Lisbon: Medley

Here's a collection of things that I have found curious, remarkable, or funny during my first weeks in Lisbon.

• This might sound stupid to Portuguese readers, but the names of the days confuse me a lot. While in my mind the week starts on Monday (and hence Monday is the first day of the week), the Portuguese language conveys a slightly different idea: indeed, Monday in Portuguese is segunda-feira, which could be literally translated as "second fair". (Segunda is also the word in Spanish for the ordinal second). The names for the other days follow the same idea and so, for instance, Friday (the fifth day of my week) is "sixth fair". This was a mess at the beginning; now I am more used to the idea.
• Portuguese people are unable to pronounce my name properly. No surprise. My name is quite challenging for Portuguese, who have produced new funny approximations. Interestingly, a few people here have managed to pronounce it correctly, which both makes me very happy and represents a shame for those who cannot pronounce it correctly :)
• There are many Spanish people here, which is not a surprise, given that Spain is so close. You see lots of tourists, and I assume that they are the cause that one sees Don Juan Carlos so often. I have discovered that I find Spanish people very irritating sometimes, specially when they are in groups, as they are often noisy and vulgar. I really look forward to meet Spanish people who would help me to change this perception.
• The rice pudding one usually gets as a dessert here is prepared in exactly the same way as they do it in Colombia. (With the cinnamon and everything!) This has brought immense joy to my lunch time.
• The first times I went to the supermarket here I was amazed that the cashier would pack my things for me. Not only: she would do it correctly and carefully. This occurred even with different cashiers. Sadly, soon I discovered that cashiers in Portugal are as in everywhere else in the world.
• Bureaucracy here is as tedious as it is in Italy. I am particularly surprised by the fact that everyone wants to see original documents (they don't trust photocopies) and that the Portuguese state is particularly interested in recording your residence address: every procedure requires a proof of residence, something annoying if you just got here and are living in a temporary place. I find it obsessive this interest in your address (after all, in Colombia you don't have to register your address, and Italy they are not strict about this), but Portuguese people seem to find it quite normal.
• The weather here is extremely nice. People here keep telling me that I shouldn't be so happy about it, as I haven't experienced the rain season. I understood them very well when it rained a bit, on a weekend like two weeks ago. It was quite impressive: I had never seen such a violent way of raining! It is literally nature's anger in the form of water.
• In front of Lisbon there is a river (the Tagus) that some people could confuse with the sea. Crossing the Tagus (that is, going to the south of Lisbon) it's my work, so I should spend significant time commuting. I like it, though. Once at the other side of the river I should take a "surface metro" --I would call it tram-- built by Siemens for the city of Almada. It is extremely slow, essentially because the railway lines were designed with a lot of curves, and the tram practically stops at every curve. I often remember the tram in Grenoble, which was way faster, even with similar curves. I am afraid that Siemens ripped off the good people of Portugal; they should have built an Alstom Citadis instead.
• Coffee is important here. While the machines you see in bars are essentially Italian, beans are a bit different, somehow more toasted. The resulting coffee is of course different, with a stronger taste, and you get more quantity. In fact, a "short coffee" is commonly called "Italian", in reference to the Italian espresso. Coffee is also quite cheap: standard price is 50 cents. I still need to get used to the Portuguese style for coffee.
• Preliminary evidence indicates that Portuguese people think that the average Brasilian person is stupid. Interestingly, Brasilian people think exactly the same of the average Portuguese person. I find this surprising and funny. So far my evidence amounts to jokes in both directions, but I promise to look further into this.