Our server is a sweet and delightful Portuguese girl who laments her position in life. We are not sure if it is Valverde Hotel in particular or all of Portugal, but the young folks are very free with their emotions. When we ask her where in Portugal she is from, she smiles effusively and says, "Lisbon. I am from Lisbon. I was born here, and I will surely die here!" And then asks us if we'd like some eggs. Her adorable maudlin nature makes me want to take her home, but I've already filled my suitcase with wine bottles so I'm not sure how to accomplish this. I get eggs.
We have decided to spend time with Dan's parents, as it is their last day in Portugal. Dan's mom was hoping for a hop-on, hop-off tour, so Dan's dad hires a dude in a Mercedes to drive us around and point at things. Close enough.
The driver agrees that he will be our shining chariot to take us to the one place I thought we might not make it to, but I desperately need to be at: Pasteis de Belem. It is the goal of the day, and the goal of my life, so I jump into the middle seat and put some fado music on my headphones and patiently wait for pastries to arrive in my face.
But alas there are other things to see before we get there. The driver starts out by asking if we'd like to visit the Castelo de Sao Jorge. There is a resounding no from all patrons of the vehicle, and the driver stutters a bit, wondering what the hell a castle could have done to insult us so badly. Of course, everyone in the car is Jewish, so he likely assumes they just hate Moors. My presence probably complicates the matter, but he decides to take us to a different hill and ignore the issue altogether.
Anti-Moor People, Pro-Blue People.
The only thing about our driver is he is not really a tour guide, nor does he give a shit about the city of Lisbon. Every question about where we are or what's nice about it is met with a half-hearted, "Ehh..it's..this place.." Which leads me to rank it as the second best tour on the trip, seconded only by a jovial man in Gibraltar who gave us a tour that consisted only about facts about his family, such as, "Ah, there is the hospital where my dad is! I'll probably visit him later," and, "That's the university where my daughter Jodi goes! She'll probably graduate." As such, if anyone asks me where to point out the hospital and university in Gibraltar, or where absolutely nothing is in Lisbon, I am perfectly equipped to do both.
The vantage point the driver takes us to does happen to have my two favorite pieces of graffiti thus far.
I think this is supposed to represent tourists.
Or Moors.
I see this brain and wolf thingy around the city, so I assume it is a very benign gang that likes to take selfies at vantage points in the city.
Or something.
After that, we drive to what is my favorite thing in Lisbon. As per my standard practice, I neglect to take any pictures of the things I actually like, preferring instead to have a multitude of red rooftops fill my camera. You can never have too many red rooftops.
Still, I manage to capture a few reminders that we went to something called Feira da Ladra, which is a giant flea market in one of the old neighborhoods. It is a hodgepodge of local artisans, bric a brac, tourist bullshit, and vintage items that teeter heavily between being awesome and being awesome garbage.
I never knew how much I needed a
ceramic sardine until this moment.
Our driver says that it is the best place in town to sell your old things, "Or your, um," and here, he waggles all five fingers and laughs, and I love that five-finger discount is a universal signal. Apparently it is well-known that half the shit in Feira da Ladra is stolen.
So do I just take this?
Alas, Dan's family is growing tired and does not want to spend the entire day and also the rest of their life rifling through tiny dollhouse furniture, doorknobs, and ceramic tiles from the 1840s. I am like a kid in a very dusty candy shop where someone should have thrown all this candy away but now I NEED IT and so I dart from table to table and blanket to blanket with a time limit in place, trying to find Just The Right Thing to take back and display on my mantle as my very clever vintage purchase from a Portuguese flea market, but everything is just the right thing and Dan doesn't think a ceramic sardine is really in the spirit of our decorating style (apparently Idiot Child's Bedroom isn't in vogue anymore), so I buy some earrings and sulk all the way to the next place because what is better than garage droppings sold at a discount?
Oh right, custard tarts.
Let's get fucking going.
Actually, hold that thought.
At our next stop, I abandon my embryonic dream to become a traveling gypsy sitting on the street selling her wares when I see this genius invention, which is a cocktail cart and four folding chairs. Talk about best business model ever. The person sitting in the cart is just chilling reading a book, waiting to pour batched cocktails into a mason jar and charge you an extra dollar to sit in a nice chair and stare at the river. I would have given her all my money, but we had a prior engagement with desserts.
Are they in here?
I honestly have no idea where the tarts are, or where we are. Somewhere on the river, looking at cocktail carts and the Torre de Belem. Like the tarts! I look around, but see only men trying to sell me selfie sticks, as if they have no idea that I don't know how or when it is appropriate to take pictures. I try to make the universal symbol for custard tart, but there is no universal signal, and they wander away to find someone less confused about what a selfie stick is for.
Are they in here?!
We walk across the street to the monastery, and the Church of St. Jerome, which is great, because that's Dan's dad's name, and I tease him about having such a stupid gorgeous house of worship, since I don't know how jokes work. We ponder going inside to see what is probably a large Jesus, but Dan's dad has put a moratorium on church viewing, since when you've seen one Jesus, you've seen 'em all. This suits me fine, because I can smell something wonderful and exciting over the tour bus fumes, and it is motherflipping custard tarts.
The Church of Chubby Happiness.
As is appropriate for any house of worship, there are lines out the door to pay respects to the little custards of legend. I immediately queue up, but Dan points out we've lost his parents. I point out that he should probably go find them while I stand in this line and inch myself closer to the fucking pastries that are five feet away. We have a silent pact, he and I, whereby he knows full well that I would leave him for a case full of pastries, so he never asks me to choose him over them, and with that knowledge he leaves me to stand in vibrating anticipation for tarts in my face.
The place is a hectic zoo of glorious angels stuffing pastries into boxes and handing them over the counter. You pay up front, and then hand this beautiful man a little ticket and he hands you desserts. Given that everyone in the store is a tourist, people are unsure of how the process works, but I am long practiced at getting desserts into me as quickly as possible, so I kindly show everyone how t's done by elbowing around them all and shoving my ticket forward first.
Give me your treasures, Rumpletartskin!
And, at long last, success is within my grasp, in a warm, effusive cylinder of tiny egg tarts. I pose for a picture, because things are about to get weird.
Everyone look away, I need to be alone.
(To be continued in Part 2, where we go on a quest for normal household items and it is much harder than it should be)
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