A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

I woke up in a strange city on my wife’s birthday. I was alone. A chair was broken.

West Lafayette’s City Hall seems a little understated by comparison.

I’m afraid that introduction over-promises, and I will certainly under deliver. This was our first morning in Porto and, as I mentioned in our last installment, I slept like a log. That meant that, while I slept, the other old people (and Kenza) had woken up and gone for coffee. (The chairs were poorly designed, and, while Amy was putting on her shoes, one of them had broken. Later we found a storage closet where two other broken chairs were stored. All of this made us suspicious of another one of the chairs, which was wobbly, which we put in the corner so no one tempted fate.)

After a time, the others returned with some eggs and bread, and the kids surfaced. After breakfast, my crew – Amy, Cole, Harper, and I – headed out to explore the city. Porto is somewhat less hilly than Lisbon, smaller, and somehow feels a bit more like an American city. Not entirely, obviously, but in comparison to Lisbon. It might have something to do with the place being a college town. Also, my Wikipedia-level understanding of the history is that the Moorish occupation was much shorter than with Lisbon, and Porto has historically maintained closer ties with England over the centuries. Or maybe I’m imagining things. After briefly strolling around Porto City Hall and enjoying the magnificent tiles in the São Bento train station, we fairly quickly found ourselves on the top deck of the Dom Luis I Bridge.  We spent more time with the bridge the following day, so I’ll hold off on saying much about it other than that it’s a beautiful double decked bridge spanning the Douro River build by a student of Gustave Eiffel.

Harper and the birthday girl at the cathedral.

After taking in some of the views from the bridge, we returned to the north side of the river and made our way back to the nearby Porto Cathedral. It’s a Romanesque structure with towers, crenellation, and flying buttresses. So, it looks a little like a castle. Despite it being her birthday and her general unease with heights, Amy gamely went up into one of the towers with us. The interior was gilded and busy. These old, European Catholic churches give me an appreciation for how and why the radical Protestant reformers came to insist on simplicity in their churches. If one assumes that a relationship with God is to be direct rather than mediated through the Church, I can see how the interior of these places would come to be seen as wasteful and expensive distractions. Still, they are something to see, and this was well worth the price of admission.

Following the tour of the cathedral, we made our way down to the bank of the Douro River. Porto has a really cool riverfront. Lots of outdoor dining, buskers, and energy in general. It being a sunny and warm Friday afternoon in early spring, it was hopping! In fact, this was the only time during the trip that I felt like it got positively hot out. The forecast before we left the U.S. called for it to be raining and in the 50s basically the entire week we were in Portugal. We never felt a drop, but the weather was generally in the 50s and sometimes cloudy or windy. But, for a period of time that afternoon, it was sunny, 70s, and not much wind. Our sweatshirts came off, and we were regretting the long pants.

Sometimes, sitting in the grass is the absolute perfect thing to do.

We’d planned on meeting the other crew for a late lunch and, so, began the climb uphill from the river front. It was warm, we were walking a lot, and we hadn’t had much to eat. We were starting to bonk. We stopped in to a store for some drinks and some sunscreen. The guy working the cash register didn’t speak much English and, near as we could tell, not much Portuguese either. But, we figured out the transaction and made our way to Café Santiago for some Francesinhas. The restaurant was not really set up to accommodate a table of eight, so we basically remained split up, 4 and 4. A francesinha is a local Porto dish that Amy had had her eye on since we saw them in a Rick Steves video. It was entirely appropriate that we be able to hit Café Santiago on her birthday. Per the Wikipedia description, it is “made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguica, fresh sausage, steak or roast meat, and covered with melted cheese and a hot and thick spiced tomato and beer sauce, served with a side of French fries.” Amy and Harper split one. I was, frankly, intimidated by the description, so I got something similar but just a bit lighter on the menu. Everyone was more than happy with their selection. It was a fantastic lunch.

Properly fueled, we resumed our wanderings. The next stop ended up being a chocolate shop where we got a selection of chocolates and a round of hot chocolates. The hot chocolate was incredibly thick. It was like drinking the inside of a lava cake. By and by, we ended up at Praça de Lisboa which is a really neat park and commercial area. We enjoyed it just for its green space, sitting on a nice hill where we could do some people watching while kicking off our shoes and letting our dogs bark a bit. But, further in, there is a bar with low tables on the lawn, people sitting around them in the grass, studying, drinking, chatting, whatever. And all of this is kind of elevated. You find, sort of recessed underneath is a bit of an alley with stores. We didn’t take advantage of any of the commercial stuff, just the soft grass. At one point, I needed a bathroom and found a sign saying “WC” which I’d come to recognize as “water closet.” That took me to a stairwell which listed the women at “-1” and the men at “-2.” I went down two flights of stairs which spit me out into a parking garage. The “WC” signs were a bit ambiguous and kept leading me ever onward. I’d done quite a bit of walking and was starting to wonder just where the hell I was when I finally found the bathroom. It was serviceable but fairly disgusting. I went up the first available flight of stairs and emerged well away from the park, across and down the street a fair bit. The underground parking structure was apparently massive.

On the Harry Potter tour of Porto.

We capped off our wanderings with a Harry Potter tour of Porto. We met our tour guide at the São Bento railway station. This place is just beautiful. Wikipedia tells me that the vestibule has 20,000 azulejo tiles. There are depictions of battles and saints, travel and daily life, work and romance. Not your average metro station. The tiles took a decade to complete. Our guide met us between platforms 3 and 4 (there being no 9 ¾ here). He told us the train station used to be a convent and that the powers that be wanted to start building earlier, but one nun refused to leave and they had to wait for her to pass before construction could begin.

J.K. Rowling wrote a bit of Harry Potter in Porto, and a Brazilian student named Vini was a big fan and created a tour which combines places associated with Rowling as well as Porto places he felt were analogous to themes in Harry Potter, and turned them into our tour. Vini is an outstanding guide, very engaging and friendly. The tour itself was mostly just walking outside places where Vini would explain to us how they related to Harry Potter either through the literal presence of Rowling, presumed influence on the books, or sometimes just metaphorical similarities. Amy was, of course, the best at Harry Potter and, so, when Vini asked Potter questions, she was usually the one able to answer. In the course of our tour, we stopped at Manteigaria for some pasteis de nata. This was the place we hit on our food tour the night before, but, like I said, they were *so* good. We didn’t complain.

After the tour, it was about 8:30 at night, and we were hungry. Our first effort was to get a table at the sushi place near the tour’s end that Vini had said was very good. With no reservation, we were out of luck. We ended up at a place called Casa Guedes for a meal that was easily the most disappointing on the trip. I had a pork sandwich that was pretty dry and our table split a plate of fries that were bland and chewy. On the upside, their large beers were very large, so it wasn’t all bad. It had been another 25,000 step day.

Super Bock

I love the outdoor breakfasts!

Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day. So far as I could see, nobody in Portugal cared. The early risers decided to change things up for breakfast, and we went to Copenhagen Coffee Lab instead of our normal pastelaria. This was a chain restaurant, but not one we have at home, so we figured it was o.k. Amy, Cole, Kenza, and I made our way down (in Lisbon, you always remember whether the destination was up or down) to the restaurant. I had a double espresso along with some salmon and eggs. I am not used to espresso, and even though I know it’s strong, even a double seemed woefully insufficient given how little liquid was in the cup. After sipping the stuff, I realized it was plenty. It’s definitely potent.

We were headed to Porto that day and had to check out of our Lisbon apartment by 11, so we headed back and finished packing. There had been an incident with some wine and a chair the night before. Matt and Suzie were taking care of clean up. They indicated they were making progress. I was skeptical. I think we’re still kind of holding our breath to see if an extra charge materializes. We took an Uber to Oriente Station where we caught a train to Porto. There was a brief period of irritation as the girls disappeared into the train station just before it was time to head up to the platform. We had plenty of time as it turns out, but I get anxious about time when I am unfamiliar with the schedules and the terrain. The ride was reasonably comfortable and uneventful. I mostly spent my time reading “Drunk: How We Slipped, Danced, and Stumbled our Way to Civilization” by Edward Slingerland. (His theory is that inebriation, despite its obvious costs, has adaptive advantages for primates forced into close proximity with one another and facilitates creativity and collaboration.)

The Porto Steak n’ Shake looks just a *little* different from the ones in Indiana!

When we got to Porto, the station was under some construction, so for ground transportation, the signs had us exiting through featureless hallways and onto the sidewalk of a side street with no particular markings. We called another Uber that found us with no problem. But the second car for the rest of the crew was not so efficient. It took that group quite sometime to summon a car that could locate them. The Porto apartment made a good first impression. It looked clean, comfortable, and fairly modern. I think some of this was illusory. It wasn’t a bad apartment, but the furnishings made it look more comfortable than it actually was. And the layout kept confusing me. The door to the exterior hallway opened into a main living room with two side doors, one that led to an interior hallway going to the bedrooms and one that led to the kitchen. I think my confusion stemmed in part from the hallway to the bedrooms being between  the kitchen and the dining table. On some level, I think I kept expecting the door closest to the table to lead to the kitchen.

Cole and I immediately got the lay of the land by heading out on a quick beer run. There was a little store about two blocks away. (If we read the signs right, it was also next to a 24-hour marijuana dispensary). I grabbed a warm 15-pack of Super Bocks and two cold mini-bottles that we carried home. The cold mini bottles were a good idea, but the warm beers ended up being largely wasted because we just didn’t spend enough time in the apartment to drink them over the next couple of days. After unpacking and some beer, wine, and snacks, it was time to go on our food tour of Porto. We made our way down to the World War 1 memorial where we met our guide. I’ll call her “Julie,” but I’m not entirely sure I have that right. She was from France and married to someone local and was super nice. This tour was maybe heavier on the drinking than actual food when compared to our Porto tour. Whereas Irene in Lisbon was a chef, Julie was more of a drinking buddy. So, it was fun, but the cuisine was not quite as good.

A bottle shop with all kinds of wine and tinned sardines and mackerel. One of my favorite stops!

Our first stop was for salty snacks at Paderia Ribero. This ended up being a place central to our future journeys, and we got comfortable using their bathroom over the next couple of days. Also, it was next door to a Steak n’ Shake which was pretty amazing to me. I didn’t even really think they had those outside of Indiana, let alone in Portugal. Wikipedia tells me they opened a few in Europe starting in 2014. Our second stop was at the Patio d’as Maria Merceria.  I think this was more like a specialty grocery where they seated us and served us down in a basement where we had meats, cheeses and port. Port is just a bit sweet for my tastes, but the set up was great, and I certainly like meat and cheese! Third on the tour was Garrafeira which was a cool bottle shop. We were set up at a long table and served sardines, mackerel, and green wine. The kids were maybe a little too enamored of green wine! It’s sweet and a little fizzy, so I can see the appeal. Since he’s 18 and it was legal, we were kind of letting Cole set his own pace with beer and wine. Further research suggests that Harper was probably also legal to drink. Even though we thought the drinking age was higher, it was pretty clear nobody cared if a 16 year old with her parents was drinking wine. Still, we kept a closer eye on Harper’s consumption.

Enjoying pastéis de nata out on the street.

Stop 4 was Tasquinha dos Sabores. The bread was good, and there was some wine. But this stop was a little bit forgettable. That might not be the fault of the restaurant so much as its position in our tour. Unlike everywhere else, there was quite a bit of food left on peoples’ plates. Stop 5 was Manteigaria for some pasteis de nata. They were *so* good here. The pastries had just enough crunch and the custard was not at all gelatinous and was delicious. And, the final stop on the tour was Capela Incomum which is a chapel converted into a really cozy place to have some drinks. The layout gives it a kind of atmosphere that I don’t really see in bars and restaurants in the Midwest. We had some kind of dessert wine which, again, was a little sweet for my tastes. But, still I was happy to have been there.

On the walk home, we encountered an initiation of some kind. A fairly large crowd of young adults, chanting, singing, and clapping which attracted various onlookers – ourselves included. Kenza, curious and always happy to strike up a conversation with a stranger, started talking with a guy from Iran who was in Porto by way of Finland. He said that these were nursing students being initiated and that it had been going on every night for 10 days. Eventually, the routine was that they’d end up in the fountain. We didn’t stick around to see that. It had been a long day, and I slept like a log.

Last stop – a cozy table at Capela Incomum. There was even a mirror so I could get in the shot!

Prior installments for the Portugal trip:
Part I: Travel to Lisbon
Part II: Lisbon – Castelo de São Jorge, Belém, and Food Tour
Part III: Sintra and Roaming Lisbon

Waiting on a Train

The day began in the usual way with pastries and coffee at the local pastelaria, taking home piles of pastries for the kids. The plan for the day was a trip to Sintra, a town about 17 miles west of Lisbon. Only it was Europe, so they use kilometers and there are more of them. The good news is that it wasn’t raining. As recently as two days prior to us leaving on the trip, the weather apps were calling for rain basically the entire week. In reality, the only rain I experienced was during the five feet or so from an airport shuttle to the stairway up to the plane as we were departing. The bad news was that the day we were headed to Sintra, the winds out of the south were fierce and Saharan sand was in the air.

We made our way down hill to the Rossio train station where, following a delay owing to a bathroom search, we caught our train to Sintra. The train ride begins with a long tunnel which I found a little disorienting, but Wikipedia tells me is 2.9 km long and “is considered one of the most important works of engineering in Portugal.” We found ourselves in the Sintra town square and probably tackled the sightseeing in the least efficient possible way. The two main sites are the Moorish Castle and Pena Palace. Both places are cool, but less than authentic. The castle was built by the Moors in the 8^th and 9^th centuries after they conquered the Iberian peninsula. Its utility as a defensive site diminished over the years and, in the 19^th century, Ferdinand II rebuilt the walls, replanted some trees, and manicured the grounds inside the walls. If I recall the plaques correctly, Ferdinand used the place for meditation and reflection. In the mid-19^th century, the palace was on the site of a former monastery that was reduced to ruins by the 1755 earthquake.  The design is pure storybook which is a little odd considering it was built and used during a time period recent enough to include a telephone. Essentially the sites were play things for Portuguese nobility.

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view.

Even so, the first thing we wanted to see was the Moorish Castle. The thing about castles is that they work better when they are higher than the enemy. There are all kinds of options for having someone take you up to the top of the big hill – buses, cabs, tuktuks. But the area by the train station was crowded and we wanted to get away from the hordes. So, we just started walking and walking and walking, ever upward. It was actually a beautiful hike, but it did leave us with another 12 mile, 150 flight day.  The wind was strong, clocking in at 20 miles per hour, and as I mentioned, there was sand in the air from the Sahara. This phenomenon apparently affected a broad patch of Europe, including at least Spain and Germany as well.  For the most part, the hills surrounding the castle sheltered us from the wind, but occasionally you’d crest a hill or find yourself exposed to southerly winds and you could really feel it. You didn’t want to be wearing your hat when you climbed on top of one of the towers. Even with the dust limiting visibility, some of the views were pretty amazing. On a clear day, you must be able to see forever.

From the castle, we hiked down a bit, then took a bus from a lower parking lot up to the palace. By the time we got there, the dust was really obscuring any kind of view. The inside was kind of weird just because the furniture was recognizable – a lot of stuff that you could imagine maybe a rich grandparent having. It lives in an uncanny valley that’s not contemporary and is maybe historical, but only just barely. The colorful towers were pretty though.

Lunch at the Apeadeiro

By that time, it was probably 2 pm, we’d been working hard, and some of us were starting to bonk. It was a great time for lunch. Our food tour guide, Irene, had emailed us some potential recommendations, and we went with Apeadeiro. I had squid and chorizo. Harper had squid and shrimp. Both of them were good, but her fries were amazing. Sometimes it’s the simple things! After lunch, we broke up the band. Matt, Suzie, and Sydney headed back to Lisbon while Amy, Cole, Harper, Kenza, and I explored Sintra a bit more. Eventually it occurred to us that we didn’t know the train schedule. We got paranoid that the train that Google showed us might be the last one, so we rushed to catch it. I suspect it was not the last train, but better safe than sorry.

Once back in Lisbon, we still weren’t ready to be done, so we wandered. It seems to me that Lisbon would be a challenging place to live – although I’m sure you get used to it. But it is a remarkable place to be a tourist who is willing to walk but with no particular destination. The streets, alleys, stairs, and walkways twist and turn up and down, and it seems that there is always an unexpected and interesting shop or restaurant or bar crammed into every nook and cranny. In our wanderings, we came across a place purporting to be the world’s oldest book store, the Livraria Bertrand.

I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie
To the hip hip hop-a you don’t stop the rock.

At that point, Harper was fading but Amy, Cole, and Kenza wanted to keep exploring. Harper and I started making our way back to the apartment. However, we hadn’t made it too far before we found a little record store that we had to check out. Harper has a turntable and is a budding fan of vinyl. This place had bins full of random 45s they were selling for 1 euro apiece. Harper picked up “Amanda” by Boston and “Come on Eileen” by Dexie’s Midnight Runners. I passed on but probably should’ve bought a copy of “Rapper’s Delight” by “Chagrill’s Gang.” When I got home, the Internet told me that this is an obscure Portuguese knock-off of the famous version by the Sugarhill Gang.  As we were leaving, what appeared to be the owner’s buddy came in with an armload of cold Super Bocks and was popping the tops. Tough to say whether they were making any money, but listening to music and drinking beers doesn’t seem like a bad way to spend a Wednesday night in Lisbon.

From the record store, the rest of the walk was surreal. We were following the path given to us by Google Maps. There was an outdoor escalator. There was an impossibly narrow alley. Then we passed a staircase that Harper said she was glad we didn’t have to take. But I’d navigated too far. The map was taking us up the stairs.

We have since named it the Stairway to Heaven. Just a never-ending staircase that went between buildings in some cases and between barren, graffiti-filled walls in others. We passed a guy talking on the phone about an increase in income which he planned to use to get a garden. Harper is convinced this was about drugs somehow. About 2/3 of the way up the stairway (though, at this point, we didn’t know how long we had left to climb), Harper was absolutely gassed. But, she heard some voices behind us and was paranoid, so she soldiered on. (To be clear, we never caught a whiff of trouble or danger from anyone the entire time we were in Portugal. But, it was dark and the environment was strange, so the mind plays tricks.) At long last, we made it to the top and, much to our surprise, we recognized the place. The point where the stairs ended were only about 1.5 blocks from our apartment. Home at last.

I’m certain that those stairs weren’t anywhere near as long as what they seemed at the time. And they will just grow longer, steeper, and weirder as we tell this story in years to come. And that’s what I love about these vacations. One day, Harper will probably be telling her kids about that walk home. It won’t be a big deal. Nothing life changing. Just a fun, peculiar moment with her Dad. And, even if we didn’t do anything else on this trip, that memory would’ve been worth all the price of admission.

Streets of Lisbon

Matt and Suzie getting the morning started.

The adults were up and about at 8 a.m. and went foraging. Up the hill was Pastelaria Baga Baga, a little pastry shop that we went to a few times. The coffee was good and the pastries were cheap. So, we ate pasteis de nata (a type of custard tart) and drank coffee at a table on the sidewalk, then took breakfast back for the kids. Then it was time to get walking. The first stop was Castelo de São Jorge, a place that has probably been fortified for a couple thousand years. The Moors built fortifications in the 900s and the Portuguese took it back during the Second Crusade. It was a pleasant place to stroll around as a tourist. Storming it as a hostile soldier must’ve been a nightmare. For most of the crowd, the peacocks on the grounds seemed to be the central attraction. I was partial to the views, the concession stand selling Sagres, and the sign next to a statute of Manuel I imploring visitors, “please do not lean on the foot.”

A note on the beers in Portugal: primarily they sell two kinds, Sagres and Super Bock. Most places will have one or the other but not both. With the huge selections we tend to have in U.S. establishments, there was something refreshing about being able to order “a beer” and getting whichever of the two they have on tap. Both are pleasant, if unremarkable. They put me in mind of Mexican beers, “Dos Equis” kept jumping to mind. As between the two, I’m on Team Super Bock.

That Pink Street sure is Pink!

Once we were finished with the castle, it was time for our first trolley ride. Amy had acquired 72 hour Lisboa passes for us which got us on and off the public transportation for no extra charge. The trolleys are very useful in a town as hilly as Lisbon. You need to have good balance and not mind crowds because they can get pretty full, and you’ll have to stand. I can’t imagine what Lisbon is like for folks who aren’t able to walk very well. Still, for us, the trolley rides were fun. We headed down to “Pink Street” which, true to its name, is a street painted pink. That stop was fairly underwhelming. I think it’s more of a night life type area, and there wasn’t a ton for a family of four to see on an early Tuesday afternoon.

From Pink Street, we took a tram to the Belém area where we saw Belém Tower, Padrãodos Descobrimentos, and Jerónimos Monastery. Of these, Jerónimos was the most interesting. The architecture is just stunning, and it contains the tomb of Vasco de Gama. The Monument of the Discoveries is a giant slab that takes the shape of the prow of a Portuguese caravel. It features Prince Henry the Navigator at the point, flanked by Portuguese discoverers. It was erected in the 1950s and 60s to commemorate 500 years since the death of Prince Henry and celebrate the Portuguese accomplishments during the Age of Discovery. Doing anything to commemorate that era is bound to generate mixed feelings, and this was no exception. Its importance to the Portuguese and the course of human history can hardly be overstated. Those voyages of discovery connected the civilizations of the world. That said, the impact of slavery, spread of disease, and misery that followed in the wake of those voyages can also hardly be overstated. A monument that is purely celebratory is going to miss the mark. At least it did for me, even as I was glad to see it. In particular, the limestone square adjacent to the monument, depicting a compass rose and a map of the world was stunning.

I would have liked to visit the Maritime Museum which is also in that area, but time simply did not permit. We had scheduled a food tour for that evening. We met our guide, Irene, at the Rua Augusta Arch. The arch and that whole area of Lisbon were constructed after the 1755 earthquake. I’m sure students of architecture will flinch at my characterization, but the layout is on the Enlightenment model – all straight lines and symmetry. I had forgotten about the earthquake until this trip, but the first time I learned about it was reading Candide where the fact of the earthquake and the destruction it caused were some of the challenges to Candide’s Panglossian worldview.

Harper at the Padrãodos Descobrimentos

Our food tour guide, Irene, was a chef native to Italy who had lived in Lisbon for several years. (In fact, for whatever reason, all of the people who showed us around Portugal ended up being foreign to the country. Fabiola who drove us from the airport was Brazilian, Irene was from Italy, our food tour guide in Porto was French, and our Harry Potter tour guide in Porto was Brazilian.) The Lisbon food tour and the restaurants that Irene picked for us were fantastic. We had eight people in our crew, so we hogged most of the tour slots, but along with us were Nicole from Philly and Nathan from D.C. The first stop was Mantegeria Salva where we had meat, cheese, bread, and port wine. I’m certainly doing the food a disservice by failing to be more specific with my descriptions, but those details escape me. All I can say is that it was a great start. (I will mention that they had a cod refrigerator out on the sidewalk with the front wheels sitting on blocks. It was not the most stable design choice! No harm done, but there was a scare when those wheels came off the blocks.) The second stop was my favorite, Cantinho do Aziz, featuring cuisine from Mozambique. We had two kinds of samosas, one with meat and one without. Despite my carnivorous ways, the vegetarian option was easily my preference. There was also a curry dish that was pretty amazing.

I neglected to record the names of stop three, but it featured cod and potatoes. The potatoes were a kind of chip that struck exactly the right balance between crisp and soft. Irene said she was still trying to figure out how they did it. The last place was Amuralhas Tapas e Vinhos where, as the name would suggest we had wine and a number of tapas dishes. In particular, I recall the flamed sausages were good. We also had shot glasses of ginjinha, a sweet cherry drink (that you sip and do not shoot). I’m glad we had it because it’s a distinctive drink in Portugal, but it was a little sweet for my tastes (as was the port – which is why, even though I like wine, I ended up primarily drinking beer.) The guided food tours (we did another one in Porto) were Amy’s idea. She’s right that these are a great way to get introduced to a new place.

According to the data from my watch, we finished the day having climbed the equivalent of 146 floors and having walked about 12 miles.

On the food tour: our crew plus Nathan from D.C. and Nicole from Philly.

Packed in the back. On the Road to Chicago!

This was a trip that was supposed to happen almost two years ago. I think a lot of people are having trips like that. We started making the plans in the latter part of 2019. As originally contemplated, it was going to be longer and take place in June 2020. Amy and her sister, Suzie, were going to attend an international WordPress conference in Porto, Portugal, and we were going to extend the itinerary to include Lisbon, Madrid, and Barcelona. And then the world shut down.

Fast forward to 2022, and – after an impressive Omicron jag – COVID cases were low, vaccinations were easily available, and the world was more or less open again. Also, our Air Portugal credits from 2020 were set to expire, so we booked a trip for Spring Break. We banked on the fact that Cole was going to make the Indiana All-State band and scheduled our departure to be during Spring Break but after his performance. Suzie’s daughter, Kenza, drove up from Tennessee, we caught Cole’s performance on Sunday the 13^th, and headed up to O’Hare that evening where we also met up with Sydney, Kenza’s step-sister. I suppose a dramatis personae is probably in order at this point: Myself, 50 year old Midwestern ne’er do-well. Amy, my long suffering wife and chief architect of this expedition. Cole, my son, age 18. Harper, my daughter, age 16. Amy’s sister and web-design business partner, Suzie. Suzie’s husband Matt. Suzie’s daughter, Kenza. And Matt’s daughter, Sydney.

Amy & Kenza saved the day with cart booze and snacks!

When we got to the terminal, all of the restaurants and bars were closing down, which seems like a money-losing proposition. Even though it was a Sunday night, there were clearly still a lot of people in the terminal willing to spend money. But, Amy & Kenza saved the evening, bringing back an armload of booze and snacks from a cart that was just about to close. We set up shop at an empty section of the closed food-court and waited for our flight. Eventually, we made our way to the gate. The number of people getting turned away at the gate because they’d neglected the airline’s instructions to get a negative COVID test was, frankly, stunning. We must have counted at least 10 when while we were sitting there. O’Hare has a place where you can get the test if you wait until the last couple of hours. But waiting until the last hour on a Sunday night made it impossible for them to get back to the facility, get tested, clear security, and get back to the gate before the flight departed. The next flight out wasn’t until Wednesday. I can’t imagine spending that kind of money on international travel and then ignoring the travel requirements. Amy had us scheduled for a regular test on Friday and then a back up, rapid test for Sunday afternoon, just in case. (The regular test worked out fine, no problem.)

The flight was uneventful. Took off at around 11:15 (Central Daylight) and landed at about noon Lisbon time. Customs seemed like it was moving along fairly rapidly but at one point turned glacial. I think it was a shift change. We arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport since we didn’t know our way around town yet. Fabiola was from Brazil and was terrific. She is originally from Brazil and is learning English. While I would always recommend learning as much of the local language as possible, I have to say, our almost total ignorance of Portuguese didn’t hurt us much. Seemed that most folks knew at least some English, and usually quite a bit. I know a fair amount of Spanish, so signs and other written material was usually pretty easy to follow. But understanding spoken Portuguese is well beyond me.

Through the alley, across the cobblestones, to the right, then up, up, up, and up a little more.

We met up with Matt & Suzie who had been in Lisbon for a couple of days. We had Fabiola drop us off at the little two-person studio they had rented because the four bedroom Airbnb we had booked wouldn’t be available for a couple of hours. In retrospect, with the delay in clearing customs, we probably could have just been delivered straight to our apartment. It was not that far from Matt & Suzie’s location, but that part of Lisbon is either in or very near the Alfama neighborhood and very hilly. So, we found ourselves dragging luggage across cobble stones and stairs, mostly going straight up. It was quite the workout!

We hit a grocery store for some necessities (chief among them, beer and wine). Cole, being 18 and legal to drink in Portugal, had his first (to our knowledge, and probably in reality) beer and wine samplings and hated them both. However, throughout the rest of the trip he would take well enough to the beer. Properly fortified, we headed back out into Lisbon to look for some dinner. Monday nights seem to be a slow night for restaurant operations. Matt had scoped out some likely locations in the previous few days, but they were closed. We ended up at a place called Grehaldor de Alfama.  The restaurant was at a location that seemed to be catering to tourists, but it was a cozy place that seemed to have a husband and wife running it. It could have been a function of a long day traveling, but for me, everything I ate there was fantastic. The lady taking our orders told me I didn’t want the sardines when I tried to order them, so I ended up having salmon and then variously eating the bass, steak, and cod that others didn’t quite finish. There was also some kind of sausage appetizer to which flame was applied at our table. It was also very good. We then climbed the hills back to our apartment and promptly crashed. I slept for about 11 hours. No problem with jet lag!

All together for a fantastic dinner in Lisbon!