Lisbon, part 2

So day 2 in Lisbon. All of my worries from yesterday seem to have disappeared. I'll start first with the living situation. We are all getting along really well and I think I'm really going to like living here. Although, it turns out I'm living with a bunch of political activists. They are nice people. Thankfully, not being Portuguese I'm sort of exempt from their movement and can offer opinions without ever having to be 'in' or 'out'. I ventured my opinion about people last night and they asked me who I was quoting. I said i suppose I'm quoting myself and they asked if they could quote me in the future. I said why not? All I said was that I find most political movements as futile as trying to get all of the air molecules in a room to move in the same direction at the same time. Or something to that effect. Even if you could get air molecules to go in the same direction at the same time, at what expense of energy, and you know you can't KEEP them moving in the same direction. At some point they all realize they are in fact air molecules again and scatter in random directions. Look at the hippy movement - those kids grew up to be materialistic corporate executives who've arguably made the world worse than before the hippies came about. So now I'm profound, they found that nice and I now refer to us all as the loveliest air molecules in the land.

But I really think political activists are vexingly idealistic with a martyr complex. They want to feel important and are willing to endure a lot to be validated as such. I don't know - I said if they want to be taken seriously they need to tone down the aggression and work WITH the system, not against it. Even if you protest with your hands in the air as if to say you're weaponless and defenseless, it is still a form of aggression, because a protest IS a confrontation. If you did that in front of an oppressive regime that would be one thing, but it seemed kind of silly that they were protesting democracy and wanted to change the system to... democracy. That *works*. I told them to just convince people why they shouldn't vote for the current incumbent(s) and vote for another one instead. Or start their own party. That would be too traditional I suppose. Viva la révolutión! It turns out they can't even quite unite their own people as there are various groups with goals that aren't quite the same. (See Air Molecules).

I suggested that instead of some giant movement, they just get a couple of intelligent people in for a meeting with someone in power who might be open to listening. I dunno - it's hard to sell radical stuff to me. Maybe because I think all people are air molecules. Some with hotter air than others.

I would like to correct my metaphor. We all start life as sheep and slowly turn into air molecules. Sheep can be led down any old path; the older and more fixed in our ways we become, the more we just go in whatever which way we've been going, unless there is some sort of collision that sends us in some other direction.

ANYWAY. I went for a 5 hour walk around Lisbon, and wow, what a beautiful city! Now thankfully it's September because it's still quite hot for these nordic genes, but the city itself is quite old and romantic. It's nice to wander around, whi0ch is what I did. Took some photos, sat in parks, and met quite a few Germans. Germans on holiday are quite distinct; they are the ones constantly with their guidebooks open, some of them with itineraries of all the things that MUST be seen. I met a lot of lovely Germans, seriously - they took my initial feelings of doubt, loneliness and slight homesickness away, but the excursion wouldn't be complete without a typical German douchebag. There was a group of middle-aged, self-important couples, dressed entirely like Germans (socks, sandals, golf-shirts and beer bellies) with nametags as if they were on some sort of package holiday. They were stopped at a street corner, looking at their checklist of things they needed to do in order to later prove to themselves they have indeed had a *successful* holiday. I asked if I could take a quick peek at a guy's map (because I just took a photo of googlemaps with my camera phone and the text was a bit blurred), and he made some snide remark that my map sucks and his is better. So, unwilling to take that kind of bullshit and knowing that most Germans are all bark and no bite, I just calmly and cooly said "Sind sie immer so ein Arschloch, oder nur im Urlaub?" (which means, 'are you always such an asshole, or only on holidays?') He stood there stunned, one of the other guy's wife smirked knowingly, I politely wished the others a nice day, and off I went and never looked back. It was petty but satisfying.

* * *

Lisbon is full of hills. There is this old quarter on a hill called "Bairro Alto", which I first misread as Barrio Alto and interpreted to mean Old Ghetto, after the spanish word Barrio and German word 'Alt' which means old. No, Bairro Alto means 'High Quarter', or perhaps "district up high". Simple. Pleasant. I should upload photos.

There are loads of wee alleys and narrow streets in Bairro Alto, and it has the reputation as the part of town you go to at night. It seemed like there were a bunch of bars around, but I was there around midday so it just seemed like a charming district.

There is also this absolutely gorgeous avenue lined with old trees, cafés and park benches that was a real highlight of today's walk. It's right in the center near the subway station Restauradores (or something like that, I don't have my guidebook and checklist handy)

I would like to write more, but I'm quite exhausted. After working too much over the last 2 months, and sleeping maybe 6 hours a night, my body has finally realized that sleep is permissible, and regeneration is now a top priority. I slept well last night, 8 hours or so, and woke up in good spirits.

I'm still wondering what I'll do here for 4 weeks, as sightseeing isn't exactly my thing, but I'm sure things will sort themselves out. I do have my mac and a lot of software ideas, so if the weather is crap I'll have the perfect excuse to get back to my own projects; something i haven't been able to do since June or so.

S.