To the few people reading this, I’m sure you were waiting with baited breath the next entry. And for that I do apologize. I don’t think I’ll be writing on the weekends because, oddly enough, those are the days in which I have precious little time. We learned the subjunctive in class today and had five pages of homework which took about 5 minutes to do. This is not the lifestyle to which I am accustomed. I had no idea there were so many hours in a day when you don’t have to work, you get up at 7:30 in the morning and school takes a total of 3 hours. I’m trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the hours, and though I know I’ve much to do to prepare for the fall, I just really can’t bring myself to stay out of the streets and work on it. I am currently listening to Dylan’s “To Ramona” which I may be able to see live this weekend as he is playing on the cheap in Lisbon this Saturday. I’ve never seen Dylan because he was always a bit too expensive and my uncle Steve said he’s kind of crap live. And if Steve doesn’t enjoy a folk show I highly doubt I will. I am being called to the kitchen to help prepare the third jantar enorme in a row. These dinners are comprised of a sort of international iron chef competition in which every country in Europe is present throwing down knives and trash talking in a mash of Portu-Españo-Italo-Franco-English. Although mostly the jibes are tossed in Portuguese, necessity is the mother of linguistic invention and I’m sure Saussere would be thoroughly horrified if he were invited, but I’m no fan of dead French linguists so we decided to let him rest in peace. So I will leave this for now to participate in what I hope to be the last of these for a bit because my palette is a bit fatigued at the moment. I be back for a bit because I cook fast-like.
So it was Friday that the flatmates and I gathered together a bit of picnic to eat at the miradouro by the Igreja de Graça, where the view of the city was out of this world, but the company we inadvertently kept (pictured at right, I never got the gentleman’s name, but I got a good shot of
his belly and that shit-ass grin he always carried with him) was most certainly full of the illicit bounty produced mainly in South America and more than a touch of Noah’s fermented grapes. He helped us out a bit by opening a bottle à la frances (pushing the cork down with an asqueroso finger instead of pulling it up with a corkscrew that we continuously yelled was available as he was in the process). Needless to say we left that bottle to be enjoyed by him and his paisanos. As we were leaving (due mostly to the aforementioned gentleman’s constant amorous attention of Betty (the brit on the left of the picture here—to her right is Gerald, another flatmate in the Casa Marvão), he whispered to me menacingly in Portuguese “we’ll see you soon”, which we most certainly did. We walked about a mile to another miradouro overlooking the Tagus River. 
After about an hour into the second attempt at a picnic Betty’s new friend found us mid-jantar and proceeded to ask for a bit of everything we had. He then threatened Gerald with a knife and we decided it was high time to ask the gentleman to kindly get lost. There were no shortage of athletic men in our group so it was not a case of fear that we let him disturb us for so long but rather the distasteful scene of beating up a drunk loser while the sun set upon a scenic Lisboa. I told our friend that he had overstayed his welcome and his inebriation (coupled with a complete lack of any sense of taste or geometry in his choice of attire) was unacceptable and putting us off our meal. He left forthwith and has only reappeared yesterday night as Betty was out alone getting cash to pay her tuition the next day. He of course didn’t notice her as his memory of that night had no doubt faded a bit. I’m sure he regaled his friends later that eve of the many witticisms he had entertained with only to be inhospitably rejected from the group of foreign rogues. But whatever, this is my side of the story.
Saturday was spent mostly on the Capirica beach (and travelling there and back which took about two hours each way even though it lies only a few miles outside of the city). We took a metro, trolley, ferry, and then a bus to get to it. The beach was at high tide and mostly packed so we had to relax on the rocks. The German flatmate had the sense to bring strawberries. They were delicious. The waves made for good surfing, but as none of us had a surfboard we opted to just dive in and out amongst the crashing olas. We missed the final ferry and got back a bit late for the first of the international iron chef competitions, but still made a good showing nevertheless. On Sunday in Lisbon everything is closed so that day was spent for the most part over lazy meals and homework, and of course another bacchanal for the jantar.
The final picture is from one of these nights in which I was offered by a vendor at some bar a tiara that lit up by battery for 2 euro. I of course accepted as I've never had an electric crown but ended up getting very confused by the math involved in exchanging 2 euros. As I only had a 10 euro note he gave me six, took the ten to get change and then told me the bartender would not give him change at which point I took the ten (which was somehow now two fives) and tried also, and was also denied. I gave him back his six and told him nevermind but he was a persistent lad and gave me back the ten and long story long-somehow I ended up with the ten and the crown, but much money was exchanged in the interim. I guess maybe he gave up or I did. Whatever the case, it will remain a mystery to me. But now I have a sparkling new tiara in case Portugal is ever again in desperate need for a return of the desejado rei Sebastiao.
So it was Friday that the flatmates and I gathered together a bit of picnic to eat at the miradouro by the Igreja de Graça, where the view of the city was out of this world, but the company we inadvertently kept (pictured at right, I never got the gentleman’s name, but I got a good shot of
his belly and that shit-ass grin he always carried with him) was most certainly full of the illicit bounty produced mainly in South America and more than a touch of Noah’s fermented grapes. He helped us out a bit by opening a bottle à la frances (pushing the cork down with an asqueroso finger instead of pulling it up with a corkscrew that we continuously yelled was available as he was in the process). Needless to say we left that bottle to be enjoyed by him and his paisanos. As we were leaving (due mostly to the aforementioned gentleman’s constant amorous attention of Betty (the brit on the left of the picture here—to her right is Gerald, another flatmate in the Casa Marvão), he whispered to me menacingly in Portuguese “we’ll see you soon”, which we most certainly did. We walked about a mile to another miradouro overlooking the Tagus River. 
After about an hour into the second attempt at a picnic Betty’s new friend found us mid-jantar and proceeded to ask for a bit of everything we had. He then threatened Gerald with a knife and we decided it was high time to ask the gentleman to kindly get lost. There were no shortage of athletic men in our group so it was not a case of fear that we let him disturb us for so long but rather the distasteful scene of beating up a drunk loser while the sun set upon a scenic Lisboa. I told our friend that he had overstayed his welcome and his inebriation (coupled with a complete lack of any sense of taste or geometry in his choice of attire) was unacceptable and putting us off our meal. He left forthwith and has only reappeared yesterday night as Betty was out alone getting cash to pay her tuition the next day. He of course didn’t notice her as his memory of that night had no doubt faded a bit. I’m sure he regaled his friends later that eve of the many witticisms he had entertained with only to be inhospitably rejected from the group of foreign rogues. But whatever, this is my side of the story.Saturday was spent mostly on the Capirica beach (and travelling there and back which took about two hours each way even though it lies only a few miles outside of the city). We took a metro, trolley, ferry, and then a bus to get to it. The beach was at high tide and mostly packed so we had to relax on the rocks. The German flatmate had the sense to bring strawberries. They were delicious. The waves made for good surfing, but as none of us had a surfboard we opted to just dive in and out amongst the crashing olas. We missed the final ferry and got back a bit late for the first of the international iron chef competitions, but still made a good showing nevertheless. On Sunday in Lisbon everything is closed so that day was spent for the most part over lazy meals and homework, and of course another bacchanal for the jantar.
The final picture is from one of these nights in which I was offered by a vendor at some bar a tiara that lit up by battery for 2 euro. I of course accepted as I've never had an electric crown but ended up getting very confused by the math involved in exchanging 2 euros. As I only had a 10 euro note he gave me six, took the ten to get change and then told me the bartender would not give him change at which point I took the ten (which was somehow now two fives) and tried also, and was also denied. I gave him back his six and told him nevermind but he was a persistent lad and gave me back the ten and long story long-somehow I ended up with the ten and the crown, but much money was exchanged in the interim. I guess maybe he gave up or I did. Whatever the case, it will remain a mystery to me. But now I have a sparkling new tiara in case Portugal is ever again in desperate need for a return of the desejado rei Sebastiao. 
3 comments:
But when are you going to regale us with a story from the discotheque?
Yes, Dylan sucks live, but it is more like seeing a blues band than a folk band. There is a sax, and matching suits.
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