We left Porto after breakfast and drove south to a town called Obidos. We'd asked many people on this trip which towns were worth stopping in and Obidos came up often. It was chilly and rainy on this day but we made the best of it. We parked Martin in an empty parking lot outside of the walled city and we trudged in on foot. It was here, in an empty hotel restaurant that Brett and I had one of the best meals of the trip. We began to wonder if Portuguese people in small towns partake in the Spanish siesta rituals as we had a really hard time finding a place to have lunch. We gave up hope on finding something especially authentic and instead we slid into the one hotel around and asked if they were serving lunch.
"Yes. Of course." the maitre'd said as though it should have been obvious. We were the only three people standing in a large turquoise dining room decorated with seahorses and sandollars. He sat us by a window and gave us big wooden menus. We never saw any other staff members or hearty eaters. He was our host, server, and bus boy and even though we heard a few clangs coming from behind a wall, we never saw any other humans in this entire hotel. Nevertheless, our food was delicious and the one-man-band server was delighted by our enthusiasm. I think he was a little sad to see us go.
Obidos is an adorable little town and well worth a wander through. We walked along the medieval wall, slipping on stones, hopping giant puddles, and peering into people's backyards. It was a pretty neat day.
Here I was fixing' to bust out some dance moves.
We found our Aribnb in another tiny town and this was the coldest building I've ever spent the night in. It's that whole stone-country thing. It was a cute little house with cutest, tiniest functional sofa I've had the pleasure of sitting upon. But it had no heat. It had this ceramic plate, about the size of a big cutting board, and that's what you plugged into the wall to generate heat. It was confusing and ineffective. We folded ourselves up onto the tiny couch and piled on every blanket we could find and we just sat awhile, just trying to be warm. Eventually we left for dinner and we found a wonderful steakhouse, fit for one-hundred guests. We were the only patrons and the waitstaff had nothing else to do besides watch us eat. You could have heard a pin drop in there. Brett and I whispered our conversation but the waiters still came around to practice their English and ask us what on earth we were doing there.
Back at the house, we put all of the couch blankets onto the bed and wheeled the ceramic plate into the room and we curled up in there and braced for the coldest night ever. Just as I was sinking into the lukewarm trough created by my own minimal body-heat, a high-pitched, shrill barking sound emanated from beneath our bedroom window. It sounded like a Chihuahua. I let out a hateful chuckle. A yipping step-on dog is just what this night needed.
"He'll quit in a minute." Brett said, pressing his cold toes into my calves. We waited one minute. The yipping dog incited a barking dog which set off a howler down the street. Within three minutes there was a loud chorus of bays illuminating the night with song. I thought it was hilarious. Brett was surprisingly annoyed and equally irritated by my amusement. This is unlike him so my amusement quickly turned into the kind you'd have at school, where something would really tickle you but you knew you would get trouble if the teacher caught you laughing. I assured grumpy Brett that this wouldn't go on much longer and as I said this, a new voice joined in. We waited ten minutes for the symphony of bellows to croon their final sonata. While the howling hound was clearly walking down the street, growing dim as he sang, the yippers were steadily performing beneath our window. Brett let out a rant about retarded inbred dogs and slammed his head down into a pillow and pulled a blanket up over his face.
I laid there delighted and horrified. Oh how I wanted to laugh but oh how few times I've seen Brett truly angry. He's always so calm and patient, and knowing how much he adores dogs, it all just seemed like something he should find funny, like his simple wife did. The hound made his way back to the buskers beneath our window and let out a baritone C. Brett sat up, spun to face the window and peered down the street in both directions.
"How come no one is taking care of this? Who lets their dog make this much noise this late at night?"
I didn't respond. It was a valid question. We were one in a row of houses so surely someone else was aware of the noise.
"I'm going to yell at them." Brett said, fiddling with the latch on the window.
"They don't speak English." I retorted.
"But if I make enough noise, maybe a person will come out to see what the commotion is about. I'm going out there!" and he flipped the pile of blankets off to one side and felt around in the dark for his shoes.
"Don't go out there, Brett. You might get shot!"
"Shot?"
"Yeah. Shot!"
"I'm not going to get shot. I'll just run off the dogs."
"But Brett! What if it's tradition for everyone to fall asleep to the racket. You'll be an eerily tall white guy messing up the rituals. Like the pilgrims. Do you want everyone around to know we're Americans? ...just walking on up in here making things how we like them."
"I assure you no one falls asleep to this every night."
We drifted off to the soothing sounds of the Flea Bag Band and we did not speak of Brett's outburst the next morning. We simply packed up our crap, unplugged the fake heater, and made our way down the stairs to Martin. When we got outside, there was a little old lady wiping the dew off of Martin with a roll of paper towels. She was excited to see us. Our "host" must have told her we were on our honeymoon and she held onto my hands and said Portuguese things to me with a big smile on her face. I thanked her for drying the car and spoke back to her in English just so she would think I was trying to communicate. Whoever she was, she patted Martin dry and then waved us off as we pulled out into the road and I think about her on occasion, her urge to do something sweet for two traveling strangers. I like that very much.
We set off for Peniche, the other "hot spot" to visit. Even though it was about 10:30 when we arrived looking for breakfast, nothing in town was open. In fact, it had a deserted quality about it, like Myrtle Beach in the winter time. There were a few humans milling around but they seemed to be doing nothing and we followed a few, in search of food of course, but none of our leads panned out. We tried to eat at a busy hotel breakfast bar but they wouldn't let us in because we weren't staying there. So we watched everyone else eat through the large glass windows and once our bellies started to gurgle, we hopped back into Martin and drove until we found a tiny bakery full of locals.
Again, we didn't know what any of the food was so we ordered by pointing at things. We had espresso and ham and cheese croissants, and little donut-looking pastries and then an extra coffee to-go. We sat and we ate, happily chatting about the sunny day ahead. When we got up to pay, we were informed that they only took cash and the Big Guy and I were fresh out. We'd been using our cards for most things and just used up the last of our cash because we felt like we didn't need it.
"Cash only." the bakery girl repeated and before any true discussion, Brett went out in search of an ATM and left me in the bakery as collateral.
We took Martin out to the shore and took in the wild, Portuguese coastline.
Here I am, posing with Martin.
For our last night, we drove back into Lisbon, returned Martin, and took an uber to the final and most exciting AirBnb of our trip. It was just a cool old building in a neat part of town. We walked back to Fabrica Cafe and the waitstaff were happy to see us. A whole week had passed by now. We hung out with our coffee and snacks and for supper, we elected to go back to the clown school. We sat on Bozo's terrace and had a final, delicious Portuguese meal and toasted to the good times ahead.
And then we got into a polite feud at the Newark airport during our seven hour layover on the way home, but I guess that's marriage.
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