In a New York Minute

Monday, 6:50pm: The Plaza Foodhall by Todd English

The Foodhall is not so much foodhall, rather an intimate grouping of bars – pull up a chair to your bar of choice. The point here is not the shopping but the pleasing visual display and the eating. Among the offerings are candy and Bonne Maman jams – nothing special really but, grouped together, they create a lushness of rose and plum colors against the creamy marble and brown wood of the restaurant.

My dinner companion is late. I wander over to the Shops and weave through the MAC and C.O. Bigelow counters. Before I know it, the Plaza staff is vacuuming and the heavy wrought iron grills are slammed shut and locked. My only escape routes are undignified: Through the Foodhall or up the escalator and out the side entrance.

This definitely never happened to Eloise.

Thursday, 11:28am: Caffe Lavazza at Eataly

I sit near the windows with a latte, opposite a lawyer type also with a latte. For the window display, Eataly has arranged cans of tomatoes in a perfect pyramid – Each can label features a celebrity (Giada, Gaga, and so on). And beyond the windows is Madison Square Park. Flashes of yellow cabs and black limousines fill in the gaps between the cans: a veritable kaleidoscope.

Friday, 3:59pm: La Maison du Chocolat at Rockefeller Plaza

I need hot chocolate. As I pick out a round table and pull off my gloves, a family of three is leaving. The tweenage daughter, with braided pigtails and a puffy, down parka, exclaims into her cell phone, “I saw Gwyneth Paltrow! I saw Gwyneth Paltrow and a bunch of other famous guys perform. I’m on the NBC tour!” Reporting home?

Afternoon in Afurada

I take the tram out to Gaz – a touristy (but beautiful), old wooden tram. I stand on the embankment, looking across the Douro to Afurada, with no way to make the crossing. I’m a little hesitant to barter a ride from one of the dippy little motorboats bobbing among the choppy waves.

A burly, middle-aged man passes me, turns around, and comes back. “Barco?” he asks. He points the way to a shack covered by tarps and lifts the flap for me. “Frio!” It’s raining heavily and it’s chilly. He wants me to wait here. So I wait.

About thirty or forty minutes later, the ferry, the Flor do Gaz, pulls up to the dock. The captain, in a yellow pullover and the archetypal captain’s hat, gestures to come onboard the small boat, and when I step below deck, he directs me to a seat on the long wooden benches.

The ferry pitches violently from side to side and I begin to wonder if I’ve made an error in judgment. I clutch the bench and the captain notices my discomfiture. He mocks me - “Oh my god! Oh my god!” – but with a German inflection, so it sounds more like “Oh my goot! Oh my goot!” I wonder which tourist he picked that up from.

When we dock, I’m too eager to pop out from below deck and the captain holds up his palm: “Easy. Easy.” It’s drizzling as I jump to the dock and walk along the riverbank. It is very quiet, a few men on street corners, a photogenic cat or two darting between doorsills.

When the sun comes out, the sky is suddenly blue and there are sounds of life at lunchtime. Several men have a grill set up on a street corner and are flipping spicy, grilled pieces of frango (chicken). Tempting, but I don’t feel welcome here. While Afurada is no stranger to publicity and was the subject of Pedro Neves’ documentary A Olhar O Mar (Gazing out to Sea), I am here months before the tourist season and my camera is causing questions. Nonetheless, when a wizened but sturdy dowager asks the time, I take advantage of the opportunity and ask, “Foto por favor?” She agrees.

It is a bizarre image: A woman garbed entirely in black, clomping around in heavy rubber boots, hanging her laundry to dry on the communal racks. In the background looms modernity.

Abruptly, she is done. She veers away from me and heads home.

I’m hungry now, so I board the ferry. The crossing is choppy again. Two women, wrapped well in shawls, are my company. Their expressions are impassive, but almost a bit dreamy, though the waves push our tiny vessel to and fro relentlessly.

Perhaps this is just the nature of the Douro.

"My fado, my fate, my destiny"

We glide through the streets of Lisbon in the Diplomat’s BMW. In the past few days, he has regaled us with Tina Turner and Cat Stevens. But, tonight, our last night in Lisbon, he plays fado. Empty yellow trams rattle by and there’s something dreamy about the loneliness of the trams and the warble of the fado singer.

At Senhor Vinho, the young fadista sings with her eyes closed, clutching her black shawl. Her raw, powerful voice echoes in the low ceilinged room; the white port is sweet and slips down easily. The table is suddenly covered with small plates of cheese, fried cod, ham, and partridge with pineapple slices. The Diplomat translates bits of lyrics: “I want to be the wind, I want be the moon.” 

How incredibly romantic. But I never had a moment’s doubt that there is passion in the soul of Lisbon. Its citizens live proudly and fiercely: They will shove you out of line to be the first to get hot and flaky pasteis at Antiga Confeitaria; they will rhapsodize about Lisbon’s fado tradition, the gleaming Lapa Palace hotel, or the chic seaside getaway Cascais, just a short drive away.

And, as the Diplomat tells us, they love passionately too: “The sweet is not only in our coffee and our cake, but also in our heart.” Fitting words for a last evening in Lisboa, an utterly enchanting city.

5 Reasons to Go to Istanbul

1. The pomegranates. The ones at Whole Foods will never measure up.

2. The third courtyard of Topkapi Palace. Forgo the long lines at the royal treasury and head to the library instead.

3. Cay or black tea. I like mine with two sugar cubes and some atmospheric fog.



4. A ferry ride. Bring a few squares of sugary, oozy baklava, your trenchcoat, and two ferry tokens (for the round trip).



5. The whirling dervishes. Maybe they could teach this former ballerina a trick or two.