Postcards from Lisbon

15.09.2010
Dear (insert name)

I'm having a wonderful time in the city of Lisbon. Sadly, for a country that's supposed to be all sunshine and blue skies, it is raining today. I have been told by the guy who runs the hostel that it hasn't rained since July, so perhaps I brought the rain with me from London.

I am staying in a hostel which is more like a nice, cosy apartment in the "downtown" area of Lisbon called Baixa. It's definitely the prettiest hostel I've stayed in so far. In the mornings, there is a lady who comes in to make us scrambled eggs for breakfast. I tried to do the my own washing up, and she frowned and waved me away. It's almost like being at "home" in Singapore again. :)
(Below: Travellers House, Lisbon)

I spent today in the moument packed districted called Belem.




They have their own version of the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge designed by the same architect!

I joined the queue at the famous Antiga Confeitaria de Belem for their scrumptuous Portugese egg tarts.

Sprinkled with icing sugar and nutmeg, they are truly "90 cents of pure happiness". The egg custard centre is smooth, the sides of the pastry casing are delicious flakey, and there's a wonderful crunchy pastry base on the bottom. I'll be dreaming about these little tarts in years to come.

Tried the spit roasted chicken at Bonjardim (famous for its peri peri chicken). Gate crashed another party of one (thank you C.!) so that we could share the peri peri chicken for two. Wouldn't recommend the creamed spinach. It had the consistency of vitamised food, (reminiscent of nursing home food,) and just tasted a little.....strange......

Just realised I never took a photo with C. Nobody's going to believe that I now have a twenty-something year old friend who works for the UN in New York, are they...?

Send my love to (insert name).

xx

Closetblonde

16.09.2010

Dear (insert name)

Today I went to Sintra, which is a quaint little mountain town about an hour away from Lisbon.

It's a hilly town with windy narrow alleyways, and many castles. It use to be the place where the wealthy had their holiday homes, hence the number of castles around the place.

The big thing to buy in Portugal is that rooster figurine.

I didn't buy one for you as I figured that you wouldn't want another tacky souvenir from a place that you've never visited. Majority of the shops in Sintra were of the souvenir kind, but there was one gem of a cafe where I stopped for queijadas (Sintra cheesecake) and travesseiro (pillow shaped pastry filled with almonds and egg custard). "A pillow of pure happiness" is what the guy at the hostel said.

Yes I had both, and yes, I feel my waistline expanding.

I did the usual Palacio e Quinta de Regaleira, Castelo dos Mouros & Palacio Naxional da Pena.

(Below: Palacio e Quinta de Regaleira)

I made the mistake of walking down to the see the Santa Maria church from Castelo dos Mouros (the old Moorish fort). It basically got me back into town which was the opposite direction of where I needed to go.

(Below: Castelo dos Mouros)

The church was less than than thrilling, to say the least.

The Palacio Naxional da Pena (the Moorish Palace) was by far my favourite. I just love the way the Moors work with colour.

I ended the day having arroz de marisco (seafood rice) at O Galera (rua Bacal Hoeiros) with my new dinner buddy. They don't seem to use claw crackers over here - they seem to prefer using mallets which proved to be an extremely messy dinner with the lobster and the crab. The seafood rice reminded me of Chinese rice porridge - the less mushy version, that is.

We stopped by an ice-cream parlour later for some (unnecessary) ice-cream. Portugal seems to still have a strong affiliation with Brazil even though the countries are far from each another distance wise. There seems to be plenty of Brazilian people over here and the ice-cream palour was offering ice-cream flavours made out of local Brazilian fruits such as the acai.

I hope my cat's behaving herself and hasn't been trying to get into the kitchen cupboards again. Please remind (insert name) to water my plants.

xx

Closetblonde

17.09.2010

Dear (insert name)

It was a beautiful day today in Lisbon, so I decided to take a long walk.

It is a city of tiled buildings, and the walkways are mosaic in pattern, made out of smooth marble stone that tends to make one's feet to slip. I saw an old lady hobbling on crutches with her leg in plaster. I bet she slipped and fell on the pavement.

You can tell that Portugal is a "poor European country". The city lacks that glossy chain store/mass consumerism feel that affected most of its other western counterparts.

The facades of buildings are generally faded and in poor repair, the stores and shops are small and family run, and look as though they haven't been changed since the 60's. Lisbon is unintentionally retro, and it's somewhat refreshing not to have a McDonald's and Starbucks lurking on every street corner.

I spied these sardines in a small little corner shop. I thought they were too cute for words with their unintentionally retro packing. I would have bought some as gifts but then....somebody seems to like sardines.

There was a really cool sweet shop near my hostel where they custom make their own hard boiled sweets. I ended up buying a few as gifts.

The guy that was serving me was extremely gay and extremely snooty.

I took a break mid-morning to have pastries at the famed Confeitaria Nacional.

I also tried their egg tart, but it just wasn't as good as Antiga's. I later stopped at a restaurant called Restaurante Esquina da Fe, found on a small side street off Rue Sao Jose. Yup, it's another one of those "hole in the wall" gem sort of places. I had a simple but tasty meal of pork chop and chips. (Left the creamed spinach behind - they seem to like that thing over here.)


Anyway, wish you were here (and all that jazz). Heard about what happened with (insert name) at that party when (insert event) happened!! Tell me all the details when I see you!

Much love,
Closetblonde.

17th September 2010
To the Ex-Housemates:
Fuck you. Have fun marrying your cousins.

Closetblonde.