The weather this weekend has been luscious. Sunny, perfect temperature, crisp, perfect blue skies. Saturday afternoon we joined new and precious friends at Praça da Alegria, a charming park an easy 9-minute walk from our apartment. We say easy because it’s downhill almost the whole way ;-). The Praça was jumping - a market of clothes and jewelry was set up, the quiosque was busy and every table but one was taken, and the band was idly considering setting up. The air, the company, the good food (you’ve got to have the fresh-made sweet potato chips), and at last the lovely music - this is the reason we chose Portugal.
Sunday we headed to church. We seem to be settling in at Riverside International Church. Non-Catholic churches are not thick on the ground here. 81% of Portuguese are Catholics. Protestants make up less than 1%. (Thanks Wiki! Data from 2011.) Asking for an English language church on top of that really cuts your options. To our knowledge, there are two non-Catholic, English-language churches (we hear there is one more that meets in someone’s living room, but haven’t followed up). Freedom City Church is a mere five-minute walk away, but they only have services at 5 pm. Since Amy’s headaches and migraines tend to visit later in the day, this church has been harder for us.
At 9h30 we walked down our street and hopped on the metro. We need to change lines, and by 10 we were walking in the door. Three kilometers (1.86 miles) as the crow flies is 13 minutes by car (figure 20 with the wait for the uber), or a 38-minute walk, or a 21-minute metro ride (figure 30 with the wait for the two trains).
Riverside has a wonderful breakfast each Sunday, and there are many people to greet and to meet for the first time on the way, including someone we very much look forward to getting to know more. We sat with someone we’ve met before from Sri Lanka who is on the cusp of choosing Riverside, a guy who’s in town from Dubai on business, and a visiting Dutch naval doctor. Her ship is anchored in Lisbon harbor, as are four other NATO warships. They’re on their way to the Baltic Sea for NATO exercises. The war definitely touches us here more, from cab drivers who can tell you exactly which countries Putin would pick off next – and in what order – if he succeeds in taking Ukraine, to friends from Ukraine who have had loved ones visiting and had to put them back on planes to go back to Ukraine.
After church we decided to explore a bit. The church is located in the Alameda neighborhood, which is anchored by the grand fountain, Fuente Luminosa. Like many Lisbon fountains it turns on at noon, so it’s not on when we are coming to church, but we can enjoy it when we are strolling home. We wandered through some pretty streets
and some not as pretty until we bumped into a square, the Praça Paiva Couceiro, and picked a place at random, the Restaurante Cantinho do Taxi, where we could eat outside and enjoy the lovely weather.
Our waiter - staffing what seemed to be 20 tables - spoke essentially no English. Our translation app had difficulty with the handwritten menu board,
as it was written with speed and not penmanship in mind. Amy ordered the pollo de arroz, subconsciously reverting to her Spanish lessons from a trip to Mexico. 1) The board was apparently said polVo, not pollo, and polvo means octopus. Oops. 2) In Portuguese, chicken is frango. Doh, I knew that, she said. Back to the poorly-drawn board. Fish and rice and beef stew it was.
A note on the bathroom: A request for the casa de banho thankfully did not lead to a torrent of Portuguese, but a pointing to the dim back of the restaurant, where she discovered stairs. Unlit stairs. Proceeding on both faith and adventure, she made her way to the very bottom where it was pitch black and phew! a light came on. She found the classic Portuguese restaurant bathroom. A sink in the hallway and doors to the right and left for men’s and women’s toilets. That’s fine when you’re only using the sink for washing your hands, but Amy has braces, and a post meal teeth-brushing is High Priority. She’s getting pretty darn good about not caring what others think. Thankfully it seems no one else comes down into the dungeon. Anyway, a thoroughly mediocre but filling 18€ meal from the 4.1 star (551 reviews) later, we found our way to a new-to-us subway station - and new line! - and made our way home.
We hope you enjoyed our 24 hours in Lisbon. We sure did.
That’s all for now.
Love from Lisbon,
Scott & Amy
It sounds like a very nice, relaxing weekend! How was the octopus? Something I've yet to try.
Sounds like you are learning a lot of new things and meeting lovely new people. It all sounds wonderful! portugal may work out for you yet.