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Published: October 29th 2006
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With the lights of the city whirring by and a manic driver behind the wheel, Lisbon quickly strikes you as a long way from quaint, provincial Porto. Gabriela’s made the trip down with me for the weekend; she’s arranged for Luis and Filipa - two friends from
CouchSurfing - to meet us at the station. They greet us in a flurry of hugs and kisses. Luis gives Gabriela an affectionate kiss on the cheek, warmly stroking her hair. Filipa clops over in bright, colorful galoshes with a bold mosaic print on them. She introduces herself and offers me gum, reaching into a bag that, I’ll soon learn, is stuffed with little pink wrappers. When we get into the car her galoshes pound the pedals, and we’re whipped around the backseat as she negotiates the city’s tight turns.
At half-past ten, we’re just in time for dinner. The streets are crammed on this mild night; for the past two weeks, Lisbon’s been battling the same stormy weather as the north. We’re turned back at the first two restaurants and join a long line at the third. By the time we’re seated in a loud, smoky room, the waiter -
a flustered young Brazilian who punctuates his mistakes with an “Oh, shit!” - has to apologize because half of the menu’s sold out. It’s a fine meal regardless. We dig into some traditional dishes of grilled fish and sausage, and I even - in a celebratory mood - try my luck with a shot of Portuguese liquor that was last seen stripping the paint off a boat in Porto. Everyone’s in high spirits. For all her love of the north, Gabriela’s happy to be back in Lisbon, and before long our rollicking, boisterous bunch has spilled out into the city’s streets.
While Portugal often finds itself at the butt-end of European jokes, the capital’s reputation for nightlife might be the one thing that puts this country on par with its neighbors. In places like Bairro Alto, where the cobbled streets rise at a sickening grade, you have to push through crowds that cram shoulder-to-shoulder and shuffle drunkenly to an endless string of bars. Most of the revelers are young and casually hip, slipped into slim-fitting jeans and designer t-shirts. You hear a half-dozen languages on every corner, and a young American girl stumbling down the street, cursing like
a roomful of truckers, reminds me that a very small part of my heart still thinks fondly of my college days.
Luis gets easily side-tracked throughout the night. He works as a casting agent for one of Lisbon’s busier talent agencies. In two weeks he’s shooting a commercial for a major telecommunications company, and he’s still trying to find actors for this week’s casting call. About the details of the ad itself, he’s vague. But he’s looking for certain off-beat types to fill more than three dozen available spots. “I found six blond pianists today,” he says, pumping his fist: a major coup. It becomes a fun guessing game to see just who does or doesn’t spark a glimmer of inspiration in his eye. A man with elaborate tattoos covering his neck and arms merits a chat; a dwarf in a neat buttoned shirt and loafers doesn’t. By the end of the night, he’s added just a couple of numbers to his list. It wasn’t entirely the night he was hoping for, but still productive by anyone’s standards. It’s hard to get too upset about the day when you’ve landed yourself six blond pianists.
The next
day we pay him a visit in the afternoon. He’s sitting with his brow furrowed; across his desk are scattered pictures and short bios of the people he’s met in the past few weeks. There’s a memo that highlights some of his agency’s goals in bullet points. “We are looking for not so good-looking people,” it reads. “It would be great if we can get a lot of northern Europeans for this.”
For the daunting task ahead, Luis has to put in some long weekend hours. Gabriela and Filipa entertain me for the afternoon. They take me to Lisbon’s famous Saturday flea market, a place where the city’s criminal element shows off its entrepreneurial bent. “Anytime you get something nicked in Lisbon,” says Gabriela, “you can just come here the next week, and you’re guaranteed to find it.” We browse through piles of pornography and phone chargers, through second-hand bras and battered Barbie dolls, through pulp novels and broken Casio keyboards. In all of Lisbon, it might be the single least-tempting place to spend a single euro. The fact that it’s also among the city’s most notorious pick-pocket haunts might make shopping a moot point regardless.
Gabriela lingers over a heap of electronics. Her brother’s flat here in Lisbon was broken into just a few weeks ago, and she’s holding out hopes of retrieving some of the stolen gear. Now and then you see collections of CDs being hawked in CaseLogic sleeves. Gabriela admires the brashness of the city’s thieves. “They don’t even bother pretending it’s not stolen,” she says.
While Lisbon doesn’t strike me as a dangerous city, petty crime has long been a lingering problem. When Luis shows me around his apartment - a spacious flat in the posh Lapa district, with windows opening out onto the street - he stresses the importance of locking the door and windows before I leave. He’s been victimized before: twice he’s had a motorcycle stolen from the street just in front of the house. A few weeks ago, he started parking his bike near the home of the American ambassador up the street. There are four armed guards stationed in front around-the-clock, and close to a dozen more are scattered up and down the block, warily staring into our car each time we pass.
Luis meets us for lunch in Alfama, a hilly
area in the shadows of the Castelo de São Jorge. Gabriela’s chosen one of her favorite restaurants in town, with broad views of the city and the river Tagus. Chapitô is among Lisbon’s more colorful eateries. In the 1970s the owner established a school for circus performers, expanding it to include a non-profit organization and, improbably, a restaurant in the years since. Across its bright yellow façade are splashed colorful portraits of contortionists and high-wire acts. A girl with floppy shoes and a painted face greets us with a “
Boa tarde” at the door; most of the employees are students on scholarship. While I’m disappointed that our meal’s not served by trapeze, we eat massive plates of grilled octopus as the sun sets over Lisbon. After coffee, Luis disappears down a set of stairs where screeching kids have been scurrying all afternoon. When he comes back he’s got a triumphant look on his face. There were some brief negotiations with a school official, and he’s managed to procure a clown and a juggler for his commercial. Things are slowly falling into place for him, though it’s hard to say just what you can sell with a clown, a juggler and
a half-dozen pianists.
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