Three days in Lisbon

We were in Portugal. I don't think either of us had ever had it really high on our list of places to go, but it kind of showed up on the life radar recently. Part of it was just wanting to take a trip to a place that neither of us have been before and part of it was thoughts of retirement. There's a large expat community in Portugal, based on the decent climate, the seriously low cost of living, and the easy access to the rest of Western Europe, so we've been giving it some serious thought and figured we'd take the equivalent of a scouting trip to see what's what. A very well-traveled friend of ours has been to Portugal before and recommended linking up with a reputable tour company to avoid the apparent legion of scammers and to simply ease the burden of planning and scheduling and all the other logistics that go with traveling. We did so and ended up with mixed feelings about the results.

We landed in Lisbon at 8 AM on Thursday and dropped our bags at the hotel and took off across town to visit a highly-Google-rated breakfast place called Seventh Brunch. All of the talk online is about how Portugal, like many places, is a non-tipping culture and most workers don't want tips because they feel like it will encourage employers to pay them less because of what they'll potentially make in tips, similar to how the US works. But we discovered that this place clearly catered to Americans because the check had "Suggested Tip" automatically printed at the bottom. Over the course of our eight days, we found only a couple other places that did this, but the (ahem) typical function still appears on Uber and Bolt, which we used quite a bit to get around both Lisbon and Porto. Hard to tell what the mindset is or if it may be changing or if it's just particular businesses that cater to Americans and feeding off the greater wealth of the expat community (and tourists like yours truly.)

In riding with said Uber and Bolt drivers, we got a decent education in current Portuguese and Moroccan hip hop and grime. Most of the drivers weren't that talkative, but it's possible that most of them don't know much English even though it's every bit as common otherwise among service workers as it is in Germany (and, y'know, Liverpool...) We didn't find a single food service worker who doesn't speak at least some level of English and most of them spoke it quite well and we've went everywhere from streetcarts to what many consider the best restaurant in Lisbon, Cervejaria Ramiro.

We went there because of Anthony Bourdain. He went to Portugal no less than four times across three different series, so most people knew that he loved the place. Across those four episodes, the only place he returned to was Ramiro, which is kind of a high-end seafood place that presents as an old school, family restaurant, with different parties seated at the same tables and so forth. We went with some obvious suggestions (shrimp and clams in garlic) and less so (barnacles, murex straight from the shell.) I've never had either of the latter. Any conch I've had before has always been deshelled and in some sauce. These were in the shell and you just hooked them out and tossed them down. Decent. The barnacles were a bit less so. They're fried and then you have to chew off the dried and fried husk before getting at the meat which tastes something like oyster. Not horrible, but not worth the effort, IMO. The tiger prawns grilled over salt were excellent, though. This was also our first direct experience with that cost of living that we were hearing about, in that a multi-dish fresh seafood meal at the restaurant that even our Uber driver recommended as "the best in Lisbon", was probably half the price I would've expected in the States.

The other thing about many of the Uber drivers is that they drive like maniacs (slamming the accelerator down to go two blocks before hitting an intersection and/or stoplight) but they're also scrupulously observant of traffic laws. If they see a yellow light, they actually slow down and then stop, unlike 90% of Americans. Turn signals are always used and, just like in Germany, they're incredibly courteous to everyone else on the road and those other drivers are, in turn, also courteous to them. If someone puts a signal on to move in to a packed lane, someone slows down and lets them in(!) They also make adjustments during traffic and in some of Lisbon's stranger intersections that go from two lanes to five in three different directions and vice-versa. If people make a slow turn or stop in the middle of the road to let someone out or do something else that most Americans would react to with outrage, these drivers just shrug and accept it as part of traffic in Lisbon.

Over those three days, we spent time in both the main city on our own and in a couple "suburbs", which are really more like the continuous sprawl of American cities. As with most large and old cities, there are different qualities to various areas, defined by the concept of "quarters." The pace of modernization has reduced those geographic personalities a bit and I think that's been accelerated by the influx of tourists. Only a couple times throughout our trip did we walk into an area that lacked the presence of American, British, German, or French types with their cameras and little radios to keep an ear to what their guide was saying. Those moments were typically when we walked into what would be considered a Muslim neighborhood, as the stores advertising halal products would suddenly appear and just as quickly dissipate when we walked another block.

We tried the famous bacalhau (salted codfish; the national dish of Portugal despite cod not being present in Portuguese waters) four different ways and found it to be seriously lacking. Traditionally, it's roasted over a bed of potatoes and topped with onions and peppers and a butter sauce. We tried it that way twice and also mixed in a stew and as part of a sandwich and still had no moment where our eyes would light up. Only one section of one of those fish had anything resembling what you would consider SALTED cod. Otherwise, it tasted like anything you'd find breaded and fried in the US (aka frozen fish sticks.) It also seriously lacked flavor precisely because it lacked salt(!) Meanwhile, the couple times we had octopus, it was excellent (and even better when we got to Porto, where it's more of a specialty) and we've had the pasteis de nata a couple times and they're pretty solid. They're sweet but not overly so. But they're still sweet, leading me to wonder why anyone would douse them in powdered sugar. Cinnamon does add a lot to them, though.

Our tour guide has been good enough and has filled us in on not only what we're seeing but the Portuguese mindset in a lot of ways. They're one of the red-headed stepchildren of Germany-... excuse me: the EU, but unlike others such as Greece, who've reacted to being dictated to by Berlin and Paris in terms of economic output with outrage, the Portuguese have kind of shrugged their shoulders at it and accepted their lot. Most people recognize that the upsides of the EU probably outweigh some of the economic downsides. But there's a cultural part to it, as well. As one of our tour drivers put it: they're a small country with an incredibly rich history that most of the world will never know about. A brief examination of said history will prove that to be spot on. They're very proud of their identity as the people brave enough to explore what was the 15th-century equivalent of trying to get to the moon, but also aware of all of the downsides that went with that (colonialism, slavery, etc.) Being under the boot of Antonio Salazar for almost 50 years but now 50 years past has been enough time for reflection that ripples through the national outlook in many ways, too, I think.

On that note (quite literally), we went to a fado show on one of our first nights in Lisbon. Fado is the national music of Portugal; short songs of longing for something often undefinable and accompanied by strings. Despite it being their version of the blues, it's not solely traditional blues (slow paced, mournful) but instead, like modern blues, has embraced all kinds of tempo and often amusing topics, even as it maintains the sonorous delivery and message of unfulfilled desire. We saw a trio on fado guitar (higher pitch than typical acoustic), regular guitar, and stand-up bass with alternating male and female singers. It was great. I'm interested in digging into more of it and apparently so is the rest of Europe, as a couple of performers in that style have become massive stars in the EU in recent years (Ana Moura, etc.) Next up are Sintra and then some smaller towns that we visited on our way north to Porto.