I mean really. This coffee makes my hand look enormous!

The Alfama! (or not)

This is a street in Alfama.


My plan for today was to do a walking route my guide book gives for the Alfama, a neighborhood of windy streets and beautiful views. I bought the all-day metro pass (that works on everything) and took Tram 28 into Alfama. Wait, let me back up. I never took the tram before and I don't have a picture to show you. The are kind of like the SF cable cars in that they have a certain look, are tourist attractions and have only a few routes. I wasn't sure where to pick it up. While waiting at what I thought was the stop, a tram stopped and its door opened. I ran to get it to have the driver shoo me away and say something I, of course, didn't understand. This is not a big deal. Any logical person knows it's not a big deal. But I did have quite the shame buzz for some time following the incident. It's interesting to observe myself having these reactions. It's good I know logically it's a habit or some kind of stored mechanism/memory being triggered. But it was there.
Now the book says to take the tram because it will get you up the hills without having to climb them on one's own.
I did find the place to get the tram 28 but because I couldn't see the street signs and the driver didn't make announcements (and I have to say, the description of the route in the book sucks a little ass) I was not clear where to get off. I got off someplace that seemed logical but couldn't locate myself. When I used my phone, I think it said I was about 3 miles away from there starting point of the walk, Miradouro da Senhora do Monte (which was in at one of many viewpoints of the city.) So I decided to walk. These streets are not always well signed and the GPS was a little spazzy and about 7/8 of the way through, I came to the road I was on when I caught tram 28 to begin with. I then walked up to the viewpoint. So the tram was a complete waste of time. The views were incredible though. I tried to go to the next point on the walk. I'm not sure if I got there but there was another great viewpoint, like the one above, but perhaps a little bit to the left. The third stop was a monastery. At this point, the GPS is a complete mess and despite getting help, I don't think I found it. I was pretty frustrated and a little angry at myself. It was hot, I was sweating, had spent a good amount of the time walking uphill and got almost no where. And what's sad is that I wasn't even enjoying the fuck-up. I plan to go back to that area, get off the tram wherever and just walk around. No more of this pre-planned walk bullshit.

I cut my loses and took another tram 28 back to the market because at this point I needed to eat.
This is my driver's back.

This is a sandwich with pork, shoestring potato chips and mayonnaise (and lettuce.)



I decided to make good on the all-day metro pass and took the train to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo, the tile museum, which I'd been wanting to see, and which is not centrally located. It was a 1/2 hour walk to the museum from the train stop, next to a highway. There is nothing of interest, that I could tell, near the museum, but the work was really beautiful. Portugal is known for their tiles (which I discovered shortly after arriving) so I wanted to see what that was all about

This is the train station

I really liked these pink tiles that were shaped rather than painted.

And then it got all churchy. It was quite beautiful and ornate. Whenever I travel, the religious locations are always the most beautiful and I know so many people draw significance from them other than their beauty. I don't envy them but I am aware of the stark difference in our experience of these places. I didn't want to make that walk back so I found the bus to get me back to a good train station.

I stopped at my guest house to create the earlier post from today. I told myself I would use that all-day pass to go somewhere good for dinner. I seem to gravitate to these markets. There is an actual food market that was closed but this section is all food vendors- a lot of seafood. I got a salad... and apple pie with condensed milk on top.
It's pretty ridiculous that I am taking pictures of all my food. Mostly I text them to my mother.

I realize another up-side to traveling alone is that no one has to be affected by my moods or unreasonable reactions these little annoyances. I get to make stupid mistakes and have my feelings without worrying about anybody else's feelings for a change. In my world, that's a pretty rare experience.

My working plan is to head to Sintra tomorrow (which means taking a train outside Lisbon.) Quite a few places are closed on Mondays so I figured it would be a good time to see the castles.

First Full Day in Lisbon

One of the main reasons I usually avoid public transportation when I travel (besides damage control from my diet change) is that it helps me get the lay of the land. The guesthouse I'm staying at is further away from the action than I thought it was, but it's cheap and forces me to walk at least a 1/2 hour to get to anything.
Yesterday, Saturday the 16th, was my first full day in Lisbon. First of all, I got out of bed at 9:40am. I don't remember the last time I slept that late but I'm willing to guess it's been over five years.
So after having another freakishly small coffee with another pastry, I walked into the main center of the city, Baixa and Rossio. I walked past Martin Moniz Square (which I had been to the day before) and found the Igraja dou Santo Domingo. I went inside. They were having mass. I could just about recognize the cadences from when I used to attend mass, even though this was in Portuguese. I went to Don Pedro square, looked at statues, got hit in the face with a large bubble created by a lone street performer.
I then went to the Praca do Comercio, where I bought earrings... again. I liked the area (picture below with the yellow buildings.) There are a lots of people eating and drinking. They had an enormous screen set up to watch the world cup. A friend recently pointed out that we don't really have squares in the US. I think NYC has a couple but it really seems to be more of a European thing (although I also saw them in Guatemala.)

(I am trying to place the pictures in some kind of order but again
Blogspot is impossible!)
I went and looked at this bridge that my guidebook did not mention but is supposed to be the Portuguese version of the Golden Gate Bridge, except not as nice.
Then I went to a museum called Lisbon Story that tells the history of Lisbon.
I had lunch at a cafe that my book suggested. I had ham (like prosciutto) with fresh chess which was really good. And then the sweet rice that inspired its own blog post yesterday.

I walked to the Museu Nacional de Art, Contemporanea do Chiado. I liked a lot of it. I saw some art that was derivative of Dali and Joan Miro (if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Fuck Joan Miro) but some pieces I really liked, like this creepy child.

I was going to look at some ruins but didn't feel like waiting in the area for the next English speaking tour at 5pm so I went and had a beer at that market again.

I came back to my room and became simultaneously hungry and tired. And I have to leave my room to get food. And I wanted more pork and cheese. I went back to the market and got a cheese and ham plate with a lot of bread (I had to throw a lot of it out.) And beer. And port. And sangria. And a yummy dessert item that was like a macaroon if a macaroon was even sweeter and came in a little pie crust and was laced with cocaine.

I should rename this blog 'Delia eats stuff.'

So that was Saturday. Sunday gets really heavy in the mental exercise department.

I do have a picture of the blisters on my feet from walking. I will spare you. 

Oh and the weather forecast changed again. I over packed again. I will not be needing fleece-lined long sleeve shirts at all.

Sweet Rice! Fuck yeah!

I'm here! I'm here!

I'd really like to know where they get those group numbers for boarding the plane. On my first flight to DC, I was group 4 (there was no group 5.) Groups 1 and 2 were for special people, but it was Group 3 that confounded me. Why do they get to be Group 3? I bought my tickets from the airlines same as them. I was beginning to think there was some kinda Hunger Games mind control going on, until I found myself in group 3 at the DC airport. Go figure.
Another cute thing that happened is that as we were taking off in SF, my yarn rolled all the way down the aisle to the galley- row 31 to past row 57. The flight attendants all wanted to know how far it had come. (Note to self: planes tilt when they are taking off.)
I get to Lisbon and right away I expect great things because the cab driver was playing Iron Maiden's 'Two Minutes to Midnight.' He said Iron Maiden was like port, they get better with age. We'll have to agreed to disagree on that point.
I got to my guest house to find out there is construction on the roof and I can back out of my reservation if I want to. It's only 9am-6pm; I'll probably stick it out. I had two hours to kill before check-in so I got lunch. Then I accidentally, on purpose, ate a hazelnut croissant (expecting great things, indeed.)

I get into my room which is small but sufficient. I has a deck with a view that does not inspire much but it's a deck and since when do I have a deck. After two hours of trying to figure out a plan for tomorrow, listening to the banging on the roof and barely keeping my eyes open, I decided to go out. I just walked on the main road towards the center. I eventually stumbled into a market that will only be there the next couple of days. There were some gift items but the market mainly consisted of cured meats, cheese and booze. And there were some sweets; I ate a Turkish Delight (it sounds scandalous but it's really just yummy.) I sampled (drank) two kinds of sangria and got a 5-pack sampler of ports (the bottles are small enough for carry on... OH OH OH, I didn't have to check my luggage! Go me!)

 

I did not eat meat and cheese but I did walk around and fantasize about it. (By the way, I still find Blogspot very glitchy and a pain in the ass to use.)
I walked around some more and then back to my hotel. I then sought out dinner. I was wanting to keep it cheap (I already bought myself earrings and a keychain for some reason) and low maintenance. I'm too tired to confront my own English-speaking, Ugly Americanness right now. I went to a seafood place. The lobsters and crabs were very active. I'm pretty sure that fucker was trying to go home. I had shrimp bread soup. Nope, not soup in a bread bowl, like I thought. I got a mound of what looked like porridge with shrimp in it and an egg on top. The guy mixed it all together. It was pretty good, very garlicky.  I probably could have finished it but didn't. Now I'm back at my room, eating Riccola cough drops for dessert.
There's a lot to see here. I think I'm going to pick out just one thing, and from there, see where the day takes me (I'm sorry. That makes me sound chill and easy-going. I'm going to go one place and then spend half the day figuring out which sequence of events wastes that least amount of time.)
Keep coming back.

Please don’t make me check my bag

Please don’t make me check my bag
Please don’t make me check my bag
Please don’t make me check my bag

Leaving tomorrow

Hello again!
I am coming off an unusually chaotic day at work and tying up loose ends before I wake up at 3:30am for a 7:40 flight to DC and then to.....
Not telling. You'll have to check back in to find out.
Since the airlines love to lose my luggage on international flights, I am attempting to travel by carry-on alone. I must say, my packing is impressive. I'm going to be one of those annoying people waiting at the beginning of the line to board the plane so I can get in there before the overhead compartments fill up.
So stay tuned. Hopefully on Friday my luggage will be with me in whatever is my final destination.