A little slice of heaven

In keeping with Portuguese people being generally quieter than Spanish people, I get cat-called a lot less here than I did in Spain. But I get honked at a lot. Sometimes the guys yell something from the cars, but mostly they just honk. Pedro says it's because Portuguese guys are shy.

Mehmet told me that Portuguese people have an inferiority complex about Spain. I asked Pedro's friend Paolo (as if anyone would own up to having an inferiority complex) and he said no, he just doesn't like Spanish people.

A lot of the buildings here are tiled on the outside. It's called azulejo and the tiles often have a lot of blue but not always. It looks really nice, but up-close photos mostly don't work out so well because the tiles are old and so usually a little worn when you look closely. I passed this building today whose tiles were in really good condition, even up close, so I stopped to take a touristy picture even though there was a guy standing right outside. (I mostly try to act like a tourist only when no one's watching.) The guy told me they weren't the original tiles. Caught! No wonder they looked so nice. I told him they would make a nice photo, anyway. And then he asked me if I wanted one of the original tiles. He works in the building and told me that they recently remodeled and retiled the building, but they have lots of old tiles laying around. What luck! Maybe I should act like a tourist more often. Unfortunately he couldn't find any and was about to go look in the garage when an older guy who I'm guessing was maybe his boss showed up. After some animated discussion in Portuguese, it turned out there were no extra tiles--none for me, anyway. Damn. Would have made a really good souvenir, with a good story to go with it. I got nice photos, anyway.

I didn't really do much today, which is why I'm kind of rambling. But I did have pasteis (pronounced posh-taysh) de nata. It's a little tart-like thing, with a flaky crust and filled with heaven. I suck at describing food: It's sweet, it's creamy (nata means cream), with a slight flavor of cinnamon or nutmeg. Kinda like creme brulee a little? I dunno, but it's sooooo good. It is so good. I dunno why they don't seem to make it anywhere else, but come to Portugal. Try it. You'll like it. You'll love it.