From The Morgue

A bigger picture, now that I have a chance.

I´ve been in Portugal for a week and a half now. I like it a lot. I´ve been through the back roads with Badal and Devamani, and down on the touristy beaches of Lagos to decompress from life and tan up, and also in the big city of Lisboa. This city is so comfortable for me I can´t quite believe it.

Leon has headed off on his own, back to London (with a side trip to Paris thrown in). He´s going to try and get things going in the theatre scene, and with a bit of effort and a pinch of good luck I´m sure doors will start opening. Go Leon, my friend, go!

Yesterday I went back out to Belem. I´d seen the sights there before with Dean and Kerry and Leon, but this time I went with Ella the Canadian who came up with me from Lagos. The Monastery in particular was stunning, and it was something we´d skipped on our last visit. Truly an amazing place.

Again, I´ve found the structure of these places to be the greatest education about past ways of living – being in a classical monastery creates understanding about what it was to be a monk, walking the terraces and contemplating the richly symbolic decorations that covered almost every
surface, all different, all elaborate. The tiny confessionals that backed on to the church, and the long refectory, were also evocative of another way of life. I feel I could have been a 15th century monk, actually, if the opportunity had arisen. Additional bonus – Fernando Pessoa, the poet I mentioned in an earlier email, is entombed in the monastery. His small, elegant monument is marked with quotes attributed to three of his alter egos.

I had no idea this was there, and was very pleased to find it.

Anyway, the header of this email is ´local culture in Lisboa´, so you know I must have experienced some. After Belem, Ella and I went to see Amund the Norwegian´s new apartment, a very handsome place on the second floor of a building in Graca district, just over from historic Alfama. It´s right
above a tiny pentecostal church full of clapping and histrionics. He lives there with two young Portuguese women, one of whom was there last night, Tanya (spelling may be incorrect, but that´s how it was said). THe goal of the evening was to seek out some Fado, the local Portugeuse music, a kind of lilting, structured singing build around heartfelt sadness.

Well, Tanya discouraged us from checking out Fado, and we ended up renting a video and eating pizza as the rain came down outside. (The video was ´The Others´, which at least has a Spanish-speaking director.)
Then she threw on some of her monty python tapes. Then we went home.

Viva local culture in all locales!

—

I´m going to be in Lisbon for a few more days. Then onwards to some new
horizon.

—

I´m not exactly homesick, but I am constantly reminded of all the wonderful people at home, family especially. Thinking of you all.

morgue (who still intends to check out Fado)

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I´m back in Lisbon. Love this town. After arriving I made contact with Amund, the Norwegian I met when last here who is now studying Portuguese locally. We went to a big concert for the Numero Festival (numero is a local scene magazine) which was buzzing with the young and cool. We arrived at about 1am and things were two hours behind schedule, but Canadian pianist/bizarro man Gonzalez soon came on and got things moving, and he was followed by Khan from New York and Julee Cruise, the siren who did vocals for the creepy Twin Peaks music way back when. She sang ´Fever´and it was one of those performances that sticks in the head. Great night, I got back to the hostel past 7am which wasn´t ideal because breakfast finished at 10 and the lockout began at 10.30. So I´m up and at them again!

I am nicely tanned. But the beard must go.

morgue

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beach
alcohol

you now know all you need to know to understand this place.

The 4km golden sand beach is great, the grotto-like smaller beaches are even better. The sand is good for castles.

I have had a lot to drink. This is not like me, usually. Here… here you can’t avoid it. The world makes you drink.

—

Bali concerns me. Some people here have been deeply affected. Friends and friends-of-friends. Travellers like those all around me.

—

Onwards.

morgue

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It is hard to breakfast in Portugal. At least, breakfast as we Kiwis understand it. We want eggs! We want big bowls of muesli and toast! We want something other than ham and cheese sandwiches!

Dean and Kerry and Ethan have set off north leaving Leon and me in Lisbon for a bit longer. I´m not finished here yet, I love the place. It feels very comfortable, with rolling hills like Wellington and a city centre that is full of activity and energy but without the odd moments of threatening unease that pop up in other cities I’ve been in so far. I am continually reminded of Jose Saramago’s ‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’, the book that inspired me to visit Portugal in the first place (thanks Billy for the loan of that), which was set in the very streets I’m walking now. There are posters everywhere for a movie based on Saramago’s newer book ‘the stone raft’,about the Iberian peninsula breaking off, and I just bought ‘Blindness’ by him to read – i’ve finished the massive tome of Rutherfurd’s ‘London’ which has been my travelling companion for the last month. I now know more about London than before. Cool.

The hostel in Lisbon is not bad at all, and pleasingly cheap. As is becoming typical, the whole dorm room Leon and I ended up in went drinking together, along with the girl who checked into a different room at the same time as we did in the morning (this is Andrea, I mention her again in a bit so remember her name). Today we all went out to Sintra to see a 9th century Moorish castle and a more recent Royal Palace, both spectacular in their own ways and with commanding views of the whole region right out to the sea. They’re so close to each other, too, about five minutes walk on a narrow forested hill road.

The castle overlooking the Lisboa old town is amazing as well, clearly a fortress made to be defended. There was a 12 week seige at the place and as I walked around I was struck by how everything about it was made to withstand that kind of attack. I think the most evocative thing about old places is their structure and the story it tells about an aspect of historical life.

In Andrea’s (remember her?) dorm room is Rachel Pope, who I worked with at Massey University. She left work a week or two before I did and I’d wondered what became of her. Now I know. We met at breakfast, which in the hostel is served by the most emotional, agitated and frustrating old lady
I’ve ever encountered. She’s so bad she’s actually a good point. We put up
with it because it’s hard to get good breakfasts here.

Later
morgue

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well, it has been some time since I’ve had a chance to write, which means that a lot has been happening. Several nights in Barcelona, which were amazing, but I´m not going to worry about them right now – I´ll send another email some time talking about that city. It is a great place, probably my favourite place that I have visited so far, certainly the only one I didn´t
want to leave.

Leon joined me in Barcelona and we made our way to Portugal, and spend several nights with our friends Dean and Kerry (and their son Ethan, nearly 2) at Kerry´s father´s farm in the middle of Portugal, near Viseu and Nelas which is sort of southeast of Porto. It is a wonderful area, full of ancient hills ridged with patient stone. We went up into the mountains and had a glass of port at a little cafe/bar in a tiny mountain village straddling a rushing stream, and went to local markets where gypsies travel selling rugs and clothes and tools and more.

At nights we ate great local cuisine and sat talking over wine, while the enormous dogs barked and ran around. It was very relaxing. Cheers to Badal and Devamani for their hospitality, and to Dean and Kerry for coming to Portugal!

Anyway, we headed south and made our way to Lisbon, stopping at Fatima on the way. A fascinating place, filled with pilgrims and the curious. Tomorrow is the 85th anniversary of the last and greatest apparition at Fatima and huge crowds are expected, but there was no sense of anticipation there, instead a feeling of great calm. The size of the place is what surprised me the most, the enormous basilica with two-story reproductions of photographs of the children the most striking thing of all.

And now we are in Lisboa, staying at a Pension in Belem, which is out of the centre near historical locales. Plenty to see, and the nightlife is grand. It’s a good place and I’m glad I came.

Stay well you all
morgan

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I was witness to an attempted robbery which was foiled by a quick/thinking backpacker from Sydney and the convenient presence of two undercover police.

My dinner companion, Martin from Germany, ended up translating Italian/English for the American woman and the policeman, while I ate my pizza at the same table. The woman had over 2000 US dollars in her purse and she was lucky to keep it. Martin, being wonderfully blunt as the German culture encourages, told her not to be so foolish next time.

I went to the Trevi fountain almost every night. It’s my favourite place in Rome, tourists and hawkers and all. The constant succession of people throwing coins over their shoulder fascinates me – here, everyone believes a bit in magic.

The view from the Cupola in the Basilica costs 4 euros. It is worth three times that. Amazing.

If you are in Rome, track down the cemetery of the Capuchin Monks, off Piazza Barberini. I wrote about five pages in my notebook about that place.

Relaxing after a hard day of walking around in Italy by watching the Godfather is an unnerving experience.

—–

In a few hours I take a train to Barcelona.

morgue

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So I know one bloke in Rome, and I run into him.

—

Naomi has journeyed on to the Greek islands leaving morgue to head back west. Highlight was the ferry from Patras (Greece) to Bari (Italy), where I met a Brit named Haith and a German named Martin and we shared a bottle of Ouzo on the deck as the night wore on. There was an enormous wedding celebration, I’m guessing it was a second marriage because both parties were older, but what it meant was – first, a mass on the boat, led by a priest who looked like he was the Pope’s bodyguard – and secondly, lots and lots of singing and clapping and more singing late into the night. The groom gave us wine, as is apparently traditional. Excellent stuff.

—

Every time you are on a train in Italy someone will have an argument.

—

Anyway, Haith misses his connection from Rome and goes wandering. Sure enough, he finds me. We look at pretty things (love the Trevi Fountain) and
are off to see more today.

Then further westward. Hopefully today I’ll work out how to get to Portugal…

morgue

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Museum fatigue does exist.

I’ve been writing interesting stuff in my notebook (thanks Leon!) but I can’t be bothered transcribing it to here. So instead, I’ll say this:

In the National Museum in Athens there’s a weird little wobby figure from 3000 years ago. It has articulated legs and a stripey red body. It looks like the Mayor from Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.

This is the inspiration for the Athens Olympics ‘characters’.

And I think that’s cool.

—

In other news, Leon has a job in London already – go Leon!

—

There is no other news. Athens is hot, but nice. Buses are the enemy of tall people. Ferries, less so.

I’m turning around and heading back towards Portugal, as of tomorrow.

—-

~`morgue (museum fatigued)

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(this is a bit old but I don’t think it got sent. Hmm.)

All right, so it’s pink.

At the end of the season it’s sort of like that 21st you went to that they’d massively overcatered for – you know, hiring a hall and DJs and getting lots of alcohol and lighting – but not many people actually came. And so everyone wonders whether they should get into the spirit of things or bail to the other, better 21st they’re going to later in the evening.

The main difference is, there’s no birthday person about whom you care one whit.

—

Agios Gordios is a little township totally sold to the tourist trade. You can see why – its little crescent beach is the archetypal small Greek island swimming paradise. Golden sands (well, sort of brown, really) against spectacular cliffs spiked with those pointy Greek conifers, and the clear bright Med waters rolling in. And they really were rolling – it’s been very heavy on the surf these days, and apparently three people died on a nearby beach yesterday.

I went swimming today and didn’t drown. It was good.

—

I’ve met lots of people. I’m starting to understand the logic of hanging around with Kiwis and Aussies in a situation like this – they’re the only people who aren’t completely mad. (Several wise Canadians excepted, of course.) And they’re all good people. I think we want similar things out of travelling, and certainly there’s a generous irony in how the group I’ve fallen in with has enjoed the plate-smashing ouzo circle and lengthy, ridiculous happy hours.

The booze cruise hasn’t run because of the weather.

—

In a few hours I start out for Athens.

~`mrg

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I am at a place called ‘The Pink Palace’

We were greeted off the bus by a shot of uzo, at 9am

everything stopped making sense on the way out of Naples

Or even in Naples

I think all I have learned about Italy so far is that to understand it I’ll
need to experience it a lot more, but that’s a nice lesson to learn

Right.

There is a beach. There is nothing to be done, literally.

—–

I cannot believe I am staying at a place called the Pink Palace. Weird.
Google it and see what I mean.

—–

In brief: email is hard to find and expensive and, lets face it, low profile. So, I went to Rome, went to Naples, went to Pompeii, went to Brindisi, ferried to Corfu which is off Greece, had uzo, checked in here. Now you know. Travelling with Naomi, and this guy erik we met on the ferry. Who knows where next??

Bella!

~`mrg

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