady Indian men in Goa do (except they lech at the women - mostly), but I pushed that thought out of my mind, because it was so liberating, being the gazer instead of the object.
Naturally, none of them gazed back. (The girls equaled them in gorgeousness.)
One particularly beautiful man did come up to me, and I tried tossing my hair before realising it was too short to toss.
"May I have your lighter?" He said in a delicious accent that was either Spanish or Italian or Greek or...who cares, it was delicious.
I handed him the lighter and batted my eyelashes at him.
His lit his cigarette, said thank you, and went off, without a backward glance, to a girl who'd probably be a good candidate for a Wonder Woman audition. (I know there's already a Wonder Woman, but you know what I mean.)
Oh well. You can't have everything.
Half-an-hour passed. I was very comfortable, but my bladder wasn't.
I communicated my bladder's discomfort to Mawii, and we both looked around, but there wasn't any bathroom.
"Where are these people putting their beer?" I said to her incredulously.
Mawii very sensibly told me to go to the street and find a cafe, so I heaved myself up and went off. Lisbon is full of cafes. Some would say it has nothing but cafes. And I'd never needed a cafe so badly.
Naturally, I didn't find one.
What I did find was a tall house with an open door. Various signs informed me it was the home of a few small offices. Offices have bathrooms, I told myself. I crept up the carpeted stairs - if anyone asked me what I was doing there, I'd pretend I needed a travel agent (one of the offices). But no one did. I found the Ladies' Room, and my bladder found comfort, and it was all good.
Mawii told me I was a nut-job and I could have been arrested for trespassing, but when her bladder started feeling not-all-that-good, she decided to risk an arrest too. But no one caught her either. Which was fortunate for us, but not really for this blog post.
We had dinner at a restaurant, in a narrow alley. Its chairs and tables - like many eating places there - spilled out on the pavement and that is where we sat.
A leisurely meal, and then home.
Mawii, of course, followed the map and I followed Mawii. We didn't get lost even once.
Getting lost was going to come a few days later, and instead of leaving you with a cliff-hanger, I may as well tell you now that it destroyed our friendship.
Okay, just for a night. But still.
I've already described the cobbled streets, the picturesque houses, the warm sun, so I'm just going to skip ahead to a little bar/cafe - more like a food truck with alcohol really - that stood in the middle of a big patch of garden. There were steep steps that led down to it directly from the pavement. There was a two-year-old trying to pull herself up those steps.
We avoided the child, and got ourselves two huge glasses of wine and a table.
Picture contentment, peacefulness, and a deep, slow sense of enjoyment. I could have had all these things.
But, as always, there is one obstacle that, more than anything else, prevents me from having what I deserve.
The fucking birds.
There were all these obese pigeons (had they recently migrated from America? Wouldn't put it past them) hopping around. And there was one that insisted on hopping around under the table. But not Mawii's side of the table, oh no. My side. Near my feet.
"Why don't you kick out at it?" said Mawii, after ten minutes of my squirming around and saying shoo and go away and leave me alone, in my most authoritative voice.
"Have you seen all the pigeons here? It's a goddamn army, Mawii," I said incredulously. "They'll all peck me to death."
Mawii sighed (I know I keep saying it, but she keeps doing it, and I'm being a mostly faithful narrator), and bent down.
"Shoo," she said.
The pigeon shooed.
Can all the various scientists who have uncovered at least some of the Universe's secrets explain that?
I think not.
We left after two glasses of wine, and I will once again skip the part where we walked around a lot, and get to The Square.
The Square was basically this, uh, square, that overlooked the river. It was teeming over with young people. They were all sitting around. Some of them were smoking what was definitely marijuana (I looked longingly at Mawii who shook her head very sternly), most of them were drinking beer (there was another food/beverage truck at the edge of the square). A couple of them were skate-boarding. Some of them were playing the guitar. It was, to use a phrase I despise, a chill scene, man. Mawii and I got ourselves a beer each and found a patch to sit on.
Now comes the good part.
The men.
Maybe I'm being politically incorrect, but I live in India, and your average man is rarely part of anything good.
I've never seen so many good looking men gathered in one spot. I put on my sunglasses and leched.
That's right. I leched at a crowd of good looking foreign men. It was amazing. It crossed my mind that I was doing what shady Indian men in Goa do (except they lech at the women - mostly), but I pushed that thought out of my mind, because it was so liberating, being the gazer instead of the object.
Naturally, none of them gazed back. (The girls equaled them in gorgeousness.)
One particularly beautiful man did come up to me, and I tried tossing my hair before realising it was too short to toss.
"May I have your lighter?" He said in a delicious accent that was either Spanish or Italian or Greek or...who cares, it was delicious.
I handed him the lighter and batted my eyelashes at him.
His lit his cigarette, said thank you, and went off, without a backward glance, to a girl who'd probably be a good candidate for a Wonder Woman audition. (I know there's already a Wonder Woman, but you know what I mean.)
Oh well. You can't have everything.
Half-an-hour passed. I was very comfortable, but my bladder wasn't.
I communicated my bladder's discomfort to Mawii, and we both looked around, but there wasn't any bathroom.
"Where are these people putting their beer?" I said to her incredulously.
Mawii very sensibly told me to go to the street and find a cafe, so I heaved myself up and went off. Lisbon is full of cafes. Some would say it has nothing but cafes. And I'd never needed a cafe so badly.
Naturally, I didn't find one.
What I did find was a tall house with an open door. Various signs informed me it was the home of a few small offices. Offices have bathrooms, I told myself. I crept up the carpeted stairs - if anyone asked me what I was doing there, I'd pretend I needed a travel agent (one of the offices). But no one did. I found the Ladies' Room, and my bladder found comfort, and it was all good.
Mawii told me I was a nut-job and I could have been arrested for trespassing, but when her bladder started feeling not-all-that-good, she decided to risk an arrest too. But no one caught her either. Which was fortunate for us, but not really for this blog post.
We had dinner at a restaurant, in a narrow alley. Its chairs and tables - like many eating places there - spilled out on the pavement and that is where we sat.
A leisurely meal, and then home.
Mawii, of course, followed the map and I followed Mawii. We didn't get lost even once.
Getting lost was going to come a few days later, and instead of leaving you with a cliff-hanger, I may as well tell you now that it destroyed our friendship.
Okay, just for a night. But still.
