No inicio

Things haven't been starting quite swimmingly I would say. I've spent most of the last 72 hours awake and most of that time in line waiting for something. Once I arrive to the front of these lines (with an average wait of about an hour) I notice no one is in line behind me. I've eaten two meals that have both left me sickly. The first night I went to a place called Bar Pinochio because it was packed with locals, yet I stupidly didn't order what it seemed every other table was eating (a bucket of peeled, seasoned shrimp-48 Euro). I opted instead for a dish that was listed as the house specialty which was bife au picapau and which consisted of maybe two steaks cut into large pieces and served in a pool of grease and charred garlic. The side it came with was a bucket of potato chips. On the second day, I write as I still have a bag sitting next to me for my vomit. I don't care to recall the name of this dive but I do remember the Caldo Verde soup was decent. Then I had a plate of “Bacalhau ao Portugues” which is like a grilled or roasted salt cod served with boiled potatoes and some chopped garlic and parsley. Now I must admit, I rarely if ever have been able to make salt cod into anything but a white mass that resembles more of a salt lick than a piece of fish. Nevertheless, I never tried to sell this fish flavored salt. For dessert I had a dish that would translate as camel drool but tasted nothing like that animal's drool and in fact seemed a bit more like a cross between tiramisu and flan.

Lo tho, I must admit that where the food has failed me twice I have been never so visually entertained or mystified. Today I saw two cops cruising in front of me on segues (or segways?) I would love to be chased by these cops by the way. I would start running in circles around them on uneven surfaces and see if they could follow me, I would stop suddenly then start walking, then run a bit, then sort of saunter awhile. The two cops parked their vehicles in front of this salt lick restaurant I was at and proceeded to get a bit lit for a half hour then returned to their beat, which I guess included smoking cigarettes a block down and hitting on teenage girls.

The beggars are very extreme here and seem to be very desperate and almost in competition. When I was taking the subway home from class a man entered the subway car singing and I noticed he had a walking stick and his eyes were fused shut. I think that seemed so extraordinary to me not because I have never run into someone with this malady, but if I had I would have never seen it because usually anyone with eye problems in the Unite States will wear sunglasses which could be seen as vain or considerate. Eye problems make my skin crawl because I have very weird eye issues and flinch if anyone or anything gets near them. Seeing the results of eye damage has the same effect on me. Anyway, not to be outdone the next beggar came in singing a jaunty tune as well. He also had a walking stick and, much to my continued unease he was missing one eye and had the other fused shut. The missing eye was just a mash of skin and empty space. But on top on this he carried in one hand a stick and under the other arm an alms container that he couldn't hold because he was missing his right hand! Those who had given the last guy all their change seemed to have a look of disbelief that there would be a needier cause. Like the last guy had cheated them by coming through ahead of the other. My closest encounter with a beggar was at the salt lick cafe where I was sitting reading a Gyles Brandreth novel and left half the salt cod on the plate in disgust. The adolescent girl who wasn't totally begging (she was selling band aids) came up to me and ask me if I was going to eat that in Portuguese. I didn't think I heard her right because in my world beggars don't ask for food, they ask for money--and if you offer them food they get offended. So she asked me again this question that I haven't been asked by anyone since I was in a junior high cafeteria, and when I ascertained that I had understood her correctly the first time, I (like any Minnesota protestant bleeding heart liberal) nearly tripped over every word to emphatically say the only word she needed to here--sim (yes). She grabbed the whole filet off my plate and immediately scarfed it down while walking away with her band aids. I wanted to chase her down with water as I realized that she would shortly be in dire need of it, but saw that I of course was already out. I only had a few bites of the fish and I am still drinking liters of water to slowly erode the layers of salt crystals that formed in my mouth hours later. I hope I didn't inadvertently kill her with this fish.

Anyway, I apologize for being such a prissy epicurean snob in this first entry, but I guess I had expectations that relied forever on memories of Portugal that had more to do with the people I had food and wine with at the time than the food itself. Over time those sense memories became something beyond mere images, smells, tastes, and Portugal reached a place in my mind as spotless and perfect and ephemeral as a long lost love, or a dream of the innocence of youth. Now I'm here and my love is very far away, and if I am to sacrifice being near my darling palomita to better my language skills, at least I should get a nice piece of fish now and then. Não é?