Night moves....

It's been a little while again but I really think my exploits over the past few weeks should be recorded for posterity. What I really want to talk about at the moment is Lisbon nightlife. Lisbon is rightly famed for its parties and the month of June is really when the city starts to wake up from the winter lull and it gets a little exciting.

Mid-June sees the Festas dos Santos Populares of the Festivals of the Popular Saints where for nights on end the citizens will gather on the streets in some of the older, more traditional, areas like Alfama and Graça and listen to music, drink and eat grilled sardines. S and I didn't get to experience much of the street festivities this year as we had agreed to go to a houseparty on the night of the biggest party, Saint Anthony's day, but we did get to experience something of the Portuguese youth there, a subject I will return to shortly. What little of the traditional Saint Anthony's Day experience we did get was walking up the Castle Hill and seeing almost a fog of barbecued sardines. At quite an early hour for Lisbon the streets were already packed and it was quite a struggle just to get through. Earlier in the week we has seen them setting up in Santos and Bica with stages for the music and that's where many of my colleagues had headed but in crowds as heavy as they where phone calls were impossible and we had to give up on our attempts to meet up that night.

The day after Saint Anthony's party is usually a day for nursing your hangover but for me and S it was the preparations for our own party that we were throwing that night. We'd already done the shopping and were well supplied with beers and wine and so S was left to prepare the sangria and I descended into the usual barely controlled rage with which I cook for many people. In the end, with some much appreciated help from J at the fryer and R1 & R2 at the barbecue we had plenty of food for everyone. There were beers aplenty and S's sangria went down a storm as usual...there is a recipe she will have to take to the grave, my French colleague who usually spends much of these events dismissing Portuguese wine even had to admit S had worked wonders with it.

It was really good to get the two groups of people, my new friends and S's old ones, together and it meant there was a pretty multicultural vibe going on there. One of the big problems that some of my colleagues here have is mixing with the locals and so this definitely went some way to helping this, next time we'll just have to make things bigger.

This problem of social mixing has come up again and again here and even more frequently lately when we have started going out more. Portugal is still, socially, a very conservative country. People here, when they go out of a night, tend to very much stick in their own groups. I would in fact go further than that and say that on the few occasions I have attempted to start up conversations it's met with incomprehension. This fact has been noted by most of my colleagues who enjoy going out and who have been here in Lisbon for much longer than me. It has, therefore, led to the sad state of affairs whereby until recently they had all but given up trying and resigned themselves to a form of internal social exile.

I have been lately doing all I can to try and instigate some kind of cultural exchange amongst the people I know here. It's not an easy process but I believe we are getting somewhere, slowly. There are however a few other problems with Portuguese society that do make this difficult. One of the extensions (whether it a cause or a symptom I do not know) of the general social conservatism here is the fact that most 'youths' (and by this I mean the age range 20-25) pretty much all live at home with their parents. There really isn't the movement as there is in the UK of people leaving home for university, but it goes deeper than that because even in the UK those people I knew who didn't go to university had by and large moved out by the time they were 25. Here it is not at all uncommon for people for 28,29 and 30 to still live at home. This of course entails all that you imagine it to, from clothes being washed to meals prepared.

One of the striking consequences of the majority of youths still being tied to their mother's apron strings is a remarkable amount of what can be described as immaturity. I was shocked to discover that at a houseparty I recently attended that most people were of roughly my age, give or take a year or so, when I would easily have put the average age at somewhere about 18. It's not that I am particularly ageist or indeed that I hope to spend parties discussing mortgage applications or the finer details of raising children but it is good to know that the people you are with have something of the same concerns as you rather than missing their curfew but this does also suppose that some conversation would be had. The only mingling achieved that night, other than with people I had formally been introduced to, was with a French guy (who thought S was 23!).

With these quite large differences in Portuguese culture it is sometimes difficult not to make comparisons with what I am used to but having come across a number of colleagues who have spent their time in Lisbon making unfavourable comparisons I have seen it somewhat as a mission to encourage them to come out more. Of course there are differences but one shouldn't let these stop one from having fun.

In this spirit the past couple of weeks have also seen my hit the beach. S and I spent much of the Saturday before last on a wonderful spot of sand on the Costa da Caparica. I was more than a little reluctant at first, never having been much of a beach person. but within an hour or so I had definitely entered into the spirit of things. We were lucky to be in a small group and we spent the afternoon chatting, swimming and raquetballing. Much fun was had by all until it came to the drive home and the, apparently typical, hour long wait in the car park. Fortunately we had a bit of inside information and made our way back to the bridge via a shortcut so what could have been an extremely long drive home was merely a long drive home.

Saturday evening was really one of the best nights out I've had in Lisbon to date. We started off, after our dash back from the beach, a quick shower and a hastily scoffed McDonalds, in Chapito with some friends. After spending a few hours there and just about the time they were kicking out, S, A and I headed over to Lux, time it perfectly, avoiding a queue but not being the first ones there. The music was varied but generally pretty cool. I think A would've prefered to have spent more time in the bar but we ended up sepnding most of the time on the roof which in the event was probably for the best. The only blemish on the entire evening was the lack of soup and pão com choriço afterwards but I could tell S and A weren't up for it and I didn't want to be pushy.

This weekend was again a hectic one. I had my good friend and ex-housemate from London, P, staying. He had arrived on Thursday and left yesterday and in those few days managed to pack in an amazing amount of sightseeing. Friday saw P left much to his own devices but he seemed to have seen about 90% of what any guidebook would recommend a visitor to Lisbon see. I thought he might be a little tired after this but we proceeded to have a pretty cool night in one of my favourite haunts, Crew Hassan. P really enjoyed this place and it's true what he said about it, you don't get anywhere like that in the UK and if you did it wouldn't take long to ruin. Of the 'cultural cooperatives' that abound in Lisbon I feel that Crew Hassan is possibly the most ramshackle and bohemian, to the point where you feel like most of the time there's no-one in charge and you have just found yourself in an old building in someone's house party.

Saturday was a crazily busy day that saw a trip to Sintra (with hotdogs in Guia on the way back) followed by a quick nap and then a lovely meal in one of the few vegetarian restaurants in Lisbon. After this we headed over to Bairro Alto for some drinks and the down to Lounge for dancing, timing our return home perfectly and just avoiding a huge down poor.

It was lovely to see P and I know he had a great time here but it has completely taken it out of me and S, I envisage a few early nights this week.

So that was that and this is this...

And so begins the adventure.

One of the longest days (or rather months) of my life will shortly be coming to an end and when I wake up tomorrow it will be in a new year, in a new bed, in a new city, in a new country. Of course only the first of these is strictly true, I built the bed and I have spent enough time wandering Lisbon and exploring Portugal (not to mention weeks and months worth of conversation with S and V & C) to feel like I have at least a familiarity with the place.

My journey here has been, both in the long and short term, a long and exhausting one. It started what seems like an age ago, back in April 2008 when playing the third-wheel to my friends V & C's first wedding anniversary I returned to Portugal for some relaxation after a stressful period at work and at home. On this holiday I was reintroduced to S who I had originally met at the wedding the year previous. V had worked her little matchmaking magic here and it hit me remarkably quickly just how special this thing was going to be.

From the very beginning of our relationship there was no question of me and S not being together. It would, of course, have to continue over the long distance for the time being, with regular exchanges between Manchester and Lisbon (including one rendevous in Barcelona). When the time came to decide about the move there was no real choice, despite the language advantage S has over me (She speaks perfect English whereas I speak next to no Portuguese) it was much more convient for us at this stage for me to move to Lisbon. S is much more advanced in her career than me, with excellent prospects and is in the midst of an MA at a University in Lisbon whereas I was having serious doubts about the shape my career was taking, I was feeling railroaded into a career in law that I was unsure about and which would've kept me tied to the same agency (and essentially in the same job) for the better part of a decade. I was living in a flat that I could barely afford in a city that I love but that had little mystery left for me.

By mid-summer preparations were underway for my move. We were both looking Anglophone jobs and the hoops I had to jump through to get them and to get here. It was immediately obvious that it was not going to be easy for me to find something that would further my career, the possibilities seemed limited to the usual 'traveller's fare' of barwork/teaching English/manual work. It was quite disheartening, there were many avenues still unexplored but it did look bleak, especially when a whole slew of speculative CVs went unanswered. We never wavered in our goal but the provisional date - 29th December 2008 - looked increasingly optimistic.

Things slowly got underway, research was done on how I would move all my things, more CVs were sent, I was bought what seemed like hundreds of Portuguese phrasebooks and language courses yet nothing seemed to actually be getting done. Then there was one glimmer of light, I had got an interview with an EU agency, not for a paid job but for an unpaid internship - not ideal but a step in the door and a foot in the right direction. It was in the field I want to work in, it was English speaking and in Lisbon, granted it wouldn't pay the bills but the hope was that it would lead to something that would.

The interview took place in November and went riduculously well, it seemed somewhat of a formality with me merely asking questions of the panel about my working conditions and what projects they had in mind for me. It took another few weeks after the interview for me to get confirmation of the place but I had finally done it, I had some kind of start in Portugal, I wouldn't be going and risking everything for no possible return.

The next problem to arise was with the flat. Acting well within his rights my landlord asked me to find someone to fill my place in the flat for the final 3 months of the contract. I thought it quite bad timing, so close to Christmas and for such a short term but after a little panic and one false start I found the perfect couple thanks to a well worded advert on Gumtree (perhaps too well worded, I'm still getting responses to it now, I should really take the damn thing down). The move was now most definitely on now.

I arranged for a shipping company to come and pick up most of my possessions, packed the rest off to my mum's and then had to endure a few weeks crashing on the floor at my old childhood home. It was quite a strange experience because I hadn't spent that much time there since I was about 20 or so and it very much feels like someone elses home now that she lives there with her new man. I survived because I kept my focus on the fact that I would be moving home myself in a matter of days, in the fact there was minimal drama which surprised me. Christmas was really nice if tinged with a little sadness but everyone has promised to come and visit as soon as they can.

I will write about the actual journey here tomorrow along with my first impressions of the New Year.

Até amanhã