The sun was up and it was a balmy upper 60s when we took a taxi to our hostel. Turns out it is on a pedestrian street, so the cabbie did the best he could (which did involve some driving through outdoor seating areas).
The woman working at the hostel let us drop off our bags, then we were off! Rick Steves had a little walking tour through the Baixa (something like "buy-sha") that led us to the tram to Belem, so we wandered along it.
It was all of Alex's firsts - her first church in Europe was São Domingos. In the 1600s, it was the center of the Inquisition (and the square in front of it acknowledges this with a sculpture remembering a Jewish massacre). Now, it strives to be much more accepting and inclusive.
There's a recurring theme in Lisbon, which is that in 1755, there was a giant earthquake during All Saints Sunday where a large population was in churches that crumbled (1 out of every hundred Lisboans died). São Domingos has the same original skeleton with "patches" between. It was a good first church, and nearby, so perhaps where we'll go to Mass for Easter tomorrow.
Continuing on to Praça da Figueira, Rick mentioned a sweets shop with nun-inspired treats, so had to get some pastries.
We bought a public transportation pass and waiting in an enormous queue at the tram stop. This is a tram we want to take tomorrow too, so now we know to hit it early! Thankfully, a larger, modern one pulled up, and we were headed to Belém.
I was excited about Belém because of their pastel de Belém (an egg custard pastry), found around Portugal, but born here. It took a few hours to get there though.
First, we stopped at the Carriage Museum. Some lady royalty (ok, the last Queen of Portugal) donated all these custom-made, royal carriages and the carriage house the stayed in.
We wandered through a park (and posed for some sexy pictures - those are on Alisa's camera, so won't get posted until we get back).
Next was the monastery. A giant line was winding around the yard in front, but Rick said the church was free, so we skipped the line and popped into the sanctuary, skipping the cloister.
There was quite a gap in styles from the alter (light, marble stone) to the heavy Gothic-like congregation area. What I like more, though, were the tombs of Camoës and de Gama. (Camoës' was actually just a memorial - his burial place is unknown.) The former was a writer whose epic poem about de Gama launched the romanticizing and publicity about Portugal as the gateway where the East meets West.
We walked through a much better park with a dancing fountain (should've saved our poses for here) to get to the Monument to the Discoveries. I love the style of this giant statue... And I loved the fact we could go up into it!
As we were waiting in line, the guy behind us started to engage us in conversation. He was traveling with his daughter on a cruise that was docked - the giant lines made a bit more sense now. Alex and Alisa make fun of me later because he was interested in talking only to me...
We took the elevator to the top, and got some great views of the Rio Teja, which connects Lisbon (and Belém) to the ocean, as well as views of the Belém Tower and the Monastery of Jeronimos.
We decided to take the stairs down (not the best idea, for future reference - no reason to waste the knee power) and then popped outside for the look around the memorial.
Alisa and I went right; Alex went left. And that's the first time we "lost" Alex.
She was quickly recovered, and photos were taken of the stack of explorers (which only included one woman - or, said differently, at least there was one woman!) We continued along the water toward Belém Tower.
Originally built in the center of the river to protect the city, the tower is now accessible by a boardwalk. According to the German dad, it was a hour-long wait, so we opted to just taking jumping pictures in front of it.
Oh, and the sweet plane that crossed the Atlantic five years before Lindbergh.
By this time, we were starving, so it was off to a Rick-recommended Pão Pão Queijo Queijo ("bread bread cheese cheese" - has to be good, right?). It was quite the wait for the falafel that Alisa and Alex ordered, so I volunteered to pop over to the huge line at Pasteleria de Belém for their trademark egg custard pastries.
These little pies of delight are a flaky crust dough filled with an egg yolk custard. It was originally baked by nuns - they would use the whites to starch their collars, so put the yolks in all the desserts. Belém's are special - not only are they the originators, they also have a closely guarded recipe. Only three people know the proportions for the filling. They are the premiere baker, so they we always making massive amounts.
But, most importantly, they were warm. And warm flaky dough cupping the partially solidified pudding covered with powdered sugar and cinnamon... We only ate two apiece, but were ready to get more almost immediately.
It was time to head back to Lisbon, so we crossed the street to the tram station (and had a bit of schadenfreude at the line that increased at Pasteleria de Belém). There was a very crowded tram in front of us, so we waited for the next. When it pulled up, we pushed inside and planted ourselves in seats out of the sun.
Though, when I say "we", I really only mean Alisa and I. We claimed the seats, briefly decided which was better and where Alex would sit, turned around to point her to them and - poof! I saw her disappearing out the back window. I thought I made very clear hand gestures for "oh my God" then "walk" then "toward us."
Alex didn't get any of that, but walked down and met us between the next two stops anyway. She was apparently butted out of the way by some other tourists, then had an arm and a leg in the tram when the door closed. She snatched them out, getting abandoned by the tram and us in the process.
So, Alex survived alone in a foreign country. Just for a few minutes, but she didn't freak out and like have a heart attack and die. And she's only been in Portugal for a little over 24 hours!
Despite getting lost, Alex still managed to pass out on the tram back to Lisbon.
Back at the hostel, we checked in, and I was excited about seeing fado, so started trying to communicate with the receptionist. She began to call someone, and I assumed it was the fado place.
Nope. She had actually just called someone else that knew English to translate. After I told him the place, he told me to just come to "some men behind tables" by somewhere that started with a C that was by the theater.
After wandering around in the pedestrian courtyard that was in front of the hotel and creepily making eye contact with men behind tables for a few minutes, I just went back up and asked the receptionist to show me.
She took me to a hotel two doors down. Guess concierges are men behind tables! Our reservations were made for 8pm.
As a good traveler does, we all then took naps (or just chilled, in Alisa's case).
It was 7:15, and we started getting dolled up for our restaurant. I looked up directions on Google Maps because it caches and you can use it offline. It does not, however, show you altitude changes - the half a mile to the restaurant involved at least twelve flights of stairs (and at least that many other fado joints that were trying to lure us in).
We were the only ones in the restaurant, with the exception of an old couple that I assumed (correctly) were the singers.
Fado is a traditional song, originally sung as tragic love songs by widows and now expanded to other genders and life callings (but still not very upbeat).
The next couple came in about 8:30. Then the drunk group came in at 10, along with the young family beside me (and an extremely well-behaved child).
It was a few songs, then a twenty minute break, from 8:30 until 10:30 for us. The pacing was perfect for me. There's only so much mournful crooning I can take at once. Cantos de Camoës eventually got hopping, and that's also when one of the fado singers started wagging her finder at the drunk group as they started getting louder.
We popped out when all the food and wine was game and started back toward the hostel. The street in front seemed like it could be hopping, so we headed back.
Earlier in the day, Rick Steves had recommended going in a ginginha shop. This liquor is made of cherries and ginha berries. You can get the small shot with or without berries. When a shop just happened to be on our way home, we stopped to try. I tried out my Portuguese (something that sounded like "tresh zhin-zheen-ya con sema pour fah-vor"). I got a compliment, then three little plastic cups.
I still am giggling about the reactions. I dislike cherries, and the liquor was pretty strong, but it was the berries that got the best faces.
I got to the bottom of my cup first, and that first sour, liquor-y berry - Alex and Alisa already had stitches in their sides from watching me.
We then took turns, with plenty of documentation.
We were giddy, and the only way to fix it was to people-watch and take advantage of the cheap wine of Europe. The restaurant right outside our hostel had a band taking a break in front of it - the accessibility and music made it an easy choice.
Saturday night was hopping. We got our wine and belted out the 90s being played by the busker band (not even in that order!) The owner was dancing around the tables, adding his own yodels into the fray. A possibly homeless man was dancing interpretively next to the band.
When the band finally stopped after the third or fourth encore (each encore fully supported by the owner), it was drunk food time. We took the rest of our wine to go (little plastic cups... I love Europe.)
We wandered around a couple blocks looking, but this is clearly an untapped market. Instead of food, we took jumping pictures on Rossio with the National Theater behind them.
And with that, it was back to the hostel, the internets, and those on the East Coast that were just prepping to leave for the night. (It's five hours behind in EST right now.) Instead, we were headed to bed!
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