Lisboa, Living a Bigger Smaller Life

4 April 2023

 

Headed down to the market today to pick up some smoked salmon for breakfast. Without thinking about anything except how quickly the trees were greening up I found myself humming U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name”.  I don’t know the lyrics so in my head I was singing ‘hum hum hum where the streets have no name.’ What a great hook.

 

So, as I am heading down the hill, I am ruminating about an article someone posted somewhere, (I got the story second hand from FNS-the ultimately reliable Francie News Service), slamming Lisboa as a tourist stop.  Apparently according to the story, the author of the piece found the city dirty, graffiti filled, small and with little in the way of cultural attractions.  Damn that was cold. 

 

Having lived here for a bit of time now the city has shrunk a little bit for me.  As I have explored Lisboa outside of the metro, I have discovered that places I thought were miles apart are actually just a twenty-minute walk away from each other.  Neighborhoods which seemed so distant abut each other. But that does not mean the city is small for you can travel different continents and worlds in the space of a few blocks here. No Lisboa is not New York, London or Tokyo but it is a real honest to God city, with diverse people and diverse neighborhoods spread about over many miles.

 

As to the writer’s other complaints, remember they were Lisboa is dirty, graffiti filled and lacking in cultural enticements.  There are some spots that don’t get the cleaning they need, but by and on the large the street sweepers and sanitation people do a fine job keeping things free of detritus.  Graffiti is everywhere but while some of the graffiti is the usual tagging and filth talking, a great deal of the spray-painted displays are works of art. Not every talented painter gets to use a canvas. 

 

And culturally lacking, really?  The Gulbenkian, the modern art museum at the Belem Cultural Center, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga which is filled with fine art, two botanical gardens of note, a zoo, several symphonies and a spate of independent art galleries.  Trust me I am not going down this path to resolve any cognitive dissonance I have about getting a place here.  Lisboa is not perfect.  However, it is not the hellhole the poster on whatever website depicted.  The poster didn’t do his due diligence.

 

But that does not have anything to do with the title of the piece you say?  Ah, but it does.  

 

As I did my grocery rounds today, as I do most mornings at about 8 am (I want to get in early to pick up the warm fresh bread), I realized that my world has shrunk to fit in about an 8-10 square block area.  The mercado selling fish, meat and vegetables, the grocery store selling the rest of my needed comestibles, the department store, the coffee bean seller, the self-serve clothes dryers, the hardware store, the parks with their fountains, all of my life is within that area, no more than 15 minutes’ walk in any direction.  In addition, four blocks away are Rembrandts and ancient art from the Muslim world I can see for free on Sundays.  A few blocks in a sort of sidewise direction is a great botanical garden also free on Sundays.  A mere 40–50-minute  train ride away using my 20 euro a month pass and I am in a beach town.

I have no car.  I have a rolling insulated grocery cart. I have an apartment and not a house.  It isn’t the prettiest city, nor is it a perfect city, but it a pretty good one.  My life isn’t large and filled with excess, but it doesn’t need to be.