European Treasures

I came huffing up the hill, hearing nothing but the clattering of plates of nearby restaurants and the distant murmur of American retiree tourists searching for a funicular. As I smelled the salt of the port city and imbibed the sun, I remembered what a friend had told me just before I landed: “The entire city smells like a seafood restaurant…in the best way imaginable.”
From a converging street, two Spanish girls emerged, bent over a map.
“Excuse me, do you speak English?” the taller of them asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"How do we get to the castle?"
I pointed up to the fortress walls, barely in view through the Moorish tiling and winding streets.
"There it is. Just keep going up."
"Obrigado,” and they ran away.
I had been in Lisbon for two days. I shouldn't have been giving directions. I shouldn't have been wandering winding, slippery, foreign streets by myself. But I did. And it was exhausting. I vowed to myself to never smoke another cigarette ever again, sat down on a narrow staircase, called something like Rua Some-Kind-of-Saintaria, and popped open a cheap can of Portuguese beer. Lisbon is one of those charming, funny cities where staircases are streets.
I roamed among the wildly, blindingly colorful street art; I eavesdropped on anglophone tour guides, explaining the history of the seven hills city; I heard the distant sound of Fado guitar slithering its way up the hills. Lisbon is intoxicating--and it's more than the slight scent of weed drifting in from Bairro Alto.
After an hour meandering up the ancient hill, I finally made it to Castelo Sao Jorge. The castle is basically comprised of two parts, the building itself and the surrounding grounds. I wandered the grounds until I came to a terrace overlooking the whole city. The sun was setting over the 25 de Abril bridge on the other side of Lisbon.
A wine cart had been set up to one side and in my flailing Portuguese, I managed to procure a glass. The Tagus River was blue, the sky was orange, and my wine was red. Perched over the burnt copper rooftops, I entered a funny headspace after a day of climbing around strange, sloping streets. The colors were so vibrant and my exhaustion so potent that it seemed perfectly normal to sob in public.
I floated in between peacocks and tourists and forgot what time of day it was. I forgot that I didn't live here and that I had a plane back home in less than 12 hours.
I was just sitting in a castle on top of a hill, watching the sunset over Lisbon.