Francezinha (37)

I have to say that the train station does not disappoint. As a matter of fact, it almost knocks me off my feet. The combination of mundane ticket booths and train schedule boards surrounded by magnificent murals made of azuleijos depicting historical scenes is almost disorienting. The place feels like a house of worship adopted by the unfortunates who rely on public transportation and the tourists who follow them, but without a God or his messiah. For a change, I don’t have to see Him hanging from a cross, his eternal gaze making me want to crawl into a cave and hide from the wrath or hatred, or accusations of the ardent believers who labored for centuries to convert, exile, and annihilate my ancestors. I can look at the white and blue murals without a worry in the world. They depict a king and his warriors waving flags and riding horses, sailors on big ships, and townspeople, all doing the things they usually do throughout history—battling, conquering, discovering places, harvesting, dancing, and playing music. 

I want to sit on the floor, since benches or chairs are nowhere to be seen, and take it all in, etch the magnificent panels into my memory so I can retrieve the images on command. I am not going to take pictures of myself posing in front of or near them. I want to appreciate the moment and savor it, for when I go back to my life in the U.S., where most train stations that I have passed through were covered in graffiti or billboards advertising the latest magic pills that can solve diabetes, insomnia, or osteoporosis.

I am shaken out of my bliss by Rita. We’ve seen enough, I learn, and it’s time to go look for a place to eat. Vera is getting hungry, and soon it will be dark. I suggest going off the beaten path and finding a restaurant or café that caters to real people, not a tourist trap that relies on high turnover and silly gimmicks. 

Surprisingly and utterly unexpectedly, Rita frowns at my suggestion. Maybe because it’s getting cold and heavy clouds begin to gather above us again. It might even start raining before we get back to the apartment. Maybe because she is not in the mood to drag her achy ankles in search of another uplifting experience. For all she cares, any place serving food that Vera approves of is good enough.

“Why do we have to go anywhere? There are so many places here,” she argues. Suddenly, her adventurous spirit is gone. The woman who rode her motorcycle, alone, on dangerous roads in India (per her testimonials) and explored the most inhospitable corners of the Sinai Desert in the company of camel herders and tent dwellers, wonders why I insist on searching for Portuguese authenticity.

“I think it would be nice to get away from the touristy places once in a while and taste something original,” I try to reason with her. I consider returning to the apartment on my own if she refuses, but again, I don’t want to create a scene. We don’t need more drama.

“Then look for a place yourself and tell us where to go,” she barks at me.

I don’t think she means for me to go check out places in the neighborhood and then call them to join me. That would take too long, and Vera needs to sit down soon, even though she is saying nothing about her situation. I consider asking Google for recommendations, and remember that my phone does not connect to the internet here. Rita is the only one among us who can connect to the internet, thanks to her international phone plan and frequent traveling.

“This place looks fine to me,” Vera intervenes. She obviously noticed Rita’s foul mood and decided to defuse the situation before our exchange deteriorated into a full-scale, unnecessary crisis. She doesn’t know that I am not going to fall on my sword to save my dignity and win the argument. I am not Rita’s sister, and this is not a flare-up of sibling rivalry, thank you very much.

The place that looks fine to Vera is a little eatery lacking in character and promise. The lights are too bright, the chairs look uncomfortable, and the ambiance has all the trappings of a fake diner or a highly Westernized Chinese restaurant. The blank expression on the face of the young female server who shows us to the table tells me that she would rather be sitting at a bar chatting with her friends than dealing with clueless tourists who have trouble deciding what to order. 

I don’t have good memories of sharing restaurant tables with my little entourage, but c'est la vie. I am going to be as accommodating as I can and not offer any comment that might rattle Anna or Rita, who seems to have regained her cheerful disposition since we sat down. She rummages through her bag and takes out her phone. There might be something new on her Facebook page or even a text message from Fred or her son, which might cheer her up even more, or not, depending on the content.

One of the servers brings plastic menus to our table and takes off without asking for drink orders or reciting the specials, which I am sure don’t exist in this place. She’s too busy running around trying to keep everything under control. 

I look at the menu. Almost everything contains some type of meat, which I am not inclined to ingest. I decide on a vegetarian sandwich. Anna is probably going to order soup because it’s the only thing that she can afford. When she told me earlier today how much she enjoyed Rita’s exuberant appreciation for food, she also volunteered that she didn’t mind spending 3 euros on soup when we go to restaurants. I am tempted to treat her to a sandwich, but it might give her the impression that I feel sorry for her, so I keep my mouth shut, and she orders the soup as I expect. I only hope it’s vegetarian stock.

While we wait for the food to come to our table, I watch two young Asian females who are sitting at a table next to ours. Both are deeply absorbed in their phone screens. I assume they are tourists because of the shopping bags on the floor next to them, and because they appear to be typical tourists. The women are thin-framed, with straight black hair down to their waists. They are wearing shoes not made for walking and carrying designer handbags. When one of the servers brings two plates to their table, they let go of their phones to look at the spread. On one plate, there is a large cube covered in melted cheese and topped with a fried egg. A pile of French fries surrounds the cube, and a reddish-brownish liquid can be seen underneath. I recognize the dish as the famous francezinha (little French girl), which I read about this morning. 

I can’t believe these two fashion-conscious skinny women are going to eat that monstrous Portuguese creation. They don’t seem the type who would let something like this anywhere near their faces, even if a gun was pointed at their heads. But here I am, looking at this aberration playing out in front of me, proving once again that humans are gullible creatures. The francezinha is so cleverly marketed as the crown jewel of local culinary offerings that many tourists feel obligated to eat it when they come to Porto. Even if it’s going to kill them. 

From the little I’ve read, this signature dish of Porto is a sandwich made with two slices of soft white bread, filled with layers of ham, linguiça, beef steak, fresh pork sausage, and lots of melted cheese to bind the whole thing together from top to bottom. The sandwich is surrounded by a generous portion of French fries swimming in a secret beer sauce that some restaurant owners would reportedly die to protect from shrewd competitors, just like my ancestors who were burned at the stake to protect their faith five hundred years ago. Finally, this artery blocker has to be consumed with a tall glass of cold beer, because how else can it be swallowed without choking?

Why anyone would eat this horror is beyond me. Tradition or no tradition, whatever the story is about the Portuguese entrepreneur who invented this craziness, inspired or not by French cuisine, the health of my arteries is far too important to embark on this misadventure. I have better things to do in life than eat a hog farm wrapped in dairy and surrounded by carbs and salt, regardless of my adherence or non-adherence to Jewish dietary rules.

I watch one of the women dig her fork into the yellow cube, cut a small piece, and bring it toward her mouth. A long strand of melted cheese follows the fork. The woman folds the cheese around the fork, dips it in the sauce, and puts the piece in her mouth. She nods her head in approval, and the other woman carefully cuts a piece and tastes it. 

I am tempted to go to their table and tell them that they don’t have to eat the whole thing to fulfill the requirement of eating a francezinha in Porto, but our food arrives, and my attention is diverted to my own plate.

Exploring Porto (36)

I spend the next couple of hours in a zombie-like state, disconnected from the group in spirit but not in body. I follow the women in and out of shops, congratulating myself for remembering to bring my umbrella even though the rain never materializes. Perhaps for this reason, I am not tempted to buy an umbrella decorated with the ever-present white and blue azuleijo design that I spot in one of the touristy shops. Or maybe it’s because of the exorbitant price tag attached to it. Not sure. I am also somewhat happy that Rita is not in the mood to acquire more stuff. She is only going through the motions of rummaging through merchandise in stores, without actually buying anything. As she always tells me, “What is there to do? It’s always the same: you eat, drink, buy something, cross a river, visit a church, and after a while, you can’t even tell the difference between all these places. I don’t even go to museums anymore. They’re all the same.”

Way to go, Ms. Tour Guide.

Before I can finish the thought, I see a church with external walls covered from top to bottom in magnificent white and blue tiles that depict religious scenes. I take a picture with my phone even though I am sure there are countless pictures of this church on the internet, and I don’t need one on my camera. But hey, it’s proof I’ve seen this church in person, and that’s what counts. I also have a feeling that it’s a famous church, even though I don’t know what it’s called or to which saint it might be dedicated. There’s a plaque near the front door that I am tempted to read, but I skip it. The last thing I want to do is keep the group waiting for me or give Rita an incentive to try reading the plaque just to prove to me that she can read English, even though I couldn’t care less if she can or not. She has this strange competitive side to her that shows up in the most unusual circumstances. 

Because I grew up in Israel, where churches and Christianity are in short supply (unless you go to Jerusalem or Nazareth), I am conditioned to appreciate churches only for their architectural design and their interior decorations such as statues, frescoes, wood carvings, and painted-glass windows. Until I came to the United States, I didn’t even know that people who believed that Jesus was the son of God had a hierarchy of who is and who is not a real Christian, or more Christian than others. The first time some of my American students told me that Catholics were not Christians, my brain did a somersault. I’d never heard such a thing. I always thought that if someone believed that Jesus was the Messiah, they were Christians, no matter how they practiced the faith. After that discovery, I began educating myself about the different branches of Christianity, but to this day, the one I think I know the most about is the Catholic Church, because it inflicted the most suffering on my ancestors and many other indigenous populations around the world. But now we are in the forgiveness and redemption phase, in which everyone learns to respect diversity, so I am not going to let this thought cloud my appreciation for the gorgeous exterior of this church.

Our walking tour takes us to an enormous plaza surrounded by ornate apartment and office buildings. City hall rises on one end of the plaza. A small crew of men in hard hats is busy erecting a large Christmas tree in front of it. Unfortunately, we will not see the tree-lighting ceremony because we arrived a few days too early. We will not see the city lit up for Christmas, either. But that’s OK. I prepared myself not to see many other things I might have seen had I come here alone or in a different season.

After Rita takes the obligatory selfies and several photos of Vera posing stiffly by a giant blue “PORTO” sign and sticking her head through the O, she spots a yellow bus parked by the sidewalk. A colorful board next to the bus informs us that this is a hop-on, hop-off bus that offers two-hour sightseeing tours of the city for 13 euros. The bus is equipped with headphones that provide commentary about the city in English and other languages for free. The good news is that even though the bus makes 30 stops, we can stay on it the entire time if we choose to, which I am sure we would if we decide to take it, considering the amount of walking we have already done. 

A short conversation ensues about whether or not we should invest in the tour and see more of the city in comfort. I am tempted to remind the group that a bus is going to be so much better than that stupid, noisy tuk-tuk we took, with its hard bench and obnoxious operator who charged Rita 30 euros per passenger for the pleasure of smelling exhaust fumes and listening to horror stories about the annihilation of Lisbon’s thriving Jewish community five hundred years ago. It takes me a second to decide against mentioning it. No need to trigger Rita. Plus, I cannot conceive of her reaction since I have never seen her being taken for a ride by a real jerk. Pun intended.

Unexpectedly, this time Anna agrees to take the tour. I wish I could enter her brain and see what caused her to do it. Five minutes ago, she didn’t know she was going to spend her limited resources on a bus tour, and it’s not like her financial situation has changed all of a sudden. I am not sure what to make of it. Unless she had a change of heart after she saw Rita treating herself to mass-manufactured jewelry that no self-respecting artist would ever buy, and decided that life was too short to deprive herself of this little treat. 

I can speculate about it only because earlier, when Vera decided to enter a small sidewalk café and order a pastry and a cup of coffee, and I asked Anna if she was going to wait outside, she told me that she could spend 3 euros occasionally when Rita and Vera wanted to eat something. But in general, she said that she preferred to buy her own food and eat at the apartment. Then, out of nowhere, she added, “I enjoy watching Rita eat. She’s such a free spirit, always full of positive energy and love for life. It’s great to be near her.” 

Oh, well, maybe that’s why she agreed to splurge on this tour bus; to let some of Rita’s free spirit rub off on her. And Rita’s free spirit now wants to go on a bus ride and see the city through the windows. Because it’s winter, not too many tourists are around to reserve a seat ahead of time, and the bus is nearly empty. The driver lets us hop on and wait for the next tour, which will start in about fifteen minutes. 

Sometime during the tour, after we pass a hospital, a university, and a park with a statue of a man on a horse, I hear about Anna’s departure plan. Since she has already paid for both nights, she lets Rita persuade her to stay in Porto one more night and take the bus back to Malaga tomorrow afternoon. Or maybe she will take the train back to Lisbon and from there the red eye to Malaga. 

“I will check the bus schedule on the internet when we get back to the apartment,” Rita offers, and Anna responds that she can do it too.

Great. Starting tomorrow, I will be the third squeaky wheel on this trip, not the fourth uncooperative one. Whether or not that will be an improvement, I don’t know. Only time will tell. 

In the meantime, I focus my gaze outside the window. I finally see the river that cuts through the city. The voice in my ear says it’s called the Douro River and recounts the story of a bridge. On the other side of the river, the bus passes through quaint neighborhoods whose names I fail to catch. Everything moves so fast that I can barely absorb what I am seeing. My Brazilian friends from the organic coffee farm I visited last year told me I must visit a neighborhood called Villa de Gaia or something like that, where all the fun stuff in Porto can be found, but I’m not sure on which side of the river it’s located, and I’m not going to ask the driver. Maybe my headphones will tell me.

Eventually, the bus returns to the spot where we first found it, and we lower ourselves back to the pavement. There is one more place on the itinerary that we have to see, according to the Israeli travel blogger that Rita follows. It’s called the São Bento Railway Station, she says, and it is supposed to be beautiful. I think we are going to drop off Anna near that station tomorrow so she can take the bus back to Spain or Lisbon and rescue her dog and her daughter from certain starvation.  

Outside Pandora (35)

It would be so much nicer if my daughter were here. I love spending time with her. We get along when we explore new places, even if we are not always interested in the same things. She can appreciate my little snarky observations and not interpret them as a sign of my flawed character or as a judgment of her inability to make similar observations herself. Sometimes she tells me to stop harping on something because she already gets my point, which I don’t mind. After all, knowing me, I probably said it more than once. Sometimes she ignores me, and sometimes she contributes her own perceptions, which I find educational. I like it when she shares what her generation cares about. Like when she explains to me how to talk to nonbinary people. I can’t always recognize people in transition, and it makes me feel terrible to mistake someone for the wrong gender. She says I should not worry about it because I am from the old generation, and young people don’t expect us to know that. And then she tells me to just ask a person what pronoun to use, which might sound simple, but is not so easy to do when you are me. 

Here, though, I don’t have that luxury. I have to be careful not to offend anyone with my unfiltered remarks, like the one I made about the chauvinistic monument in Lisbon. I have to listen patiently to Vera’s meandering stories, which I don’t find very interesting. I have to tiptoe around Anna’s energy-draining martyrdom and incomprehensible appreciation for Rita’s insatiable appetite for shopping, rich food, and attention. In short, I have to be someone that I am not. So, I leave the apartment with the three women, after they come back from breakfast, and we all walk down the street toward somewhere, not sure where, to see what the city looks like in daylight. 

The first thing that draws my attention is a small store window advertising home paraphernalia: door handles, towel rings, faucets, hanging mirrors, light bulbs, electrical outlet covers, and so forth. It catches me by surprise. In the United States, these things are found only in big chain stores, where I usually get lost and have to ask for help to find what I am looking for. I also assume that these things are more expensive here. Even if they are made in China. 

Unfortunately, I can’t go inside and find out how much things cost because this type of store is not a place that attracts tourists, especially not tourists like Rita. Per Rita’s stories, her parents used to own a neighborhood store that sold this type of stuff until they retired more than fifteen years ago. This is where Rita perfected her ability to sell stuff to innocent buyers. She herself told me that once, when she was still a kid, her mother left her to watch the store for a few minutes, and before her mother returned, she ended up selling a small electrical gadget to a woman who came in. When she told Vera about the sale, Vera was horrified to find out that Rita had charged the woman twice the price she was supposed to. Rita thought it was a hilarious story and was immensely proud of herself. I, for my part, felt sorry for the woman who was fleeced by an unscrupulous nine-year-old. 

Because I know I can’t suggest entering this store, I let it go. One day, if I ever decide to retire in Portugal, I’ll come back and visit these family-owned stores to see how affordable they are and what kind of people work there. Until then, I will continue my journey as a clueless tourist in search of meaningless experiences.

Before I know it, Rita spots a jewelry store. It looks like any jewelry store I’ve seen in the United States. Through the window, I can see rows of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings arranged in glass cases or on shelves. Nothing seems uniquely Portuguese to me, not that I know what Portuguese jewelry is supposed to look like. Rita enters the store and is followed by Vera. Anna hesitates for a moment before she follows the two inside. I take my chance and stay outside, hoping that the gray clouds floating above will not decide to drop their load on my head while I wait for Rita to finish her business. 

I am somewhat surprised that Rita decided to look at jewelry at this hour. This is definitely not a place that caters to tourists, as far as I understand tourist traps. The store is called Pandora, and its post-modernist design does not offer much comfort to shoppers with its minimalist décor and bright lights. Furthermore, the woman behind the counter looks more like a corporate type than the woman selling the ceramic pendants in Lisbon. And the prices, I believe, are non-negotiable. So, what Rita is doing there is not exactly clear to me. But I can’t ask, so instead I check the new surroundings. 

Across the street, there are some clothing stores, a bank, and something that looks like a combination of a juice bar and a cafe. Further ahead, the street is closed to traffic. It has the feel of an outdoor shopping mall offering a mix of souvenir shops and high-end boutiques that may attract locals with disposable income in addition to the hordes of tourists that come here during the hotter months. I’m tempted to go to the bank and pick up a few brochures. Years ago, when I taught Hebrew, I used to collect bank brochures in Israel and bring them to my students so they could see what real Hebrew looked like. Maybe I can do the same with the Portuguese brochures. I can either learn about how to open a bank account here or practice my Portuguese. But I’m not sure the bank is open yet, so I decide against it. 

I go back to the jewelry store to check on my travel mates. Rita is leaning on the counter, looking at a tray of tiny, shiny objects with not a worry in the world. Vera stands a few feet away, clutching her bag and looking bored. Anna is checking something on a shelf opposite the counter. Her sadness emanates from her shoulders and the small backpack that she carries everywhere.

“Let me see this one,” I hear Rita say to the saleswoman.

The woman puts a tray on the glass counter. 

“Hey, Mom, come see this one,” I hear Rita a moment later.

Vera turns to the counter and leans on it. I can see that she is itching to leave, but for the time being she is still cooperating. 

“What do you think?” Rita asks.

“They’re all nice,” Vera says flatly. “Just pick one you like.”

“I saw this one in their store in Monterey,” Rita says. 

“You want to get it?” Vera’s voice sounds somewhat pushy. I get the impression that she is trying to remind Rita that we all are waiting for her to decide what she wants to buy so we can continue our touristing.

“No, I want something different,” Rita says. 

“Then get something different,” Vera sighs. 

“They have a store like this in Monterey?” I hear myself ask Rita. I feel as if I have just woken up from a slumber. Stores like these have this strange effect on me. They put me to sleep no matter the hour of the day.  

“You’ve never seen this store at the Del Monte Shopping Center? They have them all over the world,” Rita turns her head to face me. I surprised her with my ignorance.  

“I used to have this one,” she points to a small pendant shaped like a puffy heart, “but I lost it and I want to get another one.”

I have no idea what she is talking about. I rarely go to shopping centers, and I never visit jewelry stores. My lifestyle does not call for these kinds of things. “Is there something inside the heart?” I ask.

“No, you put it on a bracelet,” Rita explains.

“Like on a friendship bracelet?” I thought these were things that little girls wear. My daughter had a bracelet with plastic Winnie the Pooh characters that someone gave her. I think it is buried somewhere in the garage with all her other childhood knick-knacks.

“Yes,” Rita nods enthusiastically. “I like this one,” she says as she carefully picks up a silver pendant of the word LOVE and dangles it in front of my face. “What do you think?”

“Cute,” I say. What else should I say? That we didn’t come all the way to Portugal so that she could buy stuff she can buy in Monterey? That she needs to get a grip and not keep us hostages in this store for nearly an hour because she lost a piece of her bracelet back home? I mean, this is starting to get annoying. I don’t like watching Anna pretending she doesn’t notice how Rita spends money on frivolous stuff while she has to count her euros every time Rita decides she wants a cup of coffee and a pastry. How many times do I have to watch this scene unfold in front of me? I want to shake Vera out of her slump and ask her, How did you raise such an oblivious human being? Where were you all these years when she was growing up? But I can’t do it. It’s too late for them both. I have to swallow my indignation and continue as if I am living in a normal world where people are considerate of each other’s predicaments, and no one has to pretend that everything is great when it is not.

“I’ll take this one and the heart, and the silver ball too,” Rita tells the saleswoman and pulls out her credit card. Anna approaches the counter to see what Rita decided to buy, and Vera marches to the door.

“Come,” she says to me, “Let’s wait for them outside.”

What I Will Not See in Porto (34)

I have a theory that it takes me only three days to get used to a new place and forget that I have ever lived somewhere else. At first, my sense of time changes because my routine changes, and the different time zone makes me disoriented from a lack of sleep. Then the way I move my body changes because objects are not in their usual places. I forget the taste of the food that I used to eat, what was important about the work I used to do, what I thought about, and what used to make me angry, disappointed, or sad. The sensation of newness becomes even more intense if the people who live in the new place speak a language other than English, as the lens through which I perceive reality changes with the new language.

I don’t know when I came up with this theory. I only know that I’ve been feeling this way since I first left my childhood home and moved to the city. Maybe because of the way I grew up, I have this fluid sense of belonging to a place. Put me in a tent next to a mountain stream, and three days later I will forget that I have ever lived in a house near the ocean and slept in a bed. Science might be able to explain this. The new visuals, smells, flavors, and sounds carve new, semi-permanent neural pathways in my brain and they make me forget my previous life. I become a different person. Even my personality changes a bit. I am friendlier and more alert to my surroundings. I even eat less than I am used to. 

Maybe that’s why when I wake up in Portugal on the fourth day, I feel as if I have always lived here. I know where I am (more or less), and I know what to expect. Not the small details but rather the broad strokes of what my day is going to look like walking the streets, looking at stuff, and eating. I still have to learn how to get around without checking Google Maps or asking for directions, find out where to buy the things I need, or how much things cost, but the general feeling is that Portugal is no longer a stranger. 

I assume this is why, when I hear a knock on the door and Rita’s voice informs me that they are heading out to breakfast at the little café across the street, I reply that I am going to pass.

“We can wait for you,” she says as she opens the door.

“I don’t feel like getting up yet,” I say. 

I feel brave for saying no to something completely uncontroversial. We all know that as a tourist, I’m supposed to devour every experience that presents itself to me, yet I dare to skip it. Even though I would love to have a cup of galão, now that I know how to order it, and maybe a pastry on the side, as long as it is not made of mostly egg yolks and sugar. That little café across the street got my attention the moment we arrived, but I can’t see how I am going to enjoy sitting there with Anna and Rita, who pretend that everything is great even though both are coping with a different drama that’s driving them to despair. Not Vera, though. She doesn’t let bad stuff affect her. She’s seen it all and survived the worst. 

“Okay,” Rita says cheerfully. “Just be ready when we come back.”

I wait for the sound of footsteps to fade before I venture into cyberspace to find out what there is to see in Porto. For curiosity’s sake only, not that I plan to suggest anything to the troupe. I am not interested in getting in trouble or instigating a debate about our next move. I just want to learn what this town is known for. 

I type “Things to see in Porto,” and a list of websites pops up. Some websites suggest 10 things I must see, some 15, some 25. Some use stock photos, and some feel like advertisements for tourists. I start with the shorter lists and move to the longer ones. Most lists provide the usual suggestions of sightseeing here and there, and visiting churches with magnificent artwork, but two places catch my eye. The first one is titled The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World, and the second is The Most Beautiful McDonald’s in the World. 

I can’t help but let cynicism creep in. Why does a city with a long history and unique architecture—both of which are completely unknown to me since I arrived after dark and read nothing before my arrival—need to seduce tourists to visit these two places? In America, tourist traps usually claim to be the tallest, the biggest, the longest, the first, the only place of its kind, and so forth, which are measurable and can or cannot be contested. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and consequently subjective. So why make this claim?  

I think the answer is clear, but I still want to raise the question. So here are the answers I find, apart from the photos that attempt to lure me in.

Livraria Lello, the bookstore, occupies a neo-Gothic building (I need to Google neo-Gothic) and features a stained-glass skylight, magnificent wood carvings, a breathtaking spiral wooden staircase, and bookshelves stretching from floor to ceiling behind rails and ladders and busts of famous authors. In addition, the store owns Portugal’s first cash register, which was brought here from Ohio, as well as some rare books on display. However, these attractions are not the main reason that tourists flock to the bookstore by the thousands. And I mean thousands every single day because more than a million people visited this place last year and brought in over 8 million dollars in revenues for the store, partly because they had to pay a 5-euro entrance fee (after waiting in line for who knows how long) and partly because they bought books there. I assume not in Portuguese.

The real reason people flock to this most beautiful bookstore in the world, which I do believe is beautiful after seeing the pictures, but whether it is the most beautiful in the world, I cannot vouch, is that the author of Harry Potter used to buy books there when she lived in Porto. According to popular lore, she was inspired by the bookstore’s beauty. Apparently, people who have read her books and seen the movies noticed that the architecture of Livraria Lello resembles the look of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the Flourish and Blotts bookshop, where some characters purchased their books on magic. These people, though, do not include me, obviously, because I have not watched the movies or read the books. 

Sadly, my ignorance has no bounds when it comes to Harry Potter. As far as my memory goes, I believe that I tried to read the first book when it made its first splash, but the author’s fat-shaming of the kid who tormented Harry pissed me off and made me put the book down and never come back to it. That was long before fat shaming became unacceptable, which makes me feel like a trailblazer now. But really, at the time, I felt that making that nasty boy fat on top of all his other evil traits was unnecessary, and I refused to take part in it.

So, do I want to go to Livraria Lello today? Not sure. However, I am sure that Harry Potter or J. K. Rowling mean nothing to Vera, and standing in line is not something Rita will do if she can avoid it. We have so few hours of daylight that standing in line to see the insides of a pretty bookstore might feel like a waste of time. Or not. I don’t know. Plus, I don’t know if the Israeli tour guide that Rita follows mentions this place on his blog, so I should take a “wait and see” approach and go with the flow.

The second most beautiful thing to see in Porto is the McDonald’s Imperial—not a church, not a bridge, not a tower, but a fast-food joint. Now, I don’t want to be self-righteous or preachy, but I have never been a fan of McDonald’s. Not in America, not in Israel, and probably not in Portugal either. I still don’t know what to order when I happen to find myself in a McDonald’s despite decades of living in the United States. I was once told that to prove my Americanness, I would have to go into a McDonald’s and order without reading the menu. It happened because I took more than a minute to decide what to order. I am probably one of the only people on this planet who has to read the menu that hangs above the counter before ordering. And then orders the wrong thing.

Anyway, the reason this fast-food establishment, which I am reluctant to call a restaurant, is considered the most beautiful in the world is because of its art deco architecture, the crystal chandeliers, and the stained-glass windows that were installed there long before the building became part of the global franchise. I guess tourists are expected to come for the sights and stay for the “food,” if you can call the concoctions that they sell there “food.” Interestingly, according to one American blogger I found, the food is not something to write home about, despite being modified to suit Portuguese tastes. He did mention that they sell the famous pastel de nata there, but I don’t need to go to a McDonald’s to eat one of those.

So, I have a feeling we will not visit this place either. Unless we pass by it when Vera feels it is time to stop for lunch, and the line looks reasonably short. Otherwise, we will probably skip this experience as well. Just like all the other landmarks we missed on the way here. Not that I have any problem with that.

First World Problems (33)

“You awake?” Rita asks, poking her head through the door. 

I put down the iPad and invite her in. I have no choice in the matter. 

She joins me on the bed. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing interesting.” 

I am not going to say anything about the surfers who rode the highest waves of the year today, while she was buying cork shoes on the other side of the mountain. She will probably say she read about it on the blog of the Israeli tour guide she uses to plan our trip and make me feel even stupider. Or she might shrug it off and say, Who cares? 

“What’s going on?” I ask. I can see that she wants to talk.

“Fred is driving me crazy.”

Tell me something I don't know.

That’s one of Rita’s favorite topics of conversation. Complaining about Fred’s laziness, his personal hygiene habits, and his addiction to Fox News. I am inevitably going to get sucked into the familiar territory of endless resentment. Unless she needs to badmouth her ex-husband and his new wife, who is always impeccably dressed and highly educated, which drives Rita mad with envy. Though she wouldn’t admit it, because her life is much better than the life of the new wife. I am not sure why, even though Rita explained that to me once or twice. Or more.

“What happened?” I resign myself.

 

“He’s going to quit his job.”

Fred has been talking about quitting his job for several months. He hates his boss, his boss does not respect him, and he does almost nothing all day. People ignore him in the office. He’s tired of driving all the way to his office. Yes, he’s making good money, but he can do better staying home and playing the stock market. 

“That’s old news,” I say after considering several other responses.

“Yeah, but now he’s really going to do it, and I can’t have him sitting at home all day and bothering me.”

“He’ll get tired of being stuck at home after a while and look for another job,” I try to encourage her.

Well, that’s the price you pay for attaching yourself to him, I think to myself. He’s part of the deal. You can’t expect him to give you everything you want and stay out of your way. We all pay a price for the choices we make. And you’ve been doing a pretty good job with it until now. Compared to my other women friends who attached themselves to men with piles of disposable cash, you’re the one who has lasted the longest.

“I told him he should get a job as a stockbroker, but he’s a coward; he won’t do it. He’s all talk and no action,” she whines.

“You can always go out and do something if he gets on your nerves,” I suggest, not for the first time.

“But then he wants to go with me everywhere I go,” she fumes. “And all he wants to do is sit in a bar and talk politics with people he doesn’t know. Like anyone cares. It’s so boring. He thinks he is going to join me when I guide tours. I can’t let him do that.”

I know she can’t. Fred is too big to travel with her in the small RV he bought for her a couple of years ago after she decided that she needed one for reasons that still elude me. The two times she used that miserable RV to go to Palm Springs or Lake Tahoe, Fred drove his own car and stayed at a hotel while she spent the night in the campground mingling with strangers. I’ve heard about it. And letting him travel with a bunch of Israelis who don’t speak much English to Yosemite would surely be a stretch even for her. I mean, how is she going to explain his presence to them? 

“It’s going to be fine, don’t worry,” I try to cheer her up, even though I don’t believe my own words. What else can I say? I’ve had this conversation with her many times during our walks. As the ad hoc encourager-in-chief, I can practically recite my responses in my sleep. She’s just letting off steam, and I am the most available sounding board. She knows that she can’t complain about the situation to her mother. Her parents are more than happy that she is someone else’s responsibility. Especially her father, per her own testimony. He was so happy when she finally got married that even the fact that her ex-husband was younger than her and a devout Muslim from a hostile Arab nation did not put a dent in his support for that doomed union.

“He said he was not going back to work after he returns from Israel,” she says, exasperated.

“He already told his boss?” I just want to make sure that this is the last time we talk about this topic.

“He told him he was going away for two weeks, and then he was going to quit.”

Her story sounds plausible. Before we left for Portugal, she said that Fred was coming to Israel for Thanksgiving to spend a couple of weeks with her. He decided to do it after he found a hotel in Jerusalem that caters to Americans and offers a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. 

“He invited my parents to the dinner. But my mother, you know, is not too excited to go all the way to Jerusalem to eat turkey. She doesn’t eat that stuff.”

That does not surprise me at all. From what I’ve seen so far, I can tell that it would be hard to impress Vera with over-the-top gluttony. She’s a down-to-earth kind of woman. She will find a way to belittle the extravagant dinner, I have no doubt. Maybe not to Fred’s face, though.

“I told him my parents would not drive to Jerusalem just for dinner, so he booked a room for them at the hotel,” she says as she rises from the bed.

I don’t want to read into why she is telling me all this, even though a little voice inside me insists that she is bragging about Fred’s ability to spend money on life’s extracurricular activities. I let it go. Then I say, “I’m sure you’ll have fun.” 

On this note, she gives me a crooked smile and leaves my room.

What I Didn't See in Nazaré (32)

According to Maria, there is a parking lot behind us up the street where we can leave the car for the next couple of days without paying a parking fee. She is going to wait for us by the gate and introduce us to the guard, so he doesn’t charge us on our way out. Rita gets into the car and drives to the parking lot as if she was born on this street. I don’t even get nervous when she makes a U-turn without bothering to find out if it’s legal or not. I have complete trust in her ever since she told me about driving through Tijuana with a malfunctioning GPS and cheating death more times than she cared to count. She stops in front of the barrier where Maria is waiting for us. An elderly man sits inside a small booth, smoking a cigarette and watching something on a small television set. When he sees our sporty-looking Toyota approach, he raises the barrier arm to let us through. He steps out of the booth to greet us and offers to show us our parking spot. He probably does this with all the guests who come to this little parking lot, but it still makes me feel special. We are not just annoying tourists who drive fancy cars and behave as if we own the world. We are real people to him and are treated as such. At least in my imagination.

Maria shows us our parking spot, and after reminding us where to leave the apartment key and what time to check out of the parking lot, she bids us goodbye. She still has lots to do before the day is over and it’s getting late. No time to converse in Brazilian Portuguese about her life in Portugal or where to find normal food made from something other than egg yolks and sugar. 

Rita is surprisingly low-key. Her loud chatter and over-the-top friendliness have disappeared, and a persona I rarely see emerges from under the tight leggings, oversized top, and jewelry mélange. She doesn’t have to tell me that she’s exhausted. The way she picks up the bags left in the trunk tells me that she needs to hit the sack soon. She can be like a kid, going from a hundred to zero in a space of a few minutes. I’ve seen that happen when she used to come over to my apartment in Monterey between Uber trips and stretch out on the couch. One minute she would be giggling in front of her phone, scrolling down the nonsense she likes to watch on Facebook, and the next she’d be snoring. 

“Do you think your mom would want to check out this coffee shop tonight?” I ask Rita on the way back to the apartment. I am sure Anna will skip a dinner outing for budgetary reasons, but with Vera, you never know. She loves to explore stuff, and she might shame us into going out because “It’s not every day that we are in Portugal.”

“We can go there for breakfast tomorrow,” Rita says as she drags herself up the stairs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Good. We can relax and recharge, and tomorrow we, or more accurately Rita, will decide how to proceed. I still don’t know when Anna is planning to depart, but I assume it will be either tomorrow or the day after. In the meantime, I will do what I can to keep the peace and not trigger her with my perceived insensitive approach to humanity and Planet Earth.

When we enter, we find Vera sitting at the dining table with the eternal cup of instant coffee in front of her, leafing through a tourist brochure. Anna is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she went downstairs to commune with her muse and wrap the seashells she collected on the beach in Nazaré with colored strings or whatever. Rita shoves the plastic bags she brought from the car into the fridge without bothering to remove anything from them. I offer to make tea. She doesn’t want any. She plops on the couch, kicks off her boots, turns on the TV, and looks for something to watch. If I know her as well as I think I do, she will be fast asleep in a few minutes. She has the attention span of a squirrel and any video longer than 75 seconds does not really interest her. Unless it is an incredibly silly Israeli comedy show, which I am sure they don’t air in Portugal. Since there are no men or children among us, I also know that no one will compete for the remote or demand to watch anything other than what she chooses to put her to sleep. 

I retire to my Ikea-furnished and decorated bedroom. Now it’s my turn to take off my boots and stretch on the perfectly made bed with its multi-colored pillows and matching comforter. I have my iPad charging on the nightstand, and I intend to use it to learn about the places we visited and maybe even read about what’s going on in the real world since I left it to explore Portugal. 

I Google “Nazaré, Portugal Surfing” mainly because I remember the conversation that we had earlier in the car about the Brazilian surfer who almost died there today. A year-old article from the New York Times pops up. It’s entitled, “This Town Once Feared the 10-Story Waves. Then the Extreme Surfers Showed Up.” I settle in for the read and discover that Nazaré is the Mecca of big-wave surfers. No wonder the huge waves I saw breaking so close to shore during my beach walk made such an impression on me. 

Apparently, Nazaré used to be a picturesque seaside town inhabited by fishermen and their families. In 2010, an American surfing champion named Garrett McNamara decided to come and check out the waves, following a personal invitation from a local sports teacher who understood that the mean waves could attract foreigners—and business—to the area. McNamara spent a winter there studying the waves and the deep canyon that causes these enormous waves to break so close to shore. In 2011, he surfed a 78-foot wave, becoming a world record holder and putting Nazaré on the map. The local sports teacher, Casimiro, proved to be quite a visionary because, in 2018, more than 220,000 people came to Nazaré to see extreme surfers ride the tall waves. Sadly, or not, I cannot claim that I came to Nazaré to watch the surfers.

For someone who has seen surfers ride huge waves in Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, I feel a bit stupid discovering that Nazaré is one of the world’s most famous surfing hubs after visiting there and not before. It’s like going to Jerusalem and seeing an impressive ancient wall inside the Old City and not knowing that it’s the most sacred site for the Jewish people. To add insult to injury, because I didn’t realize it was such an important surfing spot, I didn’t think about going to watch the surfers from the fortress overlooking the giant waves. I walked on the beach looking at that fortress in the distance, admiring the waves, completely oblivious to the incredible drama that was unfolding on the other side of the mountain at the Praia do Norte (North Beach).

And to top it off, according to another report, today was a very special day in Nazaré, not only because one of Brazil’s most famous surfers nearly drowned there from a wipeout, but because it was one of the best days the big-wave surfers have seen in several years. I open YouTube to see if there are surfing videos from Nazaré when a knock on the door interrupts my search. 

Settling in Porto (31)

It is already dark when we get into town. The GPS does its miracle and leads Rita to the Airbnb address on a wide avenue across from a promising neighborhood café that’s still open. A long triangular traffic island divides the avenue into two parts; buses and small European cars rush up and down with not a crosswalk in sight to slow them down. At the bottom of the triangle, there is a fire station with a fire truck parked out front. Hopefully, Porto’s firefighters are not going to be too busy tonight, running their sirens at odd hours and galloping up the hill to deal with this or that emergency.

Rita parks in front of a three-floor apartment building that reminds me of a San Francisco Victorian, even though it probably represents Portuguese architecture. One cute balcony hangs on each side of the second floor, more for decoration than for use by the apartment’s dwellers. I have little time to admire the beautiful façade, though, because as soon as we get out of the car and hit the sidewalk, the Airbnb host spots us.

The woman is friendly, talkative, and dressed in casual business attire that gives her the aura of a real estate agent. Also, her accent and demeanor tell me that she is Brazilian. Maybe I will be able to talk to her in Portuguese, but not just yet. It is Rita’s turn to do the talking, to introduce us, and let the woman lead us into the building. 

We collect our bags and follow her up the stairs. Unlike the fancy staircase of the indistinct house Rita found in the surfer town of Peniche, this staircase does not give clues about the apartment. It’s as nice as any staircase in a well-kept apartment building. The Brazilian woman, whose name we find out is Maria, rummages through a heavy keychain for the apartment key. She manages other rentals in town, she explains. 

She points to one door and explains that it leads to another apartment and that we should not try to unlock it because someone lives there. Then she opens the door to “our” apartment. I don’t need to see all of it to know that Rita scored a nice place this time. It doesn’t have the musty smell of a century-old building or the convoluted floor plan and mismatched furniture we saw in the other places we’ve stayed in so far. The enormous living room features a high ceiling, wooden floors, large windows, a full-size couch, a glass coffee table, and a large flat-screen TV. The kitchen is even better. It’s large and fully equipped with the quintessential IKEA silverware, white ceramic plates and cups, and a nice collection of pots and pans. There is a coffee machine on the wide granite counter, and next to it, sugar, tea bags, and salt and pepper shakers. We comment on how clean the apartment is, and Maria says that she just cleaned it and that she cleans all the apartments she manages.

“I love this job,” she laughs when I ask her if she’s tired. “I meet people from all over the world, and the work is never boring.”

Now I wonder if Brazilians typically do the menial jobs in Portugal. Or maybe cleaning houses and managing short-term rentals for owners of amazingly large and well-furnished apartments is considered a good job? I can’t tell. Maybe it’s better than working at a coffee shop or a bookstore. I mean, the flat TV screen they have here is huge, and that must mean something.

A nearly empty bottle of port and four wine glasses stand on a tray in the middle of a formal dining table that can sit six people. There are a few documents on the table, which Maria asks us to fill out and sign. While we pay her and provide all the necessary information, Maria pours a little port into each glass. It seems like a nice gesture, I think to myself, and then I realize that there is exactly enough port in the bottle for four glasses, not a drop more. I let my observation float away. The thought is what counts, I tell myself, not the amount of port in my glass. If I want more port, I can buy a bottle. Porto is the home of port, after all. It will not be hard to find a place that sells port, I am sure.

The bedrooms, we find out, are downstairs. The lower level gives me the impression that this house is probably a restored mansion that was divided into rooms that can be rented to families or small groups. There are three bedrooms on this level. The bedroom at the farthest end of the hallway includes a small nook, big enough for a single bed and nothing else. Rita and Vera decide to take that bedroom combination for obvious reasons. The bedroom’s windows are at street level and blocked with iron bars. Through the windows, I can see the sidewalk and the bottom of several parked cars. I wonder if in the old days, this part of the house was the section where the help used to reside. Under the kitchen and out of sight.

We proceed to look at the next bedroom. Anna parks her backpack on the floor by a double bed because she can probably feel that I am not about to volunteer to spend the night near Vera’s bedroom. Thankfully, she is more agreeable than I will ever be. A clearly renovated bathroom with a smart sink and toilet separates this bedroom from Rita’s. The many white towels hanging on racks by the shower stall indicate that the property owners are either more generous than their Lisbon counterparts or more prepared for the task of hosting well-paying tourists with high expectations.   

I score the best bedroom without one pang of guilt. It is located on the other side of the stairs, away from the other bedrooms, and any unusual noise that might erupt during the night from the farthest one. I didn’t claim this fabulous room or declare that I wanted it during the walk-through. It happened because I kept my mouth shut and let the other women choose their rooms first. And so, I get a nice big room, my own private bathroom, a queen-sized bed with a nightstand on each side, and a glass door that leads to a small, fenced garden. I can’t sit there now because it is dark outside, and the garden furniture looks wet. But it is nice to know that in the morning, if the weather permits, I might be able to sit outside. Maybe I’ll have my morning tea there before we start exploring the city. Or maybe I’ll just stay here, read about Portugal, take it easy, and absorb the city vibes without doing anything touristy.

I couldn’t be happier. I am going to have a few hours of peace and privacy during the next two nights. A room all to myself and away from everything and everyone. But not just yet. I still have to go upstairs and accompany Rita and Maria to the car. Maria is going to show Rita where to park, and I don’t want Rita to go by herself, wherever it might be, even though I know she can take care of herself. This woman has gotten out of sticky situations many times before, and I am not the one to save her. More likely, she would have to save me. But still, I feel that I should go with her at least to help her carry the few bags that are left in the car.