Lisbon/The Alentejo, Portugal

That was fun. One of my best mates from freshman year at school flow into Lisbon. If you can´t find a Portuguese person to roll with in Portugal, find a Brazilian. And if you can´t find one of those find an American who speaks Brazilian Portuguese.

Lisbon is cool, chill and cheap. The wealth of the New World flowed one way strait into the streets here. This place was once was an epicenter of world power. These folk ran the seas and sucked valuables and ran over cultures from lands abroad. The mighty fell off a little bit. This place is one of the less rich countries of the EU. People can be seen that are disfigured by disease. It all makes me think considering that I have citizenship in two former British colonies.

Bairro Alto is this hip, high rent neighborhood we stayed in full of bars, boutiques and restaurants. The food in Portugal is great. I stood at a pasteleria sipping a bica (espresso) and enjoying a snack of cod cake. I ate meat and potatoes at a restaurant decorated in leather and smoke where the waiter locked the door after we entered. I drank vinho verde (young sparkling white wine) in a fado club, reminiscing. The problem with food this good, rich and inexpensive is that one can overdo it. By the end of the week we literally stuffed ourselves sick.

A car was rented and we headed east to the Alentejo region. Nothing makes a man feel like a man like cruising through the country side in a very small little Kia, listening to cheesy eurohouse, on the look out for wineries and castles and discussing love, feelings and life. Yeah, serious dude stuff went down.

We stopped in Evora, Evoramonte, Monsaraz, Estramoz, and Elvas. It seems like things change very slowly in these towns. And perhaps they should considering these are places with town walls and Roman aqueducts. There are even Celtic megaliths here. Yes, all the megaliths are big rocks, but some are huge. Why were they rolled up hills and what purpose did they serve? I wanted to picnic on one, but my fiend thought it was sacrilegious. Folks sacrificed virgins and stuff on these things, and all I wanted to do was eat a little more bread, cheese and wine. Speaking of which gotta get a line on vinho verde when I get back state side. I have a feeling trip is going to give me strange, hard to fulfill culinary cravings.