Zelda and the Casa da India

Okay, I couldn’t resist. I know I’m a little late on this one but I couldn’t really close out this blog without recapping the highlights of my last day in Lisbon and the weird predicament that took me on an awkward journey back across Europe before actually returning home. For the record, I’m in Boston, just so you know that I didn’t die in Lisbon.

I’m not going to drop the play by play, that would be too difficult so long from the time I’d completed the trip, but there are two things left in Lisbon that are indeed worth mentioning, the two subjects of my post title. The first is the surprisingly pleasant tourist spot of the Carmo Church and convent ruins. This church was just a short walk from the hostel, located discreetly between some old buildings right next to the tourist elevator that struts out from the hill that descends into the deep valley where the rest of the city is located. If you’ve ever played any of the Zelda video games, which are great by the way, there’s an area of the Zelda game, the first one put out for Wii, that takes Link, the protagonist, into an abandoned church, destroyed and in ancient ruin, in a forest which leads you to a temple in which Link has to fight monsters and stuff. But the church itself is very peaceful, open to the sun, grasses and mosses growing where once were pews. As is this church in Lisbon. You buy a ticket and walk through the front door which leads you around a corner and straight into the ruined church. The walls of the church are made of marble and stone and soar into the sky. Some pillars that once held the roof remain but most are toppled or half-crumbled. In fact, the whole roof was gone, exposing the church to the endless blue sky. The pews had been replaced by wild flowers and grasses and some of the old stained glass windows remained, sun bleached. It was a weirdly serene place. I half-expected some monster to pop out from behind a pillar and jump at me. Where the altar was is now a pile of stones and beyond there is a door to the somewhat preserved convent in which is located a very old library, with tall rows of old wooden shelves and some other curious items for display including two, large glass jars each holding the mummified remains of a small boy and girl. I don’t know what the significance was of that, but it was creepy and very Zelda-like. I walked back out into the church and continued to soak in the peace a little while longer. From somewhere beyond the walls a street performer was playing a very mysterious melody, very beautiful though, probably he was a poor student of music, from his accordion. It was a pretty cool experience. 

A look into the Carmo Church

Grass, although now encouraged, grows along the floor under an exposed roof

The walls are made of marble and stone

Curiosities in the convent

That was the first memorable thing I did there on my last day. The other was my insistence on going back and having a meal at the Casa da India, the little local restaurant that the very friendly receptionist from the hostel recommended to me on my first evening in the city. If you remember, I had gone there very late on a Saturday night and had been dissuaded on staying due to its “localness” and busy crowd. But I was too interested in trying some good local food that I decided this day to go back for lunch. It was kind of early for lunch, just before noon, and the place wasn’t too busy. This restaurant is small and unimposing, located on a small side street stemming off from the main square of my hostel. Looking at the restaurant from the front, you see a small window on the right looking into the tables, a small door in the middle, and a window on the left where passers by can look into the charcoal grill from which many chickens and fishes were cooking and rotating, an appetizing view. I walked in and took a seat at the bar, a bar that ran the length of the restaurant on the left side. On the right were some low level tables, neatly covered in communal red checkered table cloths. Each set of seats, including mine at the bar, was adorned with a small basket of bread rolls and a small dish of olives. But I took the first seat on the left at the bar. To my left, when seated, was the grill man and his grill by the window, a man that looked like the Portuguese Mario from Super Mario Bros. (sorry for all the Nintendo references), who didn’t speak any english, and took orders from locals who came in, knowing what they wanted, and ordered straight from the bar, to go. But business was relatively slow, Mario asked me what I wanted, and I handed him the tourist map that I received from the hostel on which was written in Portuguese my recommended meal. I asked him if he had it and he said “Si!”, pointing to the grilled chicken splayed across the grill. I said, “Great! Obrigado,” and I waited, munching on bread and olives. Next to me, sitting on the bar top to my left was a wriggling mesh bag of snails, another local specialty. As I waited, the restaurant slowly started to fill with locals who would walk up to the counter and embrace the employees, lifers, I think, and other business men and women on break for lunch, taking seats at the counter and slowly filling the tables behind me. Apparently, the grilled chicken was the special in this place, and I watched Mario prepare mine and many others for the to-goers to my left. Chickens were flayed in two parts down the length of the spine and spread across the grill, skewered on a spit. They sat on the grill as fire seeped from beneath and occasionally Mario would spill some salty broth across the grill that would agitate the fire below. When a chicken was ready, he removed it from the spit, took it in hand, and with huge, industrial grade scissors, cut the whole chicken into pieces, into either containers to go or onto a plate, like mine. He put my half chicken onto a plate, poured some more of that salty broth over it, and tossed it onto the counter behind the bar where another barman took it to the back by the kitchen. My plate came back to me a few moments later filled with additional yellow rice and beans and some fried potatoes strips (okay, french fries). The idea was that I would remove the chicken from the bones and mix it into the rice and fries and eat them together. Holy bazooka this meal was tasty. I’ve never had better chicken in my life. Admittedly, it was pretty salty, but that broth over the perfectly grilled chicken was heavenly and they knew how good it was mixed into the perfectly prepared rice and fries. I just sat there trying to remove every ounce of meat from every small bone I could find to savor the meal, a very filling meal, and I sat there for at least an hour. Half of the fun though was observing the workers and barmen interact with the locals. Occasionally, I would observe a tourist type pass by the window from the street and do a double take at the chicken roasting on the grill, many of them came in. If you ever go to Lisbon you MUST go to the Casa da India and order the grilled chicken.

My meal of grilled chicken, rice and french fries

The Casa da India

I wandered around the city some more, took a nap by the sea in the sun on some public bench, and retired back at the hostel. It was a good day. I don’t remember the rest of the details to be honest but these were the noteworthy highlights. I liked Lisbon a lot and would go back.

And now to explain what happened after Lisbon. Here is the weird situation I was in. I had my Eurail pass which surprisingly to me, and I should have been keeping track of this all along, was going to expire in seven days from this day and I still had four travel days left. So I took the overnight train from Lisbon to Madrid, spent a day and a half in Madrid and met up with Dan, the American traveler I met in Morocco, for some evening tapas with some local friends, then a day train to Paris, where I got really sick for some reason but spent the day there seeing the highlights, to another day train to Munich in Germany, where I spent one day wandering around the main square and through the Viktualienmarkt, watching locals shop for white spargel (exotic, German, seasonal  white asparagus) and then another day train to Berlin where I went back to hang out with Lissy and Alex and Flo and company for another week and a half before flying home, via Lisbon of all places, for an overnight layover where I went back to the Casa do India for another meal of grilled chicken. It was a turbulent end to a long trip.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of my trip. Stay tuned for the epilogue....