S/V Tavarua

Well, upon closer inspection, Lisbon is still a bit rough around the edges. This city feels like it is not fully part of the EU yet. Much of the downtown is peeling and in need of tile work. The sidewalks have large gaps in them. Yet, you can see the money that is coming into the city over the past few years. They have a Hard Rock Cafe and a handful of new malls, and major global stores appearing across town (the anti-globalization movement hasn’t caught on here). The Metro subway system is modern and clean.
For one day, we wandered up to the castle for a fantastic view of the city and of a bridge built by the same company that built the Golden Gate bridge leading across a huge river to more neighborhoods and a huge stone cross on the hill. The weather was alternating between clear and semi-cloudy on a near hourly basis. This has some strong winds from the Atlantic.
We wandered down through the Almafa district which was once a medina (think Moors/Morocco… then think mideval city… then think rough windy sailor neighborhood). It is now a home to an older generation that is extremely short (a bit of a shortage of food when they were growing up), and the doorways match the height of the people (at 5′6″, I’d have hit my head on many entryways). While walking down through the neighborhood, it became apparent that we just missed a festival. The streets had lights and streamers still decorating the alleyways. Two five year olds held us captive at an alley crossing with some of the dangling garland laughing and shouting loudly in Spanish. The sailor mentality is still in the neighborhood. On an odd note, we read that many of the homes in the neighborhood don’t have toilets and each section has a community bathroom. This may explain why we saw mostly an older generation in the neighborhood? Indoor plumbing really is a nice thing to take for granted.
The following day we checked out the ‘largest aquarium in Europe’ at the site of the Lisbon’s ‘98 World Expo. The aquarium had a nice layout of a huge center global tank complete with the Pedaglic Sun Fish that the Monterey Bay aquarium has (those are some funky looking creatures). And four seperate ocean tanks that had an above ground and underground view representing each of the four major oceans. The above ground exhibits were so close to the otters and penguins you could reach out at touch them, and the snow-ice they made for the penguins. Europe is different in that regard, they seem to still have a small ounce of belief that aquarium visitors will actually not touch the creatures. A favorite side exhibit was of a couple of yellow Leafy Seadragons and Grass Seadragons. They had spectacular wavey branches with minature aspen leafs floating in the water surrounding a sea horse like body. And finally, they had a hapless octopus pulled from Puget Sound that looked quite healthy and colorful, which made me swear off eating octopus, and cuttlefish for that matter (both popular dishes around here.. shudder).

Just getting settled into Lisbon tonight. We had a torturous bus ride due solely to the lack of motor coordination by the driver. This may be paybacks for all the people that I’ve passengered and have tortured similarly? The agony as a passenger was caused by stepping on the gas and letting off every 3 seconds causing the bus to lurch forward everytime the engine engaged causing a jerking motion that rivaled someone shaking the beejeezus out of you. I really didn’t think you could get nauseous on a bus traveling on a stick-straight highway. On the eternal list of things that would be best not be learned, this one was added hand-written in the left-hand margin.
We made a first pass at the Barrio this afternoon, and on first glance without a guidebook in tow haven’t been too impressed. Lots of litter floating around, seven offers of hashish, touristy restaurants serving lots of fried things (many with a fin or eyeball sticking out from the batter). But y’know this was a travel day and my disposition towards just about anything in the afternoon is a bit low when nausea is still lingering.
We have better hopes for tomorrow when we run the standard tourist route through the city. This evening started to look up once we hit the Barrio, a second time. (Although, there are waaaay too many steps in this neighborhood… hundreds it seems.) The restaurants opening up for the evening have perked up the area, despite it being a Monday. We are sitting in a Web@Cafe with a Mojito, really weird ambient music playing very loudly, and can see a meager amount of foot traffic wandering past us through the alleys.
The downside of having spent four nights in a beach town is that you end up reading a lot while kicking back on the beach in the afternoon. This causes you to actually, uh, finish the novels you are reading. This in turn causes you to run out of literature to read. This causes you to check out the one bookstore that carries a small selection of English books. This causes a shudder of fear down your spine when you see the selection is only crime mystery novels… space, romance, history.. they all are about psychopathic crimes. In Lagos, we back shuffled out of the bookstore keeping the shop owner in sight as we left. I wonder if there is a small blip in crime statistics in this part of the coast?
So in summary, when only one of you has half a novel left to read, this will get you out of the hotel into a deadbeat Monday night hunting down an Internet cafe for the evening. As far as Internet cafes go, though, this isn’t too darn bad. A Mojito nearby, a weird 20 year old with a pierced nose peering in at me through the window (I stare back and he jumped a bit, looked embarassed.. bet he was looking for the garlic pizza smell that keeps wafting through this alley making him believe one could actually find the pizza restaurant.. hah!), good backbeat to the equivalently weird music.. not bad at all. And, no, we didn’t buy any hashish tonight.

We found a party town here in Lagos. The town is full of surfers and hippy backpackers. The difference between the two is only defined by surfing during the day versus practicing juggling in the plaza, both come out when the sun goes down for partying all night. The town has about 20 pubs, a handful of DJ dance spots, and a bunch of vegan options in the restaurants. We ended up at a hole in the wall called Joe’s Garage and had a fine bit of people watching for the evening. The place was packed, drinks flowing as fast as New Orleans. When it got packed enough, they covered the pool table and it immediately turned into a writhing mass of college age, tan, belly button pierced girls dancing with sporadic bursts of enthusiastic guys that joined them but wore out long before any of the girls did. Hmm, we slept in late this morning.
The day scene is rather pleasant. The beaches are fine sand and seem to wrap along the coast into eternity looking one direction out of town, and turn into the grottos of layered cliffs and coves the other direction. The water has aquamarine tinges, and it feels a fine cold swimming pool temperature (good after reading in the sun for the morning, but requires a wet suit if you take up surfing or scuba diving). We bought some pool floaties. (Adelman would be pleased to know there are many airplane floaties for sale in this town.. must be a push for kids to get into flying seaplanes?) And, we floated until Derrell decided he was adequately baked for the day. As for me, I figure the well tanned Portuguese familes are going to just turn me into a lighthouse beacon due to my glowing Irish bloodline. I am not worthy of tanning here, these people are professionals.
People are speaking much more English (and German) here than in Spain. This is a big destination for Germans looking for sand, so many of the touristy restaurants have 4 languages on the menu: Portuguese, German, English, and Spanish. When we do hear Portuguese, it has a nice lilt to it and it sounds more leisurely than Spain’s Spanish. With a single glance, everyone seems to speak English to me, maybe it is the dramatic lack of a tan?
We are liking the people here. The town, as big as it is, has a nice relaxed feel. Now if we remember to pace ourselves and not end up on a pool table tonight, we should be doing well. Off to go play a round of Godzilla pinball, on a machine with the display in German.