9: Carnaval Holiday: Lisbon, Terror, and Paris

If any of you reading this have been bored by my recounting of classes and grocery shopping, this blog post is definitely for you.  Just be prepared for a pretty long account.

Ora and Portuguese food: Arroz de Marisco

This weekend was Carnaval in Portugal, but since we had both Monday and Tuesday off from class, my friends and I decided to forgo the Portuguese celebrations and travel farther out into Europe.  While we planned on meeting in beautiful Paris on Sunday night, the weekend separated all of us: Dan and Amy met Amy’s boyfriend James in London; Tatiana flew off to visit her boyfriend in a town outside of Paris… and I went to Lisbon with the wonderful Ora Star, who came to visit me during her spring vacation!  

It was amazing and surreal to have someone from home here, which is so different from Rhode Island and Maryland.  Ora arrived Friday evening.  I met her at the train station, forced her on a death march up the many hills of Coimbra to my apartment, and then we spent the night getting dinner and wandering around Universidade Velha and the riverside.  We passed out early to the melodious sounds of the latest Jersey Shore episode, and then woke up early that morning to catch the train to Lisbon.  

A Brasileira, where famous Portuguese writers and thinkers would meet and eat

Hanging with A Brasileira regular Fernando Pessoa

SATURDAY

Entrance of Sao Jorge Castle

Alex, Ora, and Lisbon

Our train arrived much earlier than we thought it would, so we called our hostel from the train station and they said that we could drop off our bags before official check-in at 3 PM.  We bought cheap day-passes for Lisbon public transportation (if anyone ever comes to Lisbon, this is the VivaViagem card is the greatest thing in the world) and did the first of three walking tours listed in my Rick Steves book (Rick Steves is the greatest tour guide of all time).  We went through the Bairro Alto and Chiado neighborhoods, which I remembered from my 2008 visit with my family, and ended up near the famous A Brasileira restaurant and a huge shopping center where Ora found her favorite part of Portugal: a Sephora and Starbucks right next to one another.  We hopped back to the hostel to check in after that, then walked through the Alfama neighborhood, which started at one of my favorite parts of Lisbon, São Jorge Castle.  We didn’t go in, as it cost too much money and we were both on a serious budget, but we ended up hanging out around the outer wall and surveying the shops around the area.  We also got free porto, or Port wine, though it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience.  I couldn’t tell if I just don’t have a taste for the strong liquor or it was just terrible, free Port.  I’m hoping it’s the latter or else I am failing at being truly Portuguese.  

Praca do Comercio and the Arc de Triumph

We walked around the Baixa neighborhood, which is definitely the most metropolitan area of Lisbon.  It has the most history anyway, with giant plazas like the Praça do Comércio with its Arch of Triumph, and all the new architecture that replaced the destroyed buildings after the 1755 Earthquake/Tsunami/Fire (Portuguese people have the worst luck).  There Ora also tasted her first small cup of ginjinha (which, though I sang his praises earlier, Rick Steves has wrong: You don’t say “sem/com elas” if you want fruit.  You just say “sem/com frutas.”  Nice and simple.  None of those messy prepositions.)  While I think she definitely enjoyed it more than the porto, I don’t think Ora will be buying a bottle anytime soon.

Pasteis de nata and galao

After that walking, we waited for the bus and went to Belém, which is kind of a separate district of Lisbon.  We got there pretty late, so it was rather dark and had started to rain, but we walked over to the Monument of the Discoveries and stood outside of the Monastery de Jerónimos.  We also went over to my mom’s favorite place in Portugal, a Casa Pasteis de Belém, who claim to have invented pasteis de nata (which I’ve mentioned in this blog before).  We ate two there and got two to go for the next day.  

SUNDAY

The next morning we went to the Gulbenkian, which was just as amazing the second time.  I absolutely love that museum, especially when I think about how every single beautiful thing in there was owned by one singular man.  It is all a thank-you from Calouste Gulbenkian, an Armenian oil tycoon who found refuge in Portugal during the Second World War.  He willed his amazing art collection to the country after he died to thank them for harboring him and his family.  Must see when you come to Portugal (because you should).

After the museum, we shot over to the train station to buy tickets to Porto, from which I was flying to Paris that night and Ora was flying to Madrid the next afternoon.  We ate delicious Chinese food at a huge mall-like complex near the station before riding the train.  In Porto, we tried to find the hostel where Ora would spend the night, but the hostel owner’s heavily accented English was more confusing than helpful and Ora ended up taking a cab while I got back on the metro and rode to the airport.

Despite causing a little bit of drama getting on the plane because I didn’t go to the check out desk (as I thought that, as it is in the US, one does not need to check in if they have already done so online… but this is Europe.  I keep forgetting), I boarded the plane just fine and turned off my phone in preparation for the flight.  Amy and Dan had flown from London to Paris that afternoon and were taking in the views from the Eiffel Tower as I was boarding.  That news would be the last I heard from them for about 12 hours.

We landed in Beauvais that night, and unaware that anything was about to go horribly wrong, I retrieved my phone and turned it on to text my friends that I had landed and would see them in a little over an hour.  However, when my phone turned on, it suddenly asked for a pin number.  I had no recollection of any such pin number, and after plugging in all the numbers I could think of and all the numbers I could find printed on and inside the phone, the SIM card blocked the phone and all information I had on it.  I had no way to look at my texts, which included the metro stop where my hostel was located, or my contacts, where Dan and Amy’s numbers were listed.  Walking to the shuttle which brought Beauvais fliers into the city, I decided that I would drive in, figure out the metro, and find my friends.  I allowed myself to get a bit hysterical on the shuttle, but when we pulled into the Middle of Nowhere, Paris, France, it was time to act.

By the time I arrived in the city of Paris, it was about 11:30 PM.  I’ve never been a particularly street smart individual, so how I managed to find the metro, figure out the machines which were stubbornly only in French, read the metro stop, and make a transfer to the metro stop I remembered from earlier, are all completely beyond me.  But at 1 AM, I exited the Voltaire stop and realized that, unless our room was directly overlooking the metro stop, I would never find them.  I wandered the empty plaza for a few minutes and then gave up.  

This might be the point where you might think, “Dear God, this 20-year-old girl is walking around a city at one in the morning, suitcase and travel book in hand and absolutely not phone or knowledge of the French language to speak off.  This is going to turn into a real-life version of Taken.”  However, I wasn’t completely lost.  The week before I had contacted Hayley, a Brown student I had only met once before at a party.  Her family were the hosts, and my godfather and his family were one of the many guests.  They had invited me along, and while Hayley and I had never seen each other before on campus,  we traded information about our study abroad plans.  I remembered she was in Paris while planning the trip with Amy and had sent her an email, and her response, which included helpful phrases, amazing sites, valuable advice… and her phone number, had been printed and put in a folder with the rest of my travel documents.  I went into a restaurant that was still open (that would have never been an option in Coimbra) and, through the miracle of universal hand signals, managed to borrow one of the waiter’s cell phones and call her.  By the grace of God, she picked up and immediately gave me the address of her friend’s house, where she was staying that night.  I took a cab and met them there, sent a mass-message on Facebook to everyone in my Portuguese program in an effort to somehow let Dan and Amy know that I was alive, and passed out on a wonderful make-shift bed.

MONDAY

Post-drama: In front of Notre Dame

The next morning, after not one response to my Facebook message, Hayley and I tried to figure out how to get in touch with Dan and Amy, who had no Internet access.  I realized that I had a small notebook in my purse in which I had written my landlord’s phone number and his son’s email address.  After sending an email to his son, Hayley graciously put credit on her Skype account and allowed me to call my landlord.  He and his son sent me Tatiana’s number, who I also called on Skype, and who answered the phone hysterically.  Dan and Amy had been texting and calling her all night just in case she had heard from me.  The theories ranged from plane crash to kidnapping, but after I assured her that I was completely fine, she was able to contact Dan and Amy and coordinate for us to meet in front of Notre Dame that morning. Hayley brought me there herself and waited with me.  I could not be more grateful to her and her friend Sarah.  They are truly the nicest people of all time.

Saint-Chapelle

The Pantheon

After that, the excitement of the day moved from anxious terror to excited amazement.  With luggage in hand, Dan, Amy, and I took copious amounts of photos of Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle (one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen), Place St. Michel, the Sorbonne, and the Pantheon (what I deemed to be France’s secular attempt at a Westminister Abbey type establishment, with their history painted beautifully across the walls and a crypt where many famous French thinkers, writers, politicians, and scientists are buried).   

The Sacre-Coeur

Coming out of the Pantheon, we met up with Tatiana and her boyfriend Laurent, both of whom were in the city for the day, and then parted ways again to go see the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, which was amazingly beautiful and had such a good view.  Despite Dan almost punching a street vendor who tried to scam us, it was a perfect place to watch the sun set and take artsy photos of the Eiffel Tower in the distance.  After the sun went down, we went to the Champs-Élysées and had dinner at the classiest McDonalds I have ever been inside.  Afterwards we returned to the hostel and fell asleep to French-dubbed “Gone in 60 Seconds” And “Top Chef.”

Hamming it up on the Champ-Elysees

TUESDAY

The main Entrance to Versailles

The next morning we woke with the dawn (or 7:30 AM) in order to get to Versailles when it opened at 9 AM.  This was the biggest, most necessary thing I wanted to do during this trip, so even through the exhaustion I was completely elated.  Arriving in the town of Versailles was fantastic, and then turning the block and seeing the main entrance to the palace was breath-taking.  I can’t say that I have no words for the interior, because I have millions of words: amazing, wonderful, enchanting, incredible, beautiful, stunning… The list goes on and on. 

In the Hall of Mirrors

I often hear people comparing Western art, style, and culture to that of the East and using the “exotic” aspects of the latter to make it seem better and more sensual to the European way of life.  After living, studying, and visiting Europe, all that seems absolutely ridiculous.  European cathedrals are just as dramatic and gorgeous as Indian palaces and Asian temples.  Go to Versailles and Paris, go to Lisbon and Coimbra, and tell me that those places aren’t exquisitely beautiful, graceful, sensual, and magnificent.  If your views are still plagued by the legacy of European imperialism, you need to study history a little bit better.  Versailles was everything I could have wanted it to be, and the audio tour was comprehensive and wonderful (I especially loved the specific voices that would only read whenever they were sharing a specific quote from a specific French king or dauphin).  Despite the multitude of tourists, even that early in the morning, this was definitely the highlight of my trip.  I even loved the Japanese school girls taking jumping photo after jumping photo, their fingers making “V” For “Versailles”… that’s what I’ve decided, anyway. :)

The Travelers, reunited.

The gardens outside of the palace, while rather dead due to the time of the year, were amazing all on their own.  The amount of land there is incredible, and the gardens stretch out (it seems) forever.  A tourist can actually rent a bike to tour the gardens alone.  After failing to convince my friends to eat at a Tex-Mex restaurant, we ate sandwiches in the town and then headed back to Paris.  We again whirled around the city, visiting the Rodin gardens, the Army Museum, and the Orsay, which was sadly closed by the time we got there.   

Rodin Gardens

The exterior of the Army Museum

Awkward with the Sarcophagus of Napoleon

Rhino statue outside of the Orsay

After dinner at “Ming Dynasty,” which served sushi, we took a boat cruise on the Seine and took pictures of buildings like the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower at night.  It was absolutely beautiful.  After the boat tour we stomped around until we found a creperie.  Then it was back to the hostel and back to bed, because the next morning we actually did wake up with the dawn.

Customary with Eiffel Tower shot

WEDNESDAY

Checked out at 5:30.  Took the metro to the shuttle at Port Maillot.  We left there at 6:30 and got to Beauvais at 7:30.  We weren’t able to check in until 8 AM and didn’t find out our gate until almost 9:30, but soon we were in Porto.  We rode the metro then to the Campanha bus stop, had lunch in a nearby café (where we remembered how wonderfully cheap and broke Portugal is), and then left Porto for Coimbra at 12:52 PM.  We got back to our favorite Portuguese city just in time for Dan and I to run to Portuguese History at 2 PM.

All in all, I’d say a very good, busy, exciting, adventurous weekend.