a bureaucratic adventure

I was prepared – braced even – for a question that would confuse me, a line that would bore me, an agent that would scold me.

I was not prepared or braced for the afternoon that unfolded. I mean, what have things come to? I had my photo taken next to the ID card place, processed and delivered on the spot. They even had the gall to let me pick the photo I was most happy with. Once I was next door I bought my forms, was called to the counter before I even had time to finish filling them out, was told politely that my pen wasn’t dark enough, filled out a new form in black ink, cut back in line, had my form checked, my height measured (I’ve grown one whole centimeter since my last card five years ago), my finger printed – all in a paltry thirty minutes.

So the face-off with the Portuguese bureaucracy was a bit anti-climatic. Did I mention I pick up my new ID card on Tuesday?

I found myself, then, with an afternoon to spend in this corner of Lisbon. I wandered to Alameda, where a lawn roles from the steps of the Instituto Superior Tecnico (Higher Institute of Technology) to Fonte Luminosa – a massive fountain where Tejo river water crashes through the hill over bizarre statues of naked women holding fish. I stood in the refreshing mist and contemplated my park companions. Once upon a time a crowd of old men sprouted in the shade of the trees that line the park, and they have been huddled around cards and dominoes ever since. Grandmas sat on benches with their hands folded over their bellies, boys played football and some studenty-looking types pretended to study.

I sat at a café with my meia de leite (a potent little café au lait), soaking up the sun and the exclamatory prose of Almeida Garrett. I’m reading a classic in Portuguese travel lit called Viagens na Minha Terra (Travels in My Land). I giggled to myself when I got to this part:

O café é uma das feições mais características de uma terra. O viajante experimentado e fino chega a qualquer parte, entra no café, observa-o, examina-o, estuda-o, e tem conhecido o país em que está, o seu governo, as suas leis, os seus costumes, a sua religião.

Levem-me de olhos tapados onde quiserem; não me desvendem senão no café; e prometo-lhes que em menos de dez minutos lhe digo a terra em que estou, se for país sublunar.

The cafe is one of the most characteristic features of any town. The experienced and refined traveller arrives in any place, enters the cafe, observes it, examines it, studies it, and knows the country he is in, its government, customs, laws, and religion.

Take me blindfolded wherever you like; do not uncover my eyes until we are in the cafe; and I promise that in less than ten minutes I will tell you where I am, if it be a country under the moon.

As Julia, my South American traveling companion and cafe-hopper extraordinary would attest, I share Garrett’s penchant for cafe cultures. This particular cafe had an azulejo (painted tile) of the CN Tower on the wall behind the counter, and I wondered briefly if what universal force made me gravitate towards my own kind.

When my grandmother called asking what I wanted for lunch tomorrow I realized it was time to head home for dinner. I’m taking the train to Alenquer tomorrow to me plumped by my avózinha, then onto Vilar for a friend’s birthday party. Back in Lisbon with the cousins on Sunday...