Paris & Porto: Bites, Buildings, & Breathtaking Views

Paris:

Porto:

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.

Scene

In Lisbon, I order room service – a tortilla with ham, a glass of white wine from the Duoro region, and sparkling water. When it arrives, I’m starving – my last meal was a cup of chicken vegetable soup in Heathrow at 2pm. It is now 11pm. Wrapped up in a hotel bathrobe, I rip into the food. I haven’t had a tortilla since Barcelona and I love the salty ham and rich, comforting potato and egg. And paired with the clean tastes of a green salad and white wine, it tastes a little bit French.

I watch Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, with Portuguese captions. I pick out a word or two that look sort of familiar from years of French and Italian, but the captions are largely incomprehensible and I focus on Bourdain instead. He’s cooking at Les Halles and explaining the parts and processes of a restaurant kitchen, his mise en place, and the long, brutal hours.

I get to thinking (Does that sound a bit like Carrie Bradshaw? Well, take me out back and shoot me if I ever get to thinking about dysfunctional relationships or Dior. It's really simple. Life is just all about food.). What makes a kitchen functional? Should form or function win out? And what makes a restaurant a scene?

Last night at Hakkasan in London, I spotted the Russian bouncer, who accessorized with a headset and a list of the evening's reservations, and I knew we were walking into a scene. Hakkasan is otherworldly, governed by its own rules and by an unwavering sense of its own fabulousness. You descend from street level and plunge into a cavernous space, dimly lit and punctuated by incense, startling flower arrangements, and intricate, black varnished screens.

It is, of course, hard work to be this marvelous. The hostess had as firm a grasp of timing and the restaurant’s layout as I’ve ever seen – She mentally ran through each table, choosing the best location in order to accommodate our party and, most importantly, to ensure the possibility of multiple seatings once we left. The space and the menu – Chinese dishes, fruit and flower-inspired cocktails, and prices that may induce facial tics – are both enormous, and the kitchen must be incredibly disciplined to keep up.

But you see few of these mechanics. Instead, you are treated to what is quite possibly the most fantastic people-watching in London. I eavesdropped on the couple to my left as they dissected their obviously on-and-off again relationship. If I could have moved over to their table, I would have – the show was just that good. I could never quite tell if they were parting ways forever, breaking up temporarily, or reuniting…. Or, perhaps it was all of the above. She was a trendy brunette in her mid-twenties; he was a thirty-something blowhard who said they could never work out because she was just too young (ouch). But she could dish it out too… She passionately banged the table with her fist and accused him of flaws and sins. Sadly, I missed key parts of the dialogue (the arrival of a fresh cocktail, a Georgia Julep, was too distracting).

If there was a lull in the lovebirds' conversation, I looked over to the long table of 40-something investment bankers who had precisely one pretty, young bleached-blonde thing in their midst. She was bored and her Blackberry came out to play.

After dumplings, two rounds of cocktails, and stirfries with black Welsh beef and fish, we ended our evening at Hakkasan (our waitress politely refused to serve us dessert – after all, table turnover is key) and relinquished our table to the next eager party. This was not the best Chinese I’ve ever had. But, how was the scene? Oh, it was just wonderful.

A Valentine's Day 10 Miler & Thoughts on Lisbon

Between Valentine’s Day cards and a late lunch, I snuck out of the house for 10 miles. I took my new Nathan water bottle out, along with my iPod and a package of Honey Stinger cherry blossom chews. About a half mile in, I realized I had strapped the water bottle to the wrong hand --- I couldn’t check my watch without pouring water all over my sneakers. My iPod headphones sent little electrical shocks into my ear canals and my lightweight fleece chafed the back of my neck. In other words, all systems down in less than 5 minutes.

It’s almost impossible to settle into a long run: In the first mile or two, you’re thinking about the weather, the traffic, your lousy playlist, and your stomach/bladder/knee/ankle/other uncooperative body part. But, if you’re a long distance runner, you know to keep running. You’ll run to get your miles in, to nod in mutual respect and understanding at the other weekend warriors, for the hilarity of re-learning how to eat and drink while running, for the feeling of a job well done, for the hills that make you call upon your mantra and make very unholy bargains with the gods. And you’ll run because you know there will be an instant – or, if you’re lucky, several ---- of euphoria and pure effortlessness. You have your reasons to run.

The 5 mile mark is always my favorite. My turnaround point came a bit outside of town and it was time to try out those cherry blossom chews. As I began heading back, I ripped open the package with my teeth and coasted along, snacking and listening to “Mo Money Mo Problems.” Or, should I say, Mo Miles No Problems? Did I mention I get a little punchy when I run? With the boost of honey (cherry blossom chews taste exactly like Starbursts…but they’re organic!), I started gliding. Just because I like a challenge, I threw in three sets of sprints between miles 6.5 and 8.5, coincidentally a very hilly patch. And it hurt so good.

As the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon draws closer, I need to remember what it’s like to run fast on tired legs. It’s to my advantage to work hard and train fast on steep hills when the Lisbon course is one of the flattest half-marathon courses in the world. Of course, you can’t train for all contingencies. I’ve never run a race in a foreign country before. I’ll probably get lost en route to the race and I don’t know how to say "finish line," "water," or "After 13.1 miles, I need a drink... and make it stiff" in Portuguese.

But, you know, I think the very unfamiliarity of Lisbon, which goes in the face of all race day wisdom to do nothing but what you know, will be the best motivation. Shortly before a 10K race, I made one last visit to the porta-potty --- and dropped my iPod shuffle in the toilet. Almost in tears, I ripped through my bag to find my old, clunky iPod classic and sprinted to the start line. I had been training aggressively for months, but the porta-potty disaster and a last minute scramble for safety pins made me jumpy. The gun went off and I wove around, not sure what pace to strike. The ancient iPod then froze up about two miles in. iPod? More like iI'mSoHatingYouRightNow. I was furious, shaking, and completely amped up... thereupon, I shaved 7 minutes off my last 10K race time and came in at about 44 minutes. How do you like them apples.

I've never heard a running coach laud the unexpected. But it's the unreal moments -- like the spontaneous sprints on Valentine's Day -- that bring me the most luck and propel me on to the finish. And that's why I keep running.