Paris to Lisbon

Arrived today in Lisbon after sleeping most of the two hour flight from Paris. Something about cabin pressure puts me out, almost meditative, half in and half out of sleep. There were so many thoughts that I watched from underneath in my meditative wakefulness. Thoughts about going home, thoughts about the unknown, thoughts about this plane crashing into a fiery death trap. Thoughts about the couple beside me and their tenderness; a hand on the knee, a kiss on the check, a reflexive glance. Do I want a Kit-Kat, no I don’t want a Kit-Kat, a coffee would be nice, but then I would have to get up, apologize, and ask for cream. What language do you speak on an English flight from Paris to Portugal?

I arrive and find the bus, 745 not 44 as I assumed. Someone else asked, I just used the information. Winding our way, I get my mid-afternoon introduction to this, the first city. I moved in and around the crowed space on the bus. Bag on, bag off, beside me, in-front. Then it hits somebody’s legs and I realize I don’t know how to apologize. I don’t know how to say anything. Ola. . . well that won’t help. I’m back to square one.

Off at Rossio, centre stage, the curtains open and I cross the square. Sache, sache pirouette, watching for cars and pickpockets, thieves and goblins in my imperfectly choreographed ballet. It’s amazing, somebody gives you a date, a time and a place in the world and there you are. And there they. . . Where are they? My couchsurfing host was no where to be seen. No panic. I’m just alone, in Lisbon, with no where to stay, at five o’clock in the afternoon. There are channels that lead out of the this square that lead majestically to the sea. The sea, the sea! I was tempted to the end.

My host and I finally did connect and he delivered me a short distance away to his small flat, resident corner drug dealers in place for my welcoming.

We passed the night in endless amounts of discussion. Bottle of wine over dinner, pint of Guinness at the Irish pub to play trivia. I lost, but gained in knowledge of UK game-shows. Did you know the aqueous humour was in the eye?

The night continued with erratic twisting and weaving through roads that looked like allies and allies that looked like gutters. Carnival is just a day away and the costumes were dusted off and the dull Sunday streets were shaded-in with people, just in time to start celebrating early. We spoke of drunks as being under the weather, which is, I’ve decided, the only way to talk about them anymore. I also learnt what a ‘lights-on’ bar looks like at 3 am for a glass of wine, on the house, including a very cordial response to my attempts at Portuguese to the packed house of card playing Somalian refugees. Bom Nuit.

Day 2

My streak continues. I am not a reincarnate of a cartographer of Paris; I simply have a good sense of direction. This is not something I would have ever believed about myself given all the other ‘logistical’ tasks I am so bad at, but there we are, or there I was I should say, directionless in the void of wandering through mosaic streets and still not only finding my way towards monuments and moments through divination, but finding my way back.

I am the only person I know of to have gotten lost in Stanley Park though. . .

Lisbon is an amazing place, the most amazing of which is the way it smells. Like fresh laundry in sea-salted air. Breathing is like taking bites of candy, you can sip it in all its Mediterranean glory. The city rises in on seven peaks, of which I only explored one, but it was enough to see it cascade and dance around you out to the sea, palm and orange trees in every glance. It remained cool, but the tropical vibrations are unmistakable. Frescos, churches, cathedrals and castles, mosaic tile arts and pushy street vendors. Classical guitar buskers and human statues. This seaside port city has caught all over hundreds of years of gill-net fishing and spilled and squished back it into this remarkable homily of history, religion, progress, destruction, construction and change.

I am horrible at gauging safety and like always as I adjust to newness I am intimidated and fearful of everything. But the smell of fresh roasting cod, the hue of white umbrellas and fresh mineral water was too much to pass up as I sat down to enjoy a patio lunch by myself, though surrounded by family.

This is the first time I have felt compelled to take pictures in a long time. This city has a story and it hasn’t been, told, sold and re-hashed like its more famous cousins. There are things still worth explaining. This city remains.