Sunday, September 11, 2016

A Hand of Faro

"I remember when I used to eat sardinhas for dinner." - Grande Pequeno


 

As happens when I travel and keep different hours and try different foods, my digestion has been irregular, but when I woke up this morning Lady Nature beckoned me with crooked finger. Down into the pit went fish and sausage, sentenced to the netherworld went ham and pineapple juice.

But the governor must have called to delay their execution, because the goofy Portuguese toilet wouldn't flush. It had some kind of dial control instead of a lever or chain, and it was just wrong number again and again. I really didn't want to wake up my hosts for this, so I stared at it trying to will it to disappear.

Then I had the bright idea to check the tank. Bone dry. I got a soup bowl from the sink and filled it and dumped it, filled it and dumped it, for what felt like a very long time. Then I dialed F for Flush and away went the dupers. A triumph! Perhaps my greatest!


Tiptoed out into the world to find the coffee shop I'd been stealing Wi-Fi from. I figured I owed them a purchase. Climbed the stairs up to the overpass and found it. It was around 7am and the streets were deserted. It's kind of a sleep-in kind of culture.

Coffee place was open, though, and I tried a bunch of croquets. Just pointed and paid for them and ate them. One had cheese, the other something like whipped liver. It was just fine. Just fine. Then I went back to pack. Key didn't work, so I had to push the buzzer.

Oh! The symbol for "floor" here is a small circle like the "degree" symbol. I'm not sure why, but I bet if I researched it, I'd discover the word for "level" or "floor" begins with an O. The way they display it, though, it looks like the apartments are all very cold. Hee haw.

Bruno, the landlord's boyfriend, came over to the balcony and wanted to know what I wanted. To be let in, Bruno. To be let in.

Showered, packed, left. The taxi driver I found upstairs spoke no English, but when I made the "Woo wooo!" sound of a train, he clapped and nodded. I have used this trick many times to great effect. Works in every country.

The station, the Entrecampos, also seemed deserted, like a dead mall, but the ticket window was open and a man named Joao sold me passage to Faro. Hey, Joao, what do you knoao? Eat at Joao's.

Sat in a ray of sun and read a book called The Drone Eats With Me. 250pg memoir about life in Gaza during the 2014 war with Israel. It was effective, because it had no politics or religion. It focused entirely on the day-to-day of life in a modern-day city under siege.

Tough to read, but seemed appropriate for September 11th. The children call the drones "zananas" because that's the sound they make. Sad violence presented without judgement. This quote kind of summed it up - "The only real heroism is survival, to win the prize that is your own life."


He also talked a lot about how much dust you breathe when buildings are being blown up around you, how it hurts your throat. I certainly remember three days of sucking in vaporized fax machines after 9/11. It all just blew over to Brooklyn. I probably have the Intel logo on my lungs.

The departing view of Lisbon from the train bridge was rewarding, a very beautiful piled-up city. Wasn't expecting to spend any time there at all, and now I love it forever.

Sat quietly and read the drone book for about two and a half hours, finished it and switched to Steve Martin's autobiography. He's great. I didn't know he'd worked in a magic shop in Disneyland as a teenager, dated Dalton Trumbo's daughter for a long time, or wrote for the Smother's Brothers. 

At a station called Tunes, I saw what looked like a rich white dude with dreads and striped pants sitting with a gypsy woman and her child. Their child? A contrasting couple. He looked like he could call his dad and stop it all any time he liked. He'd give her tribe a TV and an electric mixing bowl to take her back.


Pulled into Faro. Quiet little sun-slaughtered seaside town without too much to recommend it.

I had an excellent fresh salad at a fancy salad place and drank some iced mint tea. Finished the Steve Martin book at the table. Rambled around their spare Old City and didn't take the camera out. There are apparently some nice ferry rides you can take to some bird sanctuaries, and there's an ossuary, and you can take a bus to a pretty cool-looking palace (but not on Sunday).

Anything super-great here would have been gravy. It's served its function as a waypoint on the Restructured Voyage to Morocco. I caught up on some sleep, did a little writing (but not much), organized books for the bus tomorrow, and went out for canned tuna and crackers. It made me feel like a savvy, canny local.

New country tomorrow! Farewell Portugal. Thanks for all the fish.


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