The Eleventh Week

Week 11- Lisbon will you marry me?

            There is nothing better than traveling across country lines to visit a friend you haven’t seen in years. I was on a bus for seven hours before I finally made it to Lisbon. The bus driver was very serious about not allowing you to eat on the bus, but this one Asian girl must have missed the 35 signs all over the bus that had a picture of a burger and fries crossed out, because she was munching away on a bocadillo. The bus driver pulled the bus over and stormed back to tell her she couldn’t eat on the bus. Her response, “Oooooh?” I was laughing, because she clearly didn’t understand him and his face was about to explode. Without looking back he points to a sign behind him, thinking that it is the “No food” sign, but really he is pointing to a sticker on the window of a cartoon man in a squat position farting with a line through it. She sees what he is pointing to and starts to giggle with both of her hands covering her mouth, which is full of sandwich that she is still chewing. Like a kid throwing a fit, he runs up to the driver’s seat and sits with his arms crossed for about ten seconds before he pulls the bus back onto the freeway. A grumpy bus driver who doesn’t allow food or farts, I started to doubt his manhood.

            When I got to Sete Rios bus stop, I realized I was an hour earlier than when I said I would be there (time difference, oops). I sent a text that probably cost me seven euros, and soon Fran was at the bus station to pick me up. I was looking at a map of Portugal pretending like I new where I was when she saw me. She said, “I knew it was you. I recognized you from behind.” True friends know each other’s butts. We picked up where we left off three years ago.

            Traveling to a place where you know someone is great, but traveling to a place where you know someone and that someone has a car is even better. I got to see and do things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. One day we spent driving along the coast where I found it necessary to climb on all the rocks I saw. One stop, Boca del Inferno (Hell’s Mouth), was where I tested the limits of my Steve Maddens’. The crinkly old fishermen walking across the tops of the rocks, like little nymphs, carrying buckets of bait and abnormally large fishing poles made it look so easy.

            Sintra, a little village up in the mountains about thirty minutes away from Lisbon city center, is a fairytale place. There is a palace so high in the mountains that the clouds surround it making you feel like you are in a giant swarm of white cotton candy, it also could have just been really cloudy that day. I honestly, do not know how to describe this place, because I can’t do it justice. The outside walls were attacked with the three primary colors and sculptures of mighty mermen. I am making this place sound like a clown university. In the same village is this famous bakery called Piriquita. I looked at the sign and said, “Ohh ok, like pee-ree-key-tah.” I was corrected. “Pee-ree-key-tuh”. Throughout the weekend I was being taught the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese, and even Fran’s grandma tested my abilities (even though I don’t think she knew she was). I was over at her house for lunch and I met her grandma, who only speaks Portugese, for the first time. She kisses me twice and starts rambling off in Portuguese. Then she stops and waits for my response. I didn’t know what to say, because I only understood the word “understand” and looked helplessly at Fran, who told her that I was from California. Her grandma turns back to me and begins in Portuguese again, like saying that I was from California means “Oh right down the street!”

            Food in Portugal rivals Spanish food. Their pastries could fight Spain’s pastries with their eyes closed, win, and then stomp all over them with their conceited pastry feet. Pastéis de Belém sprinkled with cinnamon are like little creamy pieces of heaven in the form of four million delicious calories. 

            One of my favorite things about Sevilla, or Europe in general, is what people have written on their t-shirts. They think that because it is written in English, that it is immediately trendy. These have been my favorite- “Sometimes is always”, “Green and yellow make orange”, “I love things”, and my all time favorite was- “I hate myself”. Excuse me, but either you need psychological help for your mental health issues or you need to learn English. Another favorite was seeing a grandma, probably in her 80s wearing a hot pink shirt with the words “Diva Girl” in rhinestones on the front.

I wish I had roller blades. Everyone here rollerblades as a form of transportation.

            I was walking down the street towards a church on the corner. Once again I see people gathering, but this time they were looking up. There is a massive tree in front of this church and they were trimming it. People stood there for minutes just watching. Two things about this- one, its funny that there is a place in our world where people can spend thirty minutes doing nothing but watch branches being cut from a tree. The second thing was that I am making fun of these people, but I fell into the trap too. I wasted over thirty minutes people watching and waiting for a chunk of tree to fall.

Manoli-isms

“There was this one time I had a girl staying with me, who was so strange, and she always wore her clothes covering her entire body. I told her that she needed to loosen up and give herself some space to breathe. She wore a low cut shirt one day and the next she had a Spanish boyfriend. Spanish men like big tits.” (She shows her palms to the ceiling and shrugs her shoulders)

“Manoli, did you know that experts say you are as tall as your arms are long?” Manoli, “What?! That cannot be true.” “Ok then, do you have a tape measure?” Manoli, “Right now? (She points to the TV ‘God forbid she miss three seconds of the Spanish news that is on repeat throughout the day’). We measure one of us, the numbers are the same, and she still doesn’t believe us. Measure another. Then we measure her and it’s off by one centimeter. “Hmmm…told you.”

“Love has no age.”

“God she has the features of a witch.” I respond, “Yeah because she wears black clothing all the time.” Manoli looks at me straight faced and says, “I wear black everyday.”

“Lin, have you been in love?” No. “Well hurry up. You don’t want to miss this feeling. What happened to your Spanish boyfriend?”

“Lin, come in here and look at this.” The ambiguity of what “this” is often worries me. I walk into the kitchen to see her poking the microwave like a caveman would a computer. “It broke. What am I suppose to do? I pushed one button one time yesterday and…BLOOOOOOOOM!” Apparently the microwave, which is also her oven, had exploded and now she was helpless. She got a new microwave that same day and had it installed immediately. “I don’t know how to work this. I don’t understand a thing. It’s too modern. Even for a modern woman like me.” I spent about 45 minutes explaining it to her, and she seemed to fully understand and actually enjoy the new stainless steel monster in her all white kitchen. The next morning I ask how the oven is working and she says, “I called my daughter to come help me, because I don’t understand it. I’m too nervous.” Manoli! Ughh. You can put metal in the oven! I said that at least 20 times. The time came to put the handmade pizzas in the microwave oven. I said, “Ok Manoli, push start. It’s ready, just push start.” She grips my arm, points out the visible goose bumps on her arms, and says, “No.” So I push the button. She ducks behind me, covering herself completely. The explosion she expected didn’t come, she lets go of my arm, turns away from me, and as she is walking into the living room she says, “Told you.”