Ginja is a fruit related to the cherry but native to Portugal. It's made into a sweet liquor that is often served in little chocolate shot-cups that you can eat afterwards! Tasty, very cute, and fun.
Considering it took us a whole 3.5 minutes to order the ginja and drink it, we waited outside of the restaurant for what seemed like hours, some of us trying not to drool too much as we stared at the people inside eating and some of us guarding the restaurant door like a pack of wolves to prevent anyone from cutting in line. We were seated and ordered immediately, but the spread of bread, cheese, olives, and sardines laid out on the table was calling our name.
In Portugal, the little treats they set on the table before a meal are NOT free - generally bread will be 60 cents a piece, a bowl of olives 1-2 euros, cheese a little more. It doesn't seem like very much until you realize the appetizers cost half as much as your actual meal did. I had a bowl of salted olives directly in front of me, and as much as I tried to look away I just couldn't resist. I decided I could spare 1 extra euro to indulge in the olives. (In the states, I generally like green olives. In Europe, I am OBSESSED with green olives, they just taste so much better).
In the end, eating those olives was the best decision of the night. My meal was fine, nothing spectacular, but those olives were fantastic. I also had my first caipirinha, a Brazilian cocktail made from rum, sugar, and lime (someone told me they were made with tequila but I don't think that's how most of them are made), which I loved.
The next day I visited the National Azulejo Museum. Azulejos are those little ceramic tiles you see all over the place, which originated in Portugal. I learned lots of history and cool facts about the tiles.
We walked back to our hostel from the museum, meandering through some neighborhoods and getting to observe a little bit of residential life in Lisbon. It really is a charming place- a fair-sized city that's not too modern.
We also were looking for one of two things to try before leaving: crema de marisco or Portuguese-Indian vindalho. We came cross very few Indian restaurants, so decided on the crema de marisco, which actually was surprisingly hard to find. We must have asked 20 restaurants throughout the course of our walk if they had this dish. We finally came upon one quiet restaurant that had it listed on their menu. We were a little skeptical because the restaurant was entirely empty, but our curiosity got the best of us.
To make a long story short, it was all we could have asked for and more. We paired it with some legit Port wine and enjoyed ourselves fully.
It was about time to leave when we got back to our hostel. We noticed some streets had been blocked off and there were lots of people in the plaza nearby, but we couldn't quite figure out what was going on. It wasn't until we tried catching a bus that we realized there was a protest going on, and no, no buses (or trams, or taxis) would be arriving or departing.
After realizing that no buses were departing from the next plaza over either, we decided to ask someone at the train station for help. I opened by asking how we could get to the airport. He looked at me blankly and said there was a bus stop right outside the station. I pointed out that there was a protest going on and no buses were entering the plaza, to which he quickly responded, "Well, that makes things complicated!"
We were losing precious time but finally were able to figure out we needed to take a metro out of this protest-bubble and then wait for a bus that was hopefully not caught in the road blockage. We made it to the airport on time, but not without wishing that we had the chance to watch the protest and talk with some of the people involved. (It turns out over 300,000 people attend this protest, which was formed in response to austerity measures in the workplace).
With great food, beautiful sights, and summertime weather, Lisbon did not disappoint.
No comments:
Post a Comment