#2207: Wednesday, December 26: A week in Lisbon, and out

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Post 2207
- 7 years and 360 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written 12/26/18)

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.

Note: I apologize for the lack of photos in the Lisbon part. It just happened that way.

We left off last Saturday afternoon, after doing a street deal to get some (perfectly legal) CBD oil for my sore knees. I had to figure out an effective dose, as relief wasn't immediate, but after the second time I took it, with a larger dose, it definitely had a positive, noticeable effect. I'm a fan, now.

Still, there was enough soreness, and I decided it was in my best interest not to keep on aggravating my knees, for me to Uber over to Jam Club about eight o'clock, in time to have a bite to eat before any playing began. As opposed to my first visit, when I was invited to back up a usually solo performance by a guitarist/singer, this was an open mic night, with a regular bass player. I didn't really know exactly what to expect.

I was warmly greeted by Joao, the other male owner of the club (it turns out, Paolo, the cook I met on Tuesday night, was just that: the cook, and I got his name wrong).

Joao is quite the character. He had friended me on Facebook after Tuesday night and invited me to come back on Saturday. I take it my first visit had been detailed extensively, he seemed to know the whole story, and recognized me from the pics of that night.

He greeted me like a long-lost friend, ushered me inside, and proceeded to introduce me to everybody in the bar, one table at a time. I was appropriately embarrassed by his praise, and did my best to deflect, but, to be honest, I don't think most of the customers had enough English to understand either Joao (who speaks fluent English) or myself.

Taking a seat at a small corner table, I asked for a recommendation from the small menu (I'd enjoyed the chorizo toast from the tapas menu last time). He guided me to the 'Jam-burger' - a double-patty with cheese and fixings - saying if I didn't like it, he'd take it back and give me something else, no problem. I asked if the meat was frozen, and he said absolutely not, they ground it themselves and made the patties. So, all right - after all, I was there for the people and the music - not so much for the food, although I'd been very happy with everything I'd had before.

The burger, served with home-made chips, was actually quite good, and considering what I've been paying for food here, a bargain. Just as I finished, James, the host, came in, accompanied by his open mic partner, bassist Robby. At Robby's insistence, we shared bass duties about equally, and it was great fun. While I wasn't playing, I was deep in conversation with Joao, and the first American(!) I've met on the trip, Aron from Brooklyn, as well as English speakers from Sweden and Germany.

It is a splendid time. Nobody has left the bar since the music started, and it is a roomful of smiles. Closing time comes, and everybody says good-bye to everybody else. Joao buys me a shot of Jameson's, and wants me to justify my position that Gone With the Wind is a trash movie (and book). He wants me to name a good, no better, movie about the South. With no hesitation, I name To Kill a Mockingbird, and every Tennessee Williams flick.

He is delighted. Claudia, the nearly-silent, smiling third partner in the bar, who has been the cook and co-host the whole night, spontaneously offers me a massage, as there are only the four of us left (with James, the guitarist). She's good. I ask her if she has training - no, she doesn't. Then, I offer to return the favor. I have a feeling she's better at it than me, but she is grateful and kisses both cheeks good-night when I finally leave.

Next night, still nursing my slightly sore knee, I go to the nearest restaurant to my apartment, directly across the street. It is the Ganesh Palace, an Indian-Italian restaurant. It is actually very well-liked on TripAdvisor and Yelp!, although we know that those reviews must always be taken with a grain of salt. There is no hint of Italian in the very attractive, very Indian decor- and the staff seems to be Indian, as well. I am handed two menus, I don't ever open the Italian one.

I take a seat in one of the small tables, and a woman the next table over, seeing me alone, invites me to share her table. I immediately agree, thinking how courageous she must be to take a chance on grizzled old me, thirty or forty years her senior.

The dinner is very good and Verica is a very interesting companion. She is curious and asks many questions about me, and is equally at ease telling her own story, far more interesting than mine. She is a refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovena, from the Serbian-Bosnian war of the late eighties-early nineties. She went to France as a sixteen-year-old, then England to learn English, and now, recently, lives and works in Lisbon. She does Customer Service for AirBnB.

We have a wide-ranging conversation, touching on philosophy and economics. She does not like her job. She wants to try tapas, and hear fado. We exchange info to maybe make that happen, but an email glitch forces us to put it off until after my Algarve trip.

I am invited to Christmas Eve dinner by Maria, my AirBnB host, and it is lovely. A genuine three-generation traditional Portuguese affair. After a traditional cheese, ham and crackers with wine (white port, new to me), I try salt cod (something I had wrongly avoided in the past, it turns out), three kinds of potatoes and cabbage. Then, before dessert, a many-years-old fruited port made by the grandfather (my age, LOL) is served to the adults.

Then comes dessert, which apparently is the main feature of the evening. There is a fruit cake (but with fresh fruit in addition to the candied fruit). I am told this is often called English cake. Hah! Then there are many delicious variations of fried dough, none of it heavy, much of it with cinnamon (I love cinnamon) added to the sugar. It turns out there's a story behind that: My host's ex-husband hated cinnamon. The table is full of desserts, a veritable Vienna table of pastries, redolent of dough, honey, cinnamon. I am already full, but can't stop eating.

Due to my lack of Portuguese, conversation is minimal, mostly smiles and pointing, thumbs-up signals between grandpa and me, and a bit of translated gratitude on my behalf.

The preteen daughters are antsy to get away from the table, are all excited for their presents, and when the dinner collapses into family snuggling in front of the television, at around eleven-thirty, I take my leave, stuffed and thinking of fasting on Christmas day. And maybe the day after.

Which is almost the case, because when I check for open restaurants on Christmas afternoon, I end up back at Ganesha Palace, for Indian food, all that seems available on Christmas day - an interesting variation on the 'Chinese at Christmas' New York tradition.

 The place is rocking, fully packed with people who are having family celebrations or smaller groups of those who just don't want to cook, and me - this time, the only single in the restaurant. I have the closest thing I can get to breakfast, fried rice with egg, and lentil soup.

That night, I'm back at a much quieter evening at Jam Club. It's Tuesday, but James has the night off. While I'm eating (the chorizo again), Marco comes in with his wife and tiny new-born baby girl, who is angelically fast asleep. He brings box upon box of home-made cakes, giving them out to all the customers, then leaving a pile on the bar counter.

I play a bit, well, all right, I play to the point where I'm having trouble remembering which songs I haven't played. As the night's only entertainment, I am warmly received. I quit, the better to speak with the bar's other customers. I have a conversation about Jimi Hendrix with a couple from Sardinia, who have been singing along with many of my songs. I thank a Japanese woman who seems to have been enjoying a night out alone as she leaves. I meet an American, doing graduate work in Lisbon, who is from LA, specifically Sherman Oaks, which is where my son lives now. He is being visited by a friend, a former undergraduate classmate, who is a software engineer, like I was. The conversation is long and deep, with many pointed questions about work and careers, and, of course, music.

An espresso night-cap, and I go home to pack for tomorrow's trip to the Algarve.

My Uber takes me across Lisbon to the bus station, passing through parts I've never seen, including parks, empty lots, what I assume is a business district and more. I am impressed with the amount of Lisbon I've had my back to so far this trip, where all attention has been towards the river. Lisbon is big.

Arriving at the bus station, with only minutes to spare, I find out I have bought a ticket on a bus that left at one in the morning, twelve hours ago, not one in the afternoon as I had thought. That's a twenty euro mistake. Luckily, the bus driver who informed me holds the bus (same as the original one, twelve hours later) a couple of minutes for my re-ticketing. The bus station is actually very beautiful, but I've had no time for photos.

The bus is comfortable. We depart in dense fog, going over a long, low bridge where I can barely make out the water and boats we pass. 

The trip goes smoothly, and in less than twenty-five minutes the sun is out. I am, though, on the sun-in-the-window side, and the best scenery is on the other side. So, I get only a few photos, and none of the pastoral vistas I'm seeing over the passengers on the other side of the bus. I do manage a couple of shots of the countryside, before the bus pulls into the town of Albufeira, which, while pretty in its own way seems congested and not so photogenic. The bus arrives exactly on time.

I change buses for the final 25% of my trip - this bus is a bit smaller and less comfortable, and drives mostly through traffic on smaller roads. I arrive in Faro, passing a giant (closed) water park, the airport, to a dense downtown that doesn't seem to have enough room to accommodate a bus-sized vehicle, and pull into a slip in the bus station that isn't big enough to fully open the doors or the cargo bin hatches... a half-hour late.

My host, Silvia is there with teenage daughter Isabella and a friend of hers, there to translate. We pack ourselves into her tiny Renault, with much good-humored joking, for an under-ten-minute drive to the town of Montenegro. I am given the front-door combination, and even though the apartment is on the first floor, ushered into the elevator. There isn't enough room for four in the elevator, so Silvia takes the stairs. She gets there first.

My room is cute. Very feminine to me, with lots of dark pink. This isn't a surprise, it's exactly like the picture in the AirBnB.

In my room, shells, Buddha, and an anatomically correct donkey.

I am tired. I stop trying to settle in and take a nap.

At nine, I go out for some dinner, but the recommended restaurants are closed, except for one, a self-service (cafeteria). Any port, though, and I am hungry. To my relief, I find that there are many locals dining. As I've said, I take this as a good sign in a restaurant when I'm traveling.

My hostess, speaking no English, quietly sets me up with a tray and a plate and silverware. All the food has both Portuguese and English descriptions. When I've made my choices, she weighs the plate to determine the cost. Despite a great quantity of food, this is the cheapest meal I've had in Portugal. And, it all tastes very good. I'm happy.

And grateful.

Food Comment

At Restaurante Monte da Ria, lamb medallions, pig ears with vegetables, spinach pie and fish soup.

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