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Post 2204
- 7 years and 351 days since I started this blog -
(written 12/16/18)
Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 8 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent.
While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.
I got an early (for me) start Sunday morning - well, technically Sunday morning as it was just before noon. It was my first beautiful day in Lisbon, and I took a stroll to have some breakfast in an interesting place I'd read about. The mid-morning-to-early afternoon light is gorgeous, and it showed off Lisbon in a way that the preceding rainy-misty days and nights (how it's been since I touched down) did not. I took some photos along the way as evidence.
Before and during my stroll, I found myself thinking about the simple differences between here and home (having nothing to do with the weather). Little things, like the doors opening inward (there was never a Flatiron fire in Lisbon, I guess); and the way every shop has a decorated window display; and it seems every store that sells food has fresh produce for sale; that the elevators in my building are open on the entry and exit side, no inner door, and the ones in my building are the smallest I've ever been in: maximum capacity, 3 friendly adults, I would say.
In many ways, my observations of Lisbon remind me of New York City in the late fifties and sixties, the NYC of my youth. The types of shops: plentiful bakeries, tailor shops, cobblers, and book stores.
Now, the thing about this stroll is that the beautiful weather actually made me more aware of something I've mentioned before: the steep hilliness of Lisbon. Lisbon is known as the City of Seven Hills.
The entire first part of my walk was downhill. I've had multiple athletic and accident-related surgeries on both knees, and arthritis has recently been confirmed - but don't worry, it isn't that bad, so far, and I've had many decades to get used to it. Anybody who has had knee problems knows that walking downhill aggravates the knees more than walking uphill. I slowed my roll 'way down, thanks to the tender reminder of my condition.
Google maps says it was a twelve-minute walk. Between my slow pace and stopping for photos, it took me more than twenty minutes. That isn't a complaint: I'm in no hurry.
But, this geographic feature of Lisbon might disqualify it from consideration as a future residence, and that's exactly why I'm here. To be clear, this is not going to spoil my fun or my stay, but this is an aspect of my future life that I have to be aware of. Unless there are medical advances, this will get worse, not better, and we're talking a few years down the road for my expatriation.
The uphills, on the other hand, remind me that my mostly exercise-free lifestyle has diminished my stamina. It's always just as steep on the way up as it was on the way down, but you're fighting gravity in a different way, and it's more work. The good news? So far, it's totally do-able, and the more I do it, the easier it will be. It is good exercise. I'm game - I used to be a runner and a swimmer and a gym-rat, oh, so long ago... This is a good workout, and as long as I take care to minimize the pain on the way down, I will enjoy this aspect while I'm here. The Lisbon Workout. Maybe I need to add hand weights. Just kidding.
The goal of this walk was brunch at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, which has a reputation for excellent bread and pastries, and, of course, great coffee. I order by pointing, which turns out to be embarrassing both immediately, when I find the staff speaks excellent English, and a little later, when I find out the omelet-on-sourdough I got is warm curried chicken salad.
So it goes. And that's all I'll say about the early part of Sunday.
I feel today as though I am about two-thirds over my jet-lag and arrival exhaustion. Man, back in the day I could shake off things like this almost without noticing. But now ain't then, as the saying goes. Recovery takes a lot longer. If I'm completely acclimated in a week, that will be reason to rejoice.
Let's flip back to Saturday night. Here's a little timeline of my trip up to that point: I flew out Wednesday morning (after telling everybody I was leaving Tuesday night, due to a PM-instead-of-AM calendar error) and arrived at my airBnb Thursday afternoon, exhausted, and immediately went to bed. I slept for the next 24 hours, more or less, waking up for a couple of hours to unpack, shower, get my WiFi hooked up, let people know I'd arrived safe and sound (a 50% white lie, given my exhaustion), and then back to bed for another ten hours.
I get up and go out for my first meal, as documented in my previous post.
Saturday was a rainy day. When I woke up Saturday after noon, I started seriously researching my immediate area, when I suddenly realized I hadn't eaten a vegetable in two days (french fries don't count, and I didn't eat much of them anyway), and noticed several highly-rated Indian restaurants (I love Indian food) close by. One that struck my fancy was Olá Nepal, thanks to the ability to reserve a table on-line at an opportune time, and with a discount on my meal.
Getting to the restaurant was an easy walk (downhill) in warm, light rain. Forewarned by my wonderful host, I brought an umbrella with me.
I arrived early and found out why the reservation had been so easy: The family that runs the restaurant was unlocking the front door as I walked up to it. This gave me a chance to grampa with the infant the mother was carrying in, and also to have a period of exclusive attention from the rest of the staff. Throughout the meal, without interrupting the flow of my dining, I was able to have bits of conversation with the owner, waiter, and the chef. By the end of the meal, I knew quite a bit about them, and even tidbits about relatives still in Nepal and one in Dallas.
The food was very good. Not Chiang Mai great (I had the best Indian food of my life there), but very good, and it had one feature that separated and elevated it above any other Indian restaurant I'd ever eaten at: Before my big bowl of delicious and hearty vegetable soup was finished, the chef came out with a taste of the chicken saag (kind of like chicken florentine, but the spinach is in cream sauce) I'd ordered, to discuss the level of 'spicyness' (heat) I wanted.
The result of this was that the dish was served to me with the perfect amount of heat, and everybody was happy at my delight. Why don't all the restaurants with spicy cuisines do this? I ate leisurely, was given a complimentary small dessert and coffee after my mango lassi, and, since it was now raining harder and the temperature had dropped a little, Uber'ed the short distance back to my apartment.
Time-jump to Sunday evening: I had found a well-known local restaurant, Rodas, a four-minute walk from my apartment. On my way, I had my first encounter with an ATM, and thanks to being given a choice of languages, re-upped my supply of Euros easy-peasy.
I think it is always a good sign when you walk into a restaurant and see that the majority of the customers are local, and older. I fit right in. I don't think I've mentioned that my look (beard, ponytail, and casual clothes), is a very popular look in Lisbon (Bob Hope: "And you should see the men!" Rimshot!).
The meal that follows is excellent. Very hearty vegetable soup (not vegan, it is in chicken stock) and seafood rice. This latter has an astounding variety of tastes and textures, thanks to four different kinds of fish, shrimp, prawns, crab and clams (not sure that list is complete, and, no, I can't be more specific) mixed in and top of rice in a thick seafood gravy. The house wine (red, and I've never cared about the white-wine-with-fish thing) that I'd been recommended by Ugu, my waiter was very, very good. The dessert cake, bolos (with coffee), a mocha and cream affair that although considered a regional favorite is, according to Ugu, never the same in any two places, is a stone knockout that I had selected based on its looks (kind of like a coffde cake). As I'm getting the check, I have to ask what it is - the flavor is so complex and rich-but-not-heavy.
Okay - we're pretty much up-to-date. It's Monday afternoon here at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, where I've returned to try more of the food and join the group of young digital nomads who hang here for the good, free, WiFi and I've been writing this, catching up on Facebag and my email for the last four hours.
I am always aware of my charmed life. Lisbon, as I've said, is a charming city. Everything seems to fit, at least once I get off an incline. Now, if I can just find some musicians... I can't be more grateful, but I would have something else to be grateful for.
Food Comment
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| The chef at Olá Nepal took this shot of happy me. |
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| At Olá Nepal: garlic naan, tomato-stock vegetable soup, saffron rice, and, up top, chicken saag in a small chafing dish. And Cobra beer. |
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| At Copenhagen Coffee Lab: The egg dish that turned out to be curried chicken salad. Still delicious. Also note: You'll never see a full cup of coffee in any picture I take. |
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| At Restaurante Rodas: Seafood rice: (at least) four kinds of fish, crab, prawns, shrimp, clams over rice with a tomato-based seafood stock. |
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| Back at Copenhagen Coffee Lab, my first Continental breakfast since I was last on the Continent (fifteen years ago!). Didn't disappoint. |
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