What We Did on the Sunday Before All Saints Day

This is a recap of yesterday’s activity. 

 

Down near the subway stop called Rossio there is a large public square.  My son and I found our way there last night after a long walk.  It was a serendipitous moment.

 

Yesterday was the third day of rain here in Lisboa.  The rain has just been kind of miserable.  The water falling from the sky has not been coming down as a downpour so staying in the apartment all day on a Sunday was not an option. Still, the sidewalks were slick making walking treacherous for old geezers like me.  Also, it rains just enough so that traveling to an outdoor venue like a park or an overlook of the city makes no sense. 

 

Sunday’s weather being what it was we made the decision to take the metro up to Colombo, a mall that bills itself as the largest on the Iberian Peninsula. Having been to a number of malls here in Portugal for various things I was prepared to be underwhelmed.  Truly this time I was surprised.  Going into Colombo was like walking into the heyday of American malls in the late 80s/early 90s.  This place was huge. Colombo was packed.

 

Colombo physically was set up with three separate shopping areas connected by a center court. Kind of looks like a spaceship form a Star Trek movie. Inside the place was all done up in a tasty dark green and taupe color scheme.  The Colombo name was tied to the man we know as Christopher Columbus. On the floor were tiled maps of the world as Columbus saw it with sea monsters and all.  A huge hanging piece in an atrium depicted a 15^th century sailing vessel.

 

The place was packed with stores and the stores were packed with people.  There were no empty store fronts or rows of oriental nail salons. There were no museums of firefighting in Sloughfoot County with a donation jar prominent at the front. 

 

About slightly more than half of the stores were the same ones you would find in American malls. There were more computer and phone stores including brands like Samsung and Huawei.  Most surprising to me were two stores.  There were both a Disney store and a Toys R’ Us just like the ones that used to be total kid magnets in America.  I walked in to Toys R’ Us just to see if it was one of the pop off knock offs that arise in the US around Christmas time.  Nope. It was just like it used to be.  So was Disney.

 

In the end a mall is just a mall.  After a short trip to the food court which was quite huge, we bailed and headed to greener pastures.  Primus and I went exploring while Francie and Loren headed back to the apartment.  

 

Rode the subway to a stop called Interdente and got off.  Walked downhill in the direction of downtown toward a square called Martim Moniz.  At Martim Moniz there is kind of a food court of Asian food, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese.  All the food is fast, hot and relatively inexpensive, but we weren’t hungry and the walking by itself was our destination.

 

As we walked down the main street between these two locations we passed a number of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani stores, shops, restaurant and bodegas.  Old men sat at tables under awnings drinking coffee, talking loudly and laughing.  At this point there really was no rain anymore but it was beginning to get dark.  We decided to head across the downtown to another subway stop and then home.  

 

As we travelled, we began to get the scent of food in the air.  This area is packed with restaurants just north and just south of where we were. But this smell was different, it smelled like food cooked outside.  And then there we were in the square near Rossio subway and there was an outdoor market going.  Beer, wines (including several Sangria stations) crafts, t-shirts and plates of sausage, bread and cheese were all being sold in little tents clustered around a covered seating area.  The smell of the food plates was intoxicating.

 

Beer was purchased, mom was texted and she said she would join us, and we poked around.  When Francie got there, we got a plate of prosciutto, grilled sausages, bread and local cheese.  Mmm, mmm, good.  We drank artisanal beers.  People tried to lure us into buying candied almonds with “free” samples. And then we wandered around downtown for a bit before returning home.  Only saw one witch despite it being Halloween.  She was waiting for an Uber and talking on the phone, probably explaining why she was late to the gathering,

 

Got to say this, sometimes serendipity saves the day.