Barry Saks

The morning Marlene and I left for Spain, we had a horrible argument. She insisted I drive the car around to the front of the building, where we were staying. I wanted to just carry our luggage to the car and I had already carried three of our four bags to the car. I won’t bother you with the details of the argument, but will only add that we were so loud we woke Jorge up. To resolve the argument, Jorge volunteered to drive the car around and he did. While Marlene waited downstairs, Jorge told me I was right because finding his and Chico’s apartment with all the one-way and narrow streets was difficult at best. It turned out no legal parking existed outside the apartment when we left. After we finished loading up the car, I gave Jorge my book, “New Journalism,” because earlier he expressed interest in the subject. Marlene and I then left, while Jorge waited to see us leave. While Marlene and I argue, like any couple, neither of us stay angry long. On leaving Lisbon, we crossed over the Vasco do Gama Bridge, which is modern and futuristic. The toll road had few cars on it and the landscape reminded Marlene of the Sacramento, California. Every few miles were rest stops consisting of usually a gas station, a small convenience story, and rarely a restaurant.
The first place we were to spend the night in Trujillo required us to climb up stairs with the luggage. Marlene decided and I agreed we should try to stay at another hotel. We ended up at the Hotel Victoria. We ate dinner in the hotel’s restaurant. I found the food good, but then I only has some potatoes and a salad. In the restaurant was an old woman with tubes up her nose for oxygen. I liked the hotel. A large miniature wooden sailing ship was prominently displayed in the middle of the lobby. The room had an enclosed balcony, which was probably used in the summer, but for us it was too cold to be used. The room had a very high celling. I can only think how expensive it would be to heat the room in the winter. The next morning we again ate breakfast in the hotel’s lobby. While eating, I noticed an old man drinking a beer and eating olives.
We ate breakfast, packed up the car, and went on our way to Madrid. As we approached Madrid I noticed the highways we were on got wider and wider because of the additional lanes with more and more cars on them. We finally arrived where we were to stay. It was about 5 p.m. The woman, Isabel, we were to stay with at first seemed nice, but it did not take long for Marlene and me to realize that she was a sneaky liar.
Obviously an explanation is in order. After we arrived at her apartment, she walked us to a supermarket. While walking with her, Marlene mentioned the smoke bothered her asthma and asked if she could spray the apartment with air freshener to remove the odor and smoke. Isabel denied the request. She told Marlene she only smoked in her bedroom and added if the smoke continued to bother her, we could spend the night and then the next day we could find some other place to stay. While shopping, Isabel suddenly told us she had to leave because she needed to workout at the gym.
We soon discovered Isabel had lied to us. She did not go the gym, but went home and canceled our Airbnb contract with her. On arriving at her door step with our luggage still in the apartment about 7 p.m., she told us we had to leave. While Marlene and I felt what she did was arbitrary and unfair, Marlene attempted to find another place. After an hour with no success, Marlene and I decided we would insist we would be staying the night. When we confronted her about staying, she told us that our money would be refunded and therefore we must leave. I told her we were not leaving. She then telephoned Airbnb and we told her we were calling the police. She then said she would call the police and did. She also called two male friends, who arrived just before the police and disappeared when the police arrived. The police told us they could not do anything. After she spoke with Airbnb she became quiet and cooperative. The final arrangement was we could spend the night and would leave by noon the next day. The police made it clear we must be out by noon. Even this arrangement violated our original contract which stipulated 24-hour noticed was required.
We then went back to the supermarket, where we bought our next day’s breakfast, and purchased the fixings for a salad, some dealcoholized wine, and some bread. While preparing dinner I suggested to Marlene that we invite Isabel to eat our salad with us. I suggested this because I wanted to ease the tension between her and the two of us. While she refused our invitation, which did not surprise us, Isabel was more polite to us. We ate dinner, went to bed, and slept. The next morning, while much more expensive, we found a hotel near the center of Madrid, within walking distance of the Puerta del Sol. The hotel was the Hotel Regente, which I liked. The ride to the hotel was horrible for me and Marlene. I had to defecate while Marlene was driving. What should have taken no more than a half hour took close to two hours, because Marlene several times missed the turns the GPS told us to take. It was horrible for Marlene, because she had to drive in heavy downtown Madrid traffic down sometimes quite narrow streets. However, we did eventually arrive and while first two days in Madrid were awful, the remaining days there were quite nice and pleasant.

In the afternoon of our last day in Lisbon, our two young friends took us to a rather small restaurant, which was about a100 years old. The building, which housed the restaurant, was to be torn down in three days and was to be replaced with a new hotel. For sentimental reasons, our two friends wished to eat there one last time. We ate some fish, which was too salty for my palate. Our two friends left us. Marlene and I walked along the streets sightseeing, which was near the Elevador de Santa Justa. One of the attached photos is of the elevator and another is of the Praca do Comercio.
In the evening our two friends made us dinner. Chico picked up at the airport his favorite girl and she had dinner with us. She is a set designer for motion pictures. I found her quite entertaining. She at one point made fun of the American management notion of “thinking outside the box” by saying, “Jorge thinks inside the box,” that she was “the queen of the box,” and that “Chico didn’t know what the box was.” She also made the observation, when Chico and Jorge were arguing that the two of them were acting like a married couple.

The evening of our second day in Lisbon, at Marlene’s request, the two young men we were staying with took us to hear fado music at a bar, where we ate, drank, and listen. The was divided into two sections, which each held about 50 people seated on bench on each side of a table for about four people. The two musicians, one playing a guitarra and the other playing a viola, sat on the side facing the bar patrons with the fadista standing between them. Perhaps 10 fadistas sang one at a time, usually one or two songs. I also noticed that some of the fadistas had pictures of themselves on the two walls of the bar. Some of the fadistas after singing would politely and quietly hawk their CDs. We sat in the back of bar near the fadistas waiting their turn to sing. In the back, the fadistas would greet each other. Most of the fadistas would sing and then move on, as if there was a circuit of bars to sing at. Attached to this is the video Marlene Alvarado, my wife did.
While I’m speaking of my wife, indulge me for a moment and let me expand my short poem of my wife I posted awhile back. I now have two more lines to add. The poem now reads,
I know my fate.
My wife is always late.
In my age of late,
I’ve found my helpmate.
Let me return to the evening of the second day. With our two young friends, Jorge and Chico, we left the bar and walked down the narrow streets to a main street, where we caught a cab. In the cab around midnight the streets on the weekend were packed with mostly young people walking and enjoying themselves. The taxi took us to another bar for a couple of more drinks. This bar had no live music but had collections of toy soldiers, hats, art, and many other items of curiosity. Jorge, whose parents are members of the Communist Party of Portugal, pointed out a painting of V.I. Lenin, as a waiter.
After the second bar, our two friends took us back to their apartment. Marlene and I went to bed, while our two friends went out again.

Our second day was slow and lazy.  The night before, Marlene could not sleep and kept me awake and, of course, when she was not awake, she was snoring.  Consequently, I had no sleep.  We awoke about 11 a.m.  The night before, we bought fruit, which we ate.  The strawberries were sour and smaller than those from southern California.

The day before, Marlene discovered her bathrobe was soaked with soap.  It appears her soap bottle was open for some reason.  She decided to go to a Laundromat to wash it and other clothes.  Sadly she lost two pairs of glasses.  About 4 p.m., we ate dinner.  Again, we ate salmon with blanched potatoes, carrots, and broccoli, followed with coffee.  I ate bread with my coffee and Marlene ate a couple sweet tarts.

The attached photo is of an award, one of the two young men, Jorge Soares Suarez we’re staying with won the night before.  He won it for a musical festival in which he was the artistic director of.  While writing this, Marlene interviewed Jorge and his roommate.

Marlene and I are now our first day in Lisbon, Portugal. I went out in the morning and bought us some fresh fruit, some bananas, pears, a clementine, an apple, and some bottled water.
Unfortunately for Marlene, she only wanted a banana. I ate the rest except for the second banana. Because she was hungry, we went out to lunch. Across from where we are staying, we found a seafood restaurant. We ate grilled salmon with a salad. She ordered coffee, which was too strong for her, but otherwise we enjoyed the food.
After lunch, we went to Belem, first by metro and then by tram. The attached photos are of the outside of the archeological museum and of pieces from the modern art museum. The last photo is the bathroom doors of the museum.