Getting Searched by the Police in Lisbon
, Seville
Last week I visited Lisbon with a group of friends.
After arriving with a bus we first took a metro train to get to the apartment. The Lisbon metro has four lines, and instead of numbers like I’m used to, they use colors and symbols. It’s cute and it felt a bit like choosing my starter Pokemon ;) .
The apartment was quite cozy with ceramic tiles on the wall.
After checking out the apartment we first went to eat where I had another “damn, maybe I should go vegan” moment. The fish I ordered was good, but it’s not like I can enjoy the experience of eating it with the body on the plate.
We explored the city, walked to the river and through Alfama (old town).
The next day, two of us went out for breakfast. We went to a pastelería to get some pastries. Right before I paid my order someone came up to me and the employee. She seemed angry. At first I pretended to not understand her because I didn’t feel like dealing with bullshit. She accused me of stealing her wallet. Apparently I was close to her when ordering, but I didn’t even notice her before. After the employee argued in my favor and asked me in English “Did you steal something from her?” I paid and we went upstairs to eat the delicious pastries we got.
I had a Pastel de Nata, a croissant made with port wine, some sweet bread thing, and a croissant misto/merenda mista (ham and cheese croissant thing), which so far is my favorite non-sweet pastry. It all tastes amazing.
As we accidentally locked the rest of the group in our apartment, we didn’t want to spend much time, so we went downstairs. The police was waiting there already and we ordered more pastries for the rest of the group. I was just standing next to them until they asked me if I was the one from “the situation”.
They asked if I’d show them my backpack, so I emptied it and they wrote down my ID and phone number. They were really calm and kind. They already said someone who would steal would just run and not stay to have breakfast in the same place afterwards.
We chatted a bit about Portugal and I said I prefer Porto to Lisbon because nothing really is that appealing to me about Lisbon. Sure, it has cute streets and houses and Alfama is quite nice, but other than that there isn’t much I think is especially beautiful. I told them about the Porto trip with my girlfriend and how we sometimes dream about having a house at that river, growing our own wine, and living a calm life. One of them even came from that region. He said after a few days it would get boring.
They let me go, and while walking out the door I did a little wave to the person who accused me with a face like 😐. That was kind of a funny experience.
We freed the others from our apartment and toured the city, saw the most important places, but what I really liked most was the Alfama district. Other than that I think for example Porto is more beautiful. And the prices you pay for eating out are more like in Germany. The ups and downs of the streets are also a bit annoying, but all in all it was still a good trip. You could even walk a bit faster and use the incline for cardio and training your legs.
The last full day we went to two museums (Aljube museum in a former jail and Lisboa Story Centre) and saw Belém, with its Belém Tower, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, and the Jerónimos Monastery. We also went to see Fado performances during two dinners. During the second one we sat outside and even there the street wasn’t straight so we had to sit crooked. At least they adjusted the table to stand straight.
On the last day we wanted to go by tram line 28, but saw the queue was way too long and we didn’t have the time before having to leave our apartment, so we just had breakfast and started the car ride back.
It was a nice trip and Lisbon is cute, but it’s far from being my favorite city. If I go back I’d try to drive with a tram and also go inside the castle.