Trials and Triumphs – Córdoba Continued

Driving through the fields of dead sunflowers on our way to Granada this morning I was struck by just how sleepy Córdoba seemed, especially when compared to Seville.

It’s really not surprising when you consider our timing- the hottest part of summer, when everyone with any sense is at the beach. Sevilla has been popular for years and is popular all year round. It’s the stuff of legends- bull fights, Hemingway, amazing tapas, one of those places where all the major tourist sites are within a kilometre of each other, insulated by the quaint golden-edged streets of the Juderia. I think it’s fair to say that staying in Seville leaves you with fairly high expectations of wherever you go next.

Córdoba, on the other hand, is famous for one thing and one thing only – the Mezquita, an ancient Muslim Mosque, that is, until the Catholic reconquest of 1236, when the conquistadors erected a Cathedral in the heart of it. It’s even more amazing when you consider that before the Mezquita was built, there was a church on that site, the remains of which have now been found under the floor of the Mezquita. This sounds incredible, I know (and it is), but after a weeks of travelling we may have had a touch of monument-fatigue, along with incredibly high expecatations of what the Mezquita would be, especially after seeing the Alcázar (look on way and it’s the Alhambra, look the other and it’s the Mezquita).

I don’t want to give you the impression that Cordoba wasn’t fairly amazing. I know it’s not actually possible for something to be ‘fairly amazing’ either it’s amazing or it’s not, but that’s kind of how we felt about the place. The Mezquita alone was so beautiful but unfortunately the cathedral part of it was being restored when we were there. As a result the large cavernous interior took me (with my somewhat impatient nature) about 20 minutes to explore. The place is vast, all striped red-and-white arches and marble floors, but I wasn’t in the mood to be amazed. That’s something you’re not really prepared for when you travel, that you might get sick of being amazed. But there are days I guess when you want to lie in bed, eating crisps and watching Hollywood movies dubbed in Spanish (or equivalent) wherever you are, and this was one of those days for me.

The arches of the Mezquita.

The ceiling of the cathedral in the Mezquita.

It was in Cordoba that we realised something Sydney (and Australia as a whole) really has going for it – breakfast culture. I guess it comes from being settled by the English as well as being a fairly multicultural country without thousands of years of culinary history behind us, but it’s true. In Spain as in Portugal, breakfast is a non-event. In Portugal we found people love to go out for lunch, say on a Sunday for a few hours and in Spain dinner seemed more to be the thing and lunch was the way to get value for money. But in Sydney, there’s breakfast.

This might sound ridiculous to you- how can the Iberians get through the morning without eating SOMETHING? I’d like to point out that it’s not that they don’t eat breakfast, it’s that it’s either a cereal/toast/juice/coffee at home affair, or pastry-and-black-coffee out. I was starting to crave Newtown breakfasts, the many kinds of toast, the wanky garnishes, fetta, balsamic, spinach, roast pumpkin, poached eggs, barlotti beans, hash browns. Breakfast is the best bang for buck back home and I was missing shelling out $10-$15 and eating something that would keep me going until some semblance of afternoon tea. Being a vego, there was only so much tortilla española and Gazpacho I could eat and I was starting to feel a bit strange. Walking for most of the day requires something other than Patatas Ali Oli as fuel. I thought I could live on them to begin with, but I was mistaken.

I’d promised myself that I’d at least experience one Catholic mass in Spanish by the end of our trip, and it was in Córdoba that I finally got around to it. It was bizarre experience. It was exactly the same yet completely different from every other mass I’ve ever been to, in an old stone church with an ornate, gold-detailed alter. It was funny, because obviously mass is spoken to be heard and understood, so I could understand what the Priest was saying, by and large. Anything I didn’t know for sure I could guess, because a mass is the same the world over. But I wasn’t prepared for the isolating feeling of not being able to respond. Sure, I could stand up and sit down in all the right places, but I didn’t know what to say and everybody else did. I felt like I was intruding and had this paranoid feeling that I was going to get found out – as a non-Spanish speaker and as a non-Catholic. I had also forgotten just how dull church can be. I was taken back to being a child and being forced to sit for an hour each Sunday and be good. The difference was that this was of my own choosing and thankfully, the service went for less than 45 minutes.

But by far my favourite moment of Córdoba came when we ducked into the only corner store open that day to grab something to eat. We assembled some cheese, olives, bread, garbanzos, jamón and a tomato, but we had nothing to cut it with. Rui said something in Portuñol (Español crossed with Português) which the shopkeeper took to mean we wanted him to cut it up for us. So I summoned up al my courage and, not being able to remember the word for ‘knife’ I managed to choke out ‘No…tienes…uh, algo para…cortar?’ (‘Do you have something to cut with?’). The guy handed me a crappy plastic knife and it was my happiest day in Córdoba. I may go home and fail every unit of University Spanish I take from this day forth, but I will never forget the word for knife as long as I live. Nor will I forget the feeling of achievement that comes with successfully getting your message across in a language you feel you hardly know.

 

Córdoba

We were advised at the train station to take a taxi, but we were having none of it. Surely if our hotel was near the Mezquita, there must be a bus. We found one, along with a crazy old Córdoban man who told Rui he needed a haircut, told me I was too pale and tried to sell us pot, along with a girl dressed from head to toe in yellow who told us which bus to catch. Once again we were amazed at the number of people wearing jeans in the 35 degree heat.

The Mezquita is on the left, our hotel is on the right.

On the bus ride we saw Roman ruins and when we arrived at our hotel we found what we’d hoped for- a view of the famed Mezquita (Mosque) from our window, which took our breath away. After unpacking and doing all those things you just have to do in a hotel room (jumping on the bed, checking out the TV channels, turning lights on and off) we decided it was time to eat.

Walking through Córdoba, there’s one thing we really like about it as opposed to Seville. You get the feeling people actually live there, even if they’re all on holidays. I can’t claim to be an expert, as in both Seville and Córdoba we stayed in the ‘tourist area’, the quaint-whitewashed-houses-and-narrow-cobbled-streets district, but whereas in that part of Seville it felt like people just owned their houses, in Córdoba it felt like they lived in them. It was a bit scruffier, a bit less gentrified, a bit more real.

We found a no-nonsense place (generally if you find one of these with some Spanish people in it, especially old men, you can’t go wrong. They won’t stand for crap food or expensive beer). I never thought I’d like Gazpacho, but I ate a lot of it in Córdoba and I loved it. From then on I was buying it from the supermarket all over Spain and Portugal. The recipe varies, but the Andalucian version is a cold soup of tomatoes, olive oil, onions, and bread, often with garlic, capsicum, cucumber, white vinegar and sometimes almonds. It’s fucking beautiful and I couldn’t get enough of it.

We were pretty buggered after that so after a wander around we decided to crash out, ready for the Mezquita the next day…

 

Seville Continues…

Seville was a bit of a turning point for us in a number of ways. Firstly (and perhaps most importantly), we figured out how to order coffee. It was simple, really – we only needed to ask for an espresso, and, on the off chance I remembered, which I never did, ask for it very, very short.

The second thing that made it a turning point was a sense of confidence that seemed to come from nowhere. Seville was where we began to sit back, relax, order tapas, and drink lots and lots of beer. In bars in Spain, as in Portugal, people drink 200 to 300 millilitre beers, around about middy sized, but you’re only charged a euro for them. This is handy in two ways – one, you can drink plenty and still be standing as you flit from bar to bar, and two, your pockets aren’t empty by the end of the night.

Our hunt for a laundromat one morning unearthed a loud, fast-talking woman who overcharged us and made us feel like tourists (which obviously, we are) but it had who unforseen benefit of meeting a St. Ive’s boy with a South African tinted accent and declared that we, in turn, sounded like Americans. He wanted to ask the scary laundry lady whether his clothes were done but didn’t speak a word of Spanish. Armed with our new-found confidence, we did, or we were about to when he checked his clothes and saw that they were done. He put us on to a walking tour of the Alcazar, Seville’s main attraction, for the following day. It was to totally change our experience of Seville.

Wandering the Juderia the next day it seemed we would never find the famed Alcázar, but obviously we did or I wouldn’t even bother mentioning it. We caught up to the mostly American, 50+ year tour group led by a mid-20’s Sevillano (name). I avoid tours as a rule, basically because I’m miserly and feel they’re a waste of money. I think I have this underlying notion that they’re somehow the easy way out, out of what I’m not sure. Having never been on one prior to this I don’t know how on earth I could judge, but long story short the tour was fascinating. The guide knew his stuff inside out, and the Alcázar was incredible.

The Alcázar is actually three palaces in three very different styles. The history behind it is complex and explains why the building is even more so. It began in 913 and then in the 11^th century when the Muslims were in power another palace was built. Seville was reconquered by the Catholics in 1248 and the Catholic Monarchs resided in the Alcázar until the 1492 reconquest of Granada. The stunning gardens were added later, so it has been a process of expansion over 11 centuries, making it a patchwork of intricate Moorish arches, gothic architecture, detailed plasterwork, tiled murals, whitewashed walls and Rennaisance ceilings. Its most famously associated with King Pedro I, known either as ‘Pedro the Just’ or ‘Pedro the Cruel’ depending on what you read. Stories abound about the various hideously cruel and inspiringly just things he did in his time.

Impressed with the tour, we decided to take another the next day, with the same guide but this time of the city. That night we had a general wander, down the windey paths punctuated by plazas. We got on a tram just for the hell of it and arrived at the Plaza Nueva, the very plaza we were supposed to meet our guide at the next morning. Turns out that the reason Seville has a tram is to connect the two halves of the non-existent metro, which they’ve been trying to build since 1974. The reason they haven’t succeeded s that every time they try they hit on some ancient Roman ruins and have to find a new spot to start digging.

We ended up taking two tours on our final day, one of the city and another of Seville’s Cathedral, supposedly the largest Cathedral in the world by floor space, although there are many claimed to be bigger. Obviously, everyone wants theirs to be the biggest. After using the decaying Mosque as a Church for years, the Sevillano leaders demolished it, apart from the spire which they kept. The story goes that even though there weren’t that many people in Seville at the time, they decided to build such a place that people would think they were insane. The enormous renaissance-style Catedral de Santa María de la Sedel is the result.

We ended our day by getting lost in the Juderia as per our guide’s recommendation. The extreme heat led to ice cream and then we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed through the train station. In spite of the heat we decided to walk, and then it was off to Córdoba.

 

Sevilla – Our First Taste of Southern Spain

Let me give you a little piece of advice: arriving in southern Spain 4pm in the middle of summer and taking the girl at the tourist’s word that it’s not a long walk to your hotel is not the best idea. A twenty minute walk in 40 degree heat is never going to feel like ‘only 15 minutes’. And those cobble-stoned streets aren’t so charming when you’re your dragging a suitcase along their curves, the total lack of footpath pressing you against the gorgeous buildings as the cars zoom by. Welcome to Seville and the best shower I ever had in my life.

When we finally arrived the receptionist handed us a map and explained (in Spanish! I was stoked.) about breakfast and began circling the million-and-one things to do in Seville. Turned out we were within a kilometre of everything. And oh crap, we only had three days to see it all!

After a quick recharge, the acquisition of 4 euros worth of internet (a day’s worth which they let run for 3-or-so days) and a quick reminder to ourselves that we are not of the let’s-see-how-much-crap – we-can-fit-into-the-least-amount-of-time-just-so-we-can-say-we’ve-seen-it-all school of travelling, we took it upon ourselves to explore the narrow streets surrounding our hotel in the hopes of stumbling into the famed Juderia (old Jewish quarter) and seeing, like, you know, some pretty buildings and shit.

We had though that it was pretty hot in Madrid, but that was nothing compared to the early evening pounding dry heat of Seville, which clings to you like a heavy scratchy blanket made of sheep, possibly live ones. The streets have a maze-like quality which, after the ease of the Madrid metro and the confidence it had inspired was apt to get us more than a little lost. The architecture is a mesh of terraces, flats, arab and jewish buildings which have been whitewashed, gold-trimmed and given wrought iron balconies. Geraniums are more than at home here. Seville is beautiful.

Walking around in the stifling heat that evening we began to understand the concept of siesta, and, post-helado, retired to the safety of our air-conditioned room for a couple of hours to try it on for size. It definitely fit, but after a while our stomachs began to rumble, so we decided it was time to try some of that tapas that the south of Spain is so famous for.

The bars gradually began opening around 8 so we went to the closest one, the name of which escapes me. While I had a pretty good food vocabulary in terms of individual ingredients and basic concepts of food, I had no idea what most of the individual tapas on the blackboard were. So we ordered one thing I knew for sure translated as ‘old cheese’ and two other things I had no idea about – a salad of some kind and something which I thought was a vegetable, but I wasn’t sure which vegetable. We ended up with some romano-like cheese, bread, a crab salad and the most amazing zucchini in blue cheese sauce. I was in heaven. It was the best tapas I had in all of Spain.

Seville started us on a habit that became pretty hard to break – beer, beer and more beer. In a part of the city where you may as well throw away your map, this did become a bit of a hazard from time to time. But it was so hot and the beer kept flowing, so we never let it stop us from having una mas cerveza.

There was a different vibe from Madrid- just as alive and even more laden with tourists but somehow more laid back as well. It wasn’t just overcoming our initial choque cultural that made Seville seem a more intimate, less intimidating city. People welcome you into the bars, if only to make money from you, but somehow it was easy to forgive, especially since the money they parted you from got you so much more. And wandering around on that first night was so interesting, from the tiny high-rent streets of the Juderia to the Plaza filled with people drinking on the street, that we could tell we were gonna love it here.

 

Madrid II – We ♥ the Metro

Thanks to the metro, a subject which in itself warrants an entire post, we found Madrid a relatively easy city to navigate and get to know. We found it reassuring that anywhere we went was just a couple of metro stops away and with this in mind we were more apt to explore.

With that in mind, we headed out to see the The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, stopping off for a quick coffee at a busy no-nonsense coffee/bocadillo house (bocadillo? Spanish baguette-style sandwich, usually with a maximum of two fillings) called ‘El Brillante’ and had another go at a café solo, which we’d now worked out is nothing like the bicas we’d had the pleasure of tasting in Portugal. It’s either a half-sized long black or a triple over-extracted short one. It wasn’t great, but it was cheap. I’m guessing Spaniards take their coffee with plenty of sugar.

My student card got me a handy discount into the glass-clad Reina Sofia, so we went through security and checked out the temporary exhibition ‘Máquinas & Almas’, an amazing selection of new media art. We soon realised we’d come in the back entrance, so we took the great glass elevators to the permanent collection of Spanish and European modern art. All I can say about the permanent collection is that it’s very impressive. Oh yes. And I saw Picasso’s ‘Guernica’, complete with process drawings and photographs of the stages of painting, so really, what more is there to say?

After the fairly heavy going Reina Sofia it was obviously time for lunch, and we found a Galician Café a few blocks away with an €8 menu del dia (menu of the day), something offered by almost every restaurant you will find in Spain, even ones that don’t serve Spanish cuisine. You’re given a choice of a first course (usually soups or salads), a mains and a drink (juice, beer, wine, whatever) and dessert. It’s really good value if you’re quite hungry and they have something you like the look of. The woman who served us was nice enough make us mixed salads for an entrée even though they weren’t on the menu (we’d over-cheesed things a bit in Portugal so we wanted something healthy), I had the best tortilla española (thick omelette with potatoes and sometimes onion) of all the ones I ate throughout Spain, and Rui had the Spanish version of a shish kebab. Massive beers and a huge wedge of honeydew melon to finish made us wish we never had to leave. Here is a country that can serve you a piece of fruit as dessert and not make you feel ripped off.

The next day we checked out the Palacio Real (Royal Palace), another instance of vast shoot-down-the-monarchs-come-the-revolution-style-courtyards (frankly, all I can think of in such settings is the Romenov Palace in the animated version of ‘Anastasia’) coupled with ornate lamp posts had looked damn impressive as the sun set over it a couple of days ago. However, after being given fairly free reign through most of the gardens, churches, castles and castle-like-things we’d seen in Portugal, I have to say going through the Palacio Real felt fairly constraining. We had to follow narrow paths marked by ropes all in one direction, and were constantly getting stuck behind, in front of or with a tour group. We left feeling a little disappointed, although of course with thousands of people traipsing through every day, it’s understandable that they want to protect the palace. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside.

The Palacio Real at night.

The Cathedral as seen from the Palacio Real courtyard.

We didn’t find the vast Plaza Mayor until our last night, so I think it’s fair to say that we left Madrid feeling as if we were just beginning to get the hang if things, a feeling which it turns out would become all too common in each of he cities we visited in Spain. Next it was onto Sevilla…

 

Madrid – First Impressions Don’t Last

I have to admit it took us a while to warm to Madrid. It probably wasn’t helped by the fact that our plane from Lisbon arrived Sunday morning, so we stepped off the metro at 11:30 am and were greeted by the scent of sun warmed garbage and urine. Mardid parties hard.

Our bad first impression was followed by a good omen, as a nice old lady caught our stunned mullet eyes and showed us the way to the hidden street to the hotel that wasn’t quite so hidden. On the way (she walked with us) she gave us some recommendations of things to do around Madrid. The best thing was that I got it! Rui was gobsmacked, suffering from intense culture shock that had hit the moment he stepped on the plane and the stewardess greeted him with an apathetic ‘Buenos Dias’. The penny dropped that things were going to be very different in Spain.

Our next piece of good luck came after checking into the hotel- we only had to wait a few minutes for our room, pretty good considering we were there just before noon, and in Spain, a country that has so many of its priorities right, check-out is usually at noon. We ventured out soon after and were quick to learn that what they say is true- summer in Madrid is stiflingly hot, especially compared to the coast of Portugal with all its sea breezes and shady nooks.

On our first day we took it fairly easy, having been up since 5:30 to catch our 7am flight. We wandered around different parts of the city, had a few goes on the metro, walked up Gran Via for a look at the shops and then around Atocha station and The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (which was closed by the time we got to it), the only thing I knew for sure I definitely wanted to see. We jumped off the metro at Bilboa, for no apparent reason, and there had the two most expensive (and disgusting) coffees of our trip thus far. This isn’t saying much, as coffee in Portugal (well, black coffee anyway) is incredible. It was the first in a long line of disappointing coffees, where Rui almost fell off his chair in happiness when we sat next to some women speaking Portuguese that made him feel as if he was home.

Atocha train station - filled with plants!

That night we checked out the Palacio real at sunset and made a failed attempt at finding the Plaza mayor, but to no avail. We got our first taste of Spain at night – it was 11pm Sunday and the city was pumping. People were chilling out in the park, having picnics, watching the sunset, and drinking in bars, basically, being out because they could. The vibe was very cool and straight away we fell in love with Spain as all our daytime first impressions of Madrid melted away and were replaced with an image of a city come to life. To celebrate, we had tapas.

Sunset by the Palacio Real.

 

The Quinta of Sintra

If Cascais is cute and Belem is quaint, the Sintra can only be described as breathtakingly beautiful. If you can take your eyes off Cascais for five minutes to look up to the mountains you’ll glimpse castles (yes, that’s castles plural) perching on turquoise mountain peaks. That’s Sintra.

One morning, as we were sitting drinking bicas overlooking the sea we made the snap decision to drive to Sintra. Camera-less, sunscreen-less and completely unaware of what this might entail in Rui’s cousin’s extra-wide V-dub, we headed off in that general direction, aiming for a wander around and a quick look at the Historic centre, the entirety of which is UNESCO world heritage listed.

We started off ok, but it gradually dawned on us that we had come the back way via the twisty ocean road, through old towns, up and down winding mountain forest roads, down tiny back lanes so narrow we held our breath as if as if to suck the car’s stomach in. I was gripping onto the door so tight I thought my knuckles would break. Finally we made it, in time for a fabulous lunch. I had my first taste of Sopa Alentejana, a soup of crusty bread, garlic, coriander, broth and a perfectly poached egg from the Alentejo region, a dish I’ll be trying to replicate for many years to come. Rui tucked in to some Febras, pork cooked in wine and garlic with, you guessed it, chips. As always, we washed it all down with $1.80 beers.

Our general wander around made it clear that, after our hair-raising drive and more than adequate lunch, we weren’t going to make it through any of the castles or museums that day, so we took a walk down the cobbled streets of the Historical Centre which is peppered with natural springs and gorgeous architecture. It proximity to the coast and its leafy surrounds make it 10 degrees cooler than Cascais. The views are incredible.

We decided we’d use our second visit on the Quinta da Regaleira (above), a huge royal estate which we’d been told was a veritable labyrinth of gothic buildings, caves, grottoes and fountains woven into shady forests. Even approaching the Quinta it’s easy to see it’s something special, it’s heavily detailed walls enclosing a huge garden and the ornate, beautifully restored Palácio da Regaleira, which is where we began our adventure, climbing right to the top of its spires and looking out over the Quinta, Sintra and surrounds.

Having been completely blown away by the enchanted castle, we didn’t realise that the best was yet to come in our exploration of the gardens themselves. To ladle on more cliches, the place was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The freedom granted to visitors in the Quinta in just amazing – you can go pretty much anywhere and you don’t need a guide. We spent a good three hours there exploring the castle and the grounds, snapping pictures and feeling at times as if we were the only people in the world. We’d enter a cave and and up in a well, only to emerge next to a waterfall or ascend from a grotto. Each time we thought we’d had enough and our rubber-thonged feet couldn’t take another step, we found something else to clamber through or over or under or just to stare at, gobsmacked.

We stumbled out of the gardens and back to the bus feeling like we’d only had a taste of the Quinta, secure in the knowledge that we still had at least 3 palaces to go in Sintra. During our trip to the Quinta we took no less than 240 photos. Thankfully, we haven’t published them all here. But if you’re interested you can see the best ones on our flickr account.

 

Belém

Here in Cascais, Rui and I have developed a pretty set routine. We get up around 8, grab some toast or cereal, sort out our stuff and then head out for a bica and a pastel de nata, known in Australia as the portuguese custard tart, a name which obviously would hold no meaning here in Portugal, tarts (and I do mean pastries) being as common as running water, or, shall we say, beer. Now let me start by saying that I’m not a huge custard person. I can take it or leave it. But I eat these things every day now. I can’t get enough of them. You can get them anywhere and they are amazing. Having spent a few days in Cascais getting into the swing of things (see: gobbling down pasties de nata like they’re going out of style), it’s safe to say I was excited to visit Belém, an old suburb of Lisbon by the sea famous not for its pasties de nata, but rather its pasties de Belém. A tart which I was told is slightly different from the usual nata, although I couldn’t really see how, my Portuguese being worse than terrible.

Pasteis de Belém

They were incredible. The four of us (Me, Rui, his Uncle João and Aunt Christiana) had two each. Golden, eggy, not-too-sweet custard in flaky paper-thin buttery pastry hot from the oven. There were shakers of cinnamon and icing sugar on the table for those who feel so inclined, although in my opinion such additives are unnecessary. We ate them in the Pasteis de Belém café, which has been around since 1837. I stared in awe at the walls were tiled into murals of intricate blue azuleros as I sipped my second bica.

Cobblestones outside the 'Pasteis de Belém' Café, which opened in 1837.

So if you ever visit Portugal, you simply must see Belém. That’s what someone pretentious would say and frankly, I’d have to agree with them. Both the road and the train tracks run along the coast and you can catch glimpses of Moorish forts and castles all the way along (Rui, ever punnerific, joked that we were going to end up with fort-igue). Much like Cascais, Belém is paved in cobblestones and way up there on the quaint-o-meter, its vanilla and pastel buildings iced with wrought iron balconies exploding with pots of geraniums. As always in Portugal, the streets are lined with history and pastelerias.

The Pasteis de Belém Café.

After our sugar-laden treats we bid farewell to Rui’s Tios and headed for the Cathedral de Jeronimo, a Cathedral run by monks dedicated to Saint Jerome and based almost exclusively in Portugal and Spain. The outside was impressive enough, but one look inside and you could understand how a country can hold onto its religion for so long. Had I spent my Sunday mprnings at Jeronimo, perhaps I’d still be a Catholic. You just can’t be irreverent here, or at least not out loud. The place is cavernous and ornate and although photography is allowed, those we took inside didn’t come out so well.

The door to Jeronimos Cathedral.

After a stroll through the park we checked out the Museu Nacional dos Coches (Coach Museum), well worth a look regardless of where your interests lie. Again, it is the age and the detail of these objects that strike you and again, as the coaches were inside, our photos didn’t turn out so well. I couldn’t help but think of the time and taken to sculpt such things while the poor starved in the streets, but then that’s me. I’m the kind of person who, give me a beautiful wide open plaza and I imagine people getting gunned down from the balconies. Presumably in some kind of revolution, but who knows. Anyway. Beer in the middle of the day. Is there anything better? Indeed there is. Chips! After which, just that little bit happier, we meandered towards the Torre de Belém, a tower built on the shore to defend Lisbon. It was the point where explorers left for the new world, and political prisoners were often left in the basement to wait for the tide to sort them out. We climbed right to the top, snapping away.

A Torre de Belém.

By the end of the day my international student card had well and truly paid for itself – everything we went to was free for me. As testament to the relative quaintness of Belém over Cascais, in this one day we took 139 photos. By the end of it, we were too tired for even one more Pastel de Belém, so we jumped a train home to Cascais for a stroll up slippery cobble stones and back to the apartment.

 

Postcards from Cascias

It was bizarre to step onto a plane in Amsterdam with announcements made in Dutch followed by English, especially when the majority of the passengers were Portuguese. It felt like we were going to come crashing down onto the red-tiled rooves of Lisbon as we landed in the most interesting airport thus far- there were hay bales stacked next to the runway. It was even more bizarre to step off said plane after 30-odd hours of flying and waiting, free internet at Singapore, $5 bottles of water in Amsterdam into 25 degree heat. But it is summer in Portugal after all.

We’re staying in a city which, to my Australian eyes at least, looks like a postcard. Cascais, a half hour drive from Lisbon is where Rui co-owns an apartment with his parents and brother. The apartment itself is gorgeous- 1920’s-ish, white trimmed, wooden floorboards, kitsch chandeliers, period furniture. But it’s the city itself which really deserves a mention. Or five.

The first thing you notice is the buildings. They’re old and they’re beautiful. Even dilapidated and crumbling buildings hold some kind of charm, the vines snaking out of them more like Jack’s fairytale beanstalk than noxious weeds. On most corners of sun-drenched streets stand pensioner-aged Portuguese men, always smart-casual in button-down shirts, slacks and flat-topped hats, with seemingly nothing more to do than wish everyone ‘Bom dia’. The whole picture is paved in cobble stones, and not of the newly-refurbished-soul less-slate-grey-Sydney-University variety, but cheerful and authentic-looking at best, and neck-breakingly slippery where worn to their worst.

Caiscais nestles by the sea, a picturesque mesh of old and very old. We visited the Museu Condes de Castro Guimarães, inside the grounds of the Parque Municipal da Gandarinha, which was amazing. The parque itself is populated by cageless roosters and peacocks, and the Museu is all white-washed walls tiled with azulejos (Portuguese blue tiles, although not always blue). It is the former house of the Count of Guimarães and designed by a painter, so you can imagine it is fairly ostentacious. It has its own private beach.

We finished off our outing with cheese, wine, olives, beer, bread and coffee over a view of the bay and the Ferol (lighthouse) de Santa Marta. After a stroll back through Cascais it was time for a much needed siesta, followed by a trip to ‘Cascais Shopping’, a massive mall 20 minutes away. Because what you really want to know when you’re overseas is what different flavours of potato chip they make. But more on that later.

 

Eavesdropping on Hispanohablantes

I’ve developed an interesting (some may say creepy) habit in the leadup to our trip: eavesdropping. When I began learning Spanish obviously I began to notice how many hispanohablantes there are in Sydney. The next logical step was to eavesdrop.

Let me back up a bit and point out that I get 3 hours a week of Spanish class, about a third of which involves speaking. Apart from that, I have podcasts and SBS radio, as well as movies in Spanish and a hilarious Mexican Soap called ‘Maria la del Barrio’ to watch (there are 95 episodes), but no real avenues for conversation. Were I more organised or sociable I’d arrange to meet up with people from my class or just start chatting with the few spanish speaking customers I have or something. Or, you know, speak to my Spanish teacher, who I barely said a word to all semester and who only learnt my name fairly recently.

Long story short I’m terrified of making a dick of myself. I have spoken to native spanish-speakers in an everyday setting exactly twice now. Once to book a hotel over the phone (which went fairly well to begin with and then fairly badly to finish) and once to a customer. I said ‘Tres y cincuenta, gracias.’ $3.50 thanks.

So lets just say I’m a little apprehensive about the two weeks in Spain when I, rather than Rui am in charge of communication. This is compounded by the fact that he’s kind of the designated social networker in the relationship and I deal with the practical stuff. For example, if we have people over for dinner I’ve cooked the food and am in the kitchen making a salad while he chats to people and gets them drinks. He orders in restaurants, makes jokes with waitresses, chats up shop girls…actually, maybe a couple of not-so-great examples, but you get what I mean. He’s good at that stuff. Me? I’m…adequate. In everyday life I go out of my way to avoid any situation in which I have to speak to people in english. I can’t imagine what I’m going to be like in spanish.

Ah, well necessity is the mother of invention. And it’s kind of comforting to know that I can understand probably 60-70% of what I’m eavesdropping on, I just wouldn’t know what to say if they turned around and started talking to me. And maybe one day they will. It’s hard to understand what people are saying without looking at them and I have gotten a couple of strange looks lately. Maybe it’s time to pull back a little.

Maria la del Barrio