Don’t worry yourselves, i’m not using this blog to branch out into drug dealing, however for anyone looking for drugs, head down to Lisbon and walk down the street for about 10 minutes or so. I guarentee that you will be offered almost any kind of drug you could want.
Many apologies for my great inactivity over the last few days, life has been fairly boring until this weekend, when I was lucky enough to head down to Portugal for a couple of days of relaxation and exploration. There is alot to be said about visiting Portugal, especially if one has more time than just a weekend, yet still I saw and did alot in a short time. It transpires that one can get from Vigo to Oporto (just over the border) on the bus in about an hour and a half for less than €25. With this in mind it felt wierd that I had not been to Oporto before, and from there one can get to Lisbon in 3 hours for another €25, so really there seemed little point not going.
Without wanting to sound like a guidebook, or an advert for the Portuguese tourism industry, I cannot reccommend Portugal enough. Oporto is a rather attractive city with a picturesque riverside running through it, with port wine distrilleries along its southern bank, and tourist sightseeing bus routes and river cruises running across from its northern bank. Under the careful instruction of a friend of mine we set off on a ‘bluebus’ sightseeing tour around the city, including a river cruise and a guided tour around one of the port wine distilleries. For unforseen reasons the river cruise boat had broken down, yet we still got to enjoy the bus tour with accompanying English audio tours and the port wine distillery with as many free glasses of strong port taster samples a guy can handle before the floor starts moving.
Among the innumerable historical sights and cultural hideaways the city has, one of the major things that stuck with me was the English audio I listened to on the bus.
The bus came with audio jacks in the seats and 16 channels of audio in different languages to choose from, ranging from Spanish, to Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, and even English with a certain degree of accuracy.
At a couple of points the man reading out the audio for the recording said things like ‘well, this is just terrible’ and started a sentence again, and at one point said ‘who translated this rubbish? It doesn’t make sense’ all of which was left on the recording to be heard by every English speaker on the bus. Made for quite an interesting ride… Once off the bus we went to a port wine distellery, quided tour and wine tasting followed, and although the tour was short and sweet, the tasting too, rather longer. Pretending to savour the flavours and such and acting like a connoiseur instead of a standard Erasmus student enjoying free booze. I ended up buying a couple of bottles of the finest cheap port money could buy… Well, when in Rome, or in this case Porto…
I should mention at this point that this weekend of the 25th of April carries special significance in Portugal, as it is the 40th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution that overthrew the fascist dictatorship of the Estado Novo (new state). As before, i’m told not to go into the history or i’ll bore people to death, so if you’re interested in the history, look it up here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
In Porto there were concerts in the square, many red carnations floating about, fireworks and great amounts of shouting and chanting. At first it was quite disconcerting to be surrouned by drunk Portugese men and women screaming ‘Fascismo nunca mais!’ (Faschism never again) and staring at me and my friend for not joining in, but all was well and we didn’t get lynched for not wearing a carnation and screaming like crazy.
The next day saw me travel to Lisbon and get a bit lost on the metro. Eventually we found the hostel and set off out into the city. I fell in love with Lisbon within about half an hour, and cannot express enough how great a place it is to go. The weather was fantastic too which certainly helps. It being the weekend of the 25th of April the city was crawling with happy people wearing red Carnations and selling them too, and military personnel showing off the might of the Portugese marines to aspiring young children like myself. There is far too much to be said about the city and its beauty, it took 3 separate sightseeing bus tours and a rather interesting ride on an acient tram to see even a third of the city. If one were to go again you would have to spend at least 4 days in Lisbon alone to really experience it properly, so mark my words, i’ll be going back pretty soon…
Rather than go into great detail about all we got up to, which would take a while, i’ll instead leave a few photos for you. However one sight definitly worth mentioning, and an essential stop on any Erasmus trip of any kind- the beer museum ‘the world of Portugese beers’ which did exactly what it says on the tin. (No pun intended)
After a really brief walk around a 3 room museum with tonnes of great beer adverts from all over the former Portugese colonies, and broken air conditioning I somehow got the urge for a cold pint or four, and when the need arises one cannot ignore it…
I neglected to photograph the menu, which would have demonstrated well the great extent of the beer range available. But take my word for it, a normal person would be holding on to the bar to stop the floor flying away after about a third of the list.
After some rather tasty and cold beers we set off to explore again, and once again I won’t list all the sights and sounds except a lovely guy I spoke to in the Hardrock Cafe who said ‘you’re a pro dude’ when he learned i’m an English teacher in Spain and invited me to his house in Istanbul where a new cafe has just opened. And then the great proliferation of seedy blokes in leather jackets and fake Ray Bans selling hash to anyone and everyone despite the city being crawling with police and soldiers. As previously mentioned it takes roughly 10-15 minutes of standing in the street looking like a bit of a tourist before someone will come over, hold their hand low by their waist and mutter ‘eh my friend, hashish? Weed? You want weed? Everybody want weed’ then walk off rather fast when told awkwardly ‘oh, no thank you, but good luck selling to someone else.’ If I was a regular user I doubt I would have left Lisbon at all, but since its only recreational for me, I thought I could survive on the weed I took with me…
By the way that was entirely a joke mum. Seriously don’t worry i’m not a pothead. stop crying, calm down… No, no don’t call the police! I’m sorry!
In all seriousness though the sheer number of people selling hash and what looked like block Heroin was quite suprising, and after a while it became easy to spot who was going to sell to you coming from about 100m away. Having only ever been offered weed before in the toilets of really down market bars by someone half passed out in the sink and once by a school kid, it was wierd to be constantly waving people off while trying to take photos of the scenery. Apart from that though Lisbon is a fantastic city to visit, and especially if you’re a fan of hash…
I’ll sign off now but will just make a quick point too. On the bus on the way back to Vigo last night we were ‘blessed’ by the company of four rather loud and expressive American girls who really shouldn’t have been as excited as they were at 10pm, and certainly should have considered that there are other people all over the place who speak English too and some who were trying to sleep. After several minutes of doing the very British thing of giving them evils and expecting them to figure out that I wanted them to shut up they turned to me and asked ‘oh do you speak English? Sorry, if you want to sleep then you picked the wrong seat haha.’
Upon being told quietly that yes, I do speak English, and yes, we would like to sleep if they wouldn’t mind, they got a bit embarrassed and started to quieten down a bit.
The lesson is this- to all those loud people out there on busses late at night, be careful what you say and how loud you say it. You never know who is listening, whether they want to or not, and whether you taking the piss out of their accent before even making sure that there isn’t anyone with that accent in the vicinity is a good idea. If I wasn’t British and therefore bound by some kind of genetic inability to complain loudly I might have said something to the girls sooner, and next time I promise I will… Or at least i’ll try, but most likely get embarrassed, go bright red and hide behind my shirt collar. But the point stands, be careful how loud you are, and if you’re gonna be rude about a group of people, do so in a language they couldn’t possibly understand.
Oh, and before I forget (again) Happy Birthday mum! x
The Rain in Spain... 