Smile and the World Smiles With You, Cry and....

The title for the blog usually comes first but for now here's hoping the title makes itself known. some possibilities:

Portugal - once is enough

Portugal - Ten reasons to come... once

Portugal Problems

We've been in Portugal about twelve days now.  Sammy has joined us and just having her here for a week has brought us so much fun and laughter.  And a good thing too because the Portugese are just about the most serious, non-fun loving people you can imagine.  No wonder Fado music is such a hit here.  It is all about longing, and loss and a great sense of sadness and it certainly shows in the peoples' faces.  The only happy person we have met so far was a waiter at an amazing restaurant, he was Tunisian!  People walk down the street head down or if they are talking to someone it always seems they are planning the overthrow of the government.  Furrowed brows, pursed lips and definitely NO laughter.

AJ and PJ spent a week in the Algarve before we came to Lisbon and probably should have ended our trip in Portugal there.  We stayed in a gorgeous little house out in the country about 30Km from Faro.  As usual we took day trips here, there and everywhere.  The beaches were a favourite destination.  Miles and miles of soft, white sand with barely a soul in sight.  The shells begged us to pick them up and practically threw themselves into our hands.  The sun sparkled on the clear, blue water...heavenly.  Our host Jean Jacques (a misplaced Belgian) who has lived and owned his huge property in Portugal for a very long time warned us.  "The Portuguese are not an outgoing people."  Well that is definitely the understatement of the year. But quiet and non demonstrative is one thing, distrustful, wary and downright rude is another.

Several cases in point:

• tonight after a day of touring outside the city PJ went off in search of food for dinner.  AJ said he would come down and help her back with the bags of heavy things (mostly wine).**  I finished my shopping and still couldn't see the man.  I left the store - my first mistake.  Then I trolled along the outside perimeter of the store (it is a huge store inside an even bigger mall).  I spotted him down a very long aisle.   I headed back into the store - at least I tried to.  The cashier wagged her finger at me "No, you must go back and come in through main door."  OK. 

I am not happy, the bags are getting heavier by the second.  But I do it.  I get to the main entrance and head into the store.  "STOP!"  Two store employees yell at me, they look like they are about to tackle me.   I look at them dazed.  "What?"  You can't take those bags in there," they both shriek at me.  OK.  "But my husband is in there I just want to go find him."  "NO you must let me check your bags," says a woman who looks like one of those woman prison guards from the second world war."  OK.  "I will just leave them here and go find him."  "NO, she shouts, that is not the way we do it here."  Everything in her tone said, "Stupid tourist you think you can come in here and try to push your way around and get what you want, hah, we will show you."  I can't understand what they were trying to protect.  They didn't ask to see my bill, I had offered to leave the bags behind but no.  It was clear they just couldn't believe that someone might just want to go back in the store to find someone. It just shows how important imagination really is.

I told her what she could do with her store and her store policy and stormed off.  I sat panting on a bench in the mall muttering to myself.  People moved away.  Then I realized I had to go back.  AJ was still wandering around the belly of the beast they call Continente.  I go back.  I troll again.  I spot him, I yell to him.  Of course he doesn't hear.  I try another approach.  I go up to the "Customer service representative."  I think that is what the sign above his head says.  I smile a big, broad Canadian smile.  "May I please leave my bags with you and go in to find my husband?"  "NO, you must go to the main entrance and have them check your bags."  They are nothing if not consistent. D---. @#$%^  Fortunately at that moment AJ turned up.  After giving the helpful clerk a few choice comments we left. Now I am very red in the face, sweating and the closest to crying I have been in six months.

Now that I can breathe again I realize how really sad and telling the whole experience was.  Poor Portuguese.  They still think Salazar is looking over their shoulders after thirty four years.   The lack of trust here is like a religion.  Far reaching and very, very invasive.  I am sure they have me on video camera - they are everywhere - and will arrest me if I try to go there again.  I won't.

** A note on Portuguese wine.  Ah, excellent and so inexpensive.  You can get a really good bottle of white for 1.89 euros.  I think the Portuguese should drink more of their wine and lighten up a bit.

•when we went to pick up Sam at the airport we did the usual buy a ticket, take the ticket with you pay before you leave thingee.  Except that when we got to the spot to feed your ticket in  it just kept spitting it back.  We tried several times.  The line up behind us grew.  Then several young men came and did lots of unhelpful things with the ticket.  Finally one of them signalled that we must follow him.  It is now about ten minutes that we have been trying to get out of the airport parking.  We dutifully follow him to the parking ticket office.  He indicates to AJ you must get out.  AJ goes in and stays a long, long time.  All we want to do is go home with Sammy.  In frustration I go into the office.  A mistake.  I am ignored.  This is not a good thing.  I demand to speak to the manager who is refusing to make eye contact in his office behind glass where he is staring at his computer screen.  I bang on the window.  He waves distractedly at me.  I bang on the counter.  "What is going on here!" The woman behind the counter continues to ingore me.  A mistake.  I leave (read storm) out.  I return to the car where I begin to honk the horn, again, and again and again.  It feels good but does no good.

We are now about twenty minutes in the parking lot.  The bottom line is they say the ticket was stolen.  How or why AJ would steal the ticket is not made clear.  He repeats, "I took the ticket, I paid the ticket when we were leaving."  Now they want identification..... It went on and on.  We finally got out.  They probably have us on video camera there too.

All this ridiculous high drama that achieved nothing but aggravation and more mistrust. Something about all these incidents reeks of misplaced priorities.  Maybe these are all make work projects or maybe that is it.  They just don't trust. All that wasted energy.

•Driving back today from a trip into the country (lovely by the way - glorious vistas from the top of a Moorish castle) I noticed graffiti painted on the old stone walls.  Graffiti is everywhere in Europe no more here than anywhere else.  What stood out was the message.  It had originally said "Nazis, go home."  Someone had used more spray paint to black out the word Nazis and now it just said, "Go home."  The message was repeated several times along the walls.  

I am composing this from the solitude and safety of the seventeenth floor of a glorious apartment building.  From here the lights of Lisbon shine in all directions. It all looks so peaceful.  A thin strip of lights marks the arch of the long, lean bridge which crosses the Targus river making everything seem right and tranquil almost peaceful.  Oh to just stay up here away from the intensity and uptightness of the people in the street.

It is absolutely possible that there are lovely, warm people in Portugal I just wish we could have met a few.