Slowly Going Mad Abroad
First Impressions…
“Oh, salty sea, how much of your salt are tears from Portugal?” — Fernando Pessoa
I’m on the metro headed to work at around 6:30 am. It’s the Yellow line travelling in the direction of Trindade station and suddenly I am confronted by Jose ‘Six Gun’ Carvalho.
I didn’t need to see this apparition so early in the morning. I’m already a bit frazzled from a tense week. He is a cross between ‘The Mad the Bad and the Ugly’ with a touch of the ‘Walking dead’.
Adjusting his undersize Stetson in the reflection of the metro’s sliding door, he looks set to step into the nearest cervejaria and open up with all twelve cylinders from his brace of Smith & Wesson side shooters.
Only he is not armed. He may be fixated on the cowboy image, however his gaunt and deathly pallor along with his current geographic location make it clear that he is just another one of those interesting souls that cross my path when I am using the metro system.
I bump into the same characters from time to time.
Sometimes I am treated to a new spectacle. And sometimes it is just me who feels like the spectacle. Listening to a language I still can’t seem to grasp, a stranger camouflaged by my very presence on whichever train or bus I find myself. Just another sad fragment in the daily flow of people heading to wherever they are headed.
Lonely in a crowd — one of those clichés that cut to the bone.
As the metro heads closer to work, one dreary stop at a time, I wonder how on earth I stumbled into this predicament.
“See it as an adventure,” a good friend keeps telling me.
“Relax and enjoy the experience of living and working in a foreign city.” Unfortunately my nature resists this luxury and I am constantly consumed by an anxiety that stems from the sense of control I have lost over my life. I rebelled against my comfort zone and now I am enveloped in a cloud of uncertainty.
Perhaps it is just the city or the season, or maybe both?
You see, I am living in Porto and it is mid-winter. An unusually wet winter I am told.
The days are short and dreary. The Porto cityscape is dark and gothic under the grey clouds and constant rain. I keep seeing the many homeless huddled into small corners at the entrances to apartment blocks. Nobody seems cheerful. The faces are either young and glum or old and hard worn by life.
As I climb the steps and exit Sao Bento station, my eyes are automatically drawn to the Sé.
Perched ominously on the hilltop, her gaze stretches over most of Old Porto, and in my current mood, it feels as if she does so with an oppressive and malevolent presence.
She watches silently as the Douro slithers its way into a dark and angry sea. Her eyes have access through every narrow alley that snakes down to the Ribeira far below.
Every corner falls under her constant grey gaze. I am sure that in the dark misty hours of the night her cold breath rustles the blankets of the many homeless in their sheltered corners, stirring troubled dreams and dark thoughts.
JK Rowling spent some time in this city and I do wonder how many of the dark gothic images described in her Potter novels were inspired by this strange and enigmatic city.
The Portuguese will tell you that Porto is a working class city. It does not have the panache and finesse of Lisbon. I agree, despite the fact that I am also no expert on Lisbon life.
Porto is beautiful in places but is cut with a harder edge. The people here are tough and edgy.
They do not mince their words. They do not emanate patience. They do not suffer fools. They do not overly care for subtle etiquette and genial niceties.
And yet despite their tough exterior, I have witnessed a kindness of heart that has often left me breathless. I have seen a hardy people whose rough exterior when broken, is filled with empathy and compassion.
Yes, I am struggling to understand these people and this city.
I concede that a core reason for this is my conservative nature and an inherent distrust of all and everything.
I have spent too may years living in a city where I am constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering when I will become the next statistic, scanning my surroundings for an escape route, wondering how my wife will feel when she hears I won’t be coming home that evening. This however is no excuse for my foul attitude and difficulty in accepting my current home.
I would love to come to Porto on vacation — a quick two or three day visit. It’s ideal — small and vibrant, a lot to do in a fairly compact area. With a little research and pre-planning you can get a solid feel for the place, a good look around.
Living here is another story. Again, forgive me, I speak for myself.
I know other expats who have just arrived and never want to leave.
Some are retired and can live a comfortable life on their home pensions. Others are working remotely, and again, their foreign pay package makes them affluent in poor Portugal.
So I left a comfortable life, a secure yet stressful job, a sometimes dangerous environment — albeit one that I understood and felt I could manage — all for a new life in Porto.
Every journey has a beginning. Each story has its own unique circumstances. Every adventure travels its own varied route.
Each of us experience our new lives through our own perspectives. We see what we want to see and sometimes we try to force ourselves to see what we expected to see.
How did I end up drowning in water too shallow to fit the task?
Who can say if this is a slightly twisted travelogue or an angst journal for a middle aged disaster?
Stick around, I’ll do my best to elaborate…
