Lisbon 6 - Innuendo

I'm in a bit of a silly mood, having just bought quarter of a watermelon for about 30p. Apologies for any offence caused...

Because of the big differences in pronunciation between English and Portuguese, some interesting misunderstandings are possible. For example, the lady on the plane who didn't speak English tried explaining, with the help of my phrase book that she was constipated. It turns out she meant that she had a blocked nose.

For some reason, I found this announcement on the plane worth recording. It was part of the safety announcement, and speaking about oxygen masks.

Should there be a lack of pleasure, they will immediately fall out.

The mind boggles.

Still sillier, however, was the Condomiser (TM) - not its real name. TAP (Air Portugal) said that as much security as possible was needed for flying to Brazil, and that they offered a special sealing facility for bags. On seeing this, I thought it too much fun not to use. I was then disappointed, after having my bag so sealed, to find that it cost 5 Euros. So I therefore share some knowledge of the process in order to try to recover some value for money. The bag is wrapped in plastic sheeting, which is sellotaped and then heated for a short time to cause it to melt together. It might have been this that caused some mess on the inside of my bag when my shampoo burst. Or it may not. The final effect is not dissimilar to that which might be produced by enclosing the bag in some kind of giant latex prophylactic device.

Opportunities for innuendo abound. I had to reword what I wrote above to remove some of the more notable examples. Of course, the Brazillian baggage handlers were far more efficient than those in Lisbon (baggage started arriving 40 mins after the advertised time) and probably vastly more efficient than those at Heathrow. They even had the wonderful innovation of a glass window in the baggage collection area so we could see them at work unloading the plane, driving their buggies and putting the bags onto the belt. Imagine if they did that at Heathrow, via CCTV or something. Would it dramatically cut waiting times and baggage loss? Quite possibly.

Lisbon 5 / Brazil 1 - Portuguese

I'm currently on placement in Brazil, and I think it's worth writing a few comments on Portuguese as a language. Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese Portuguese are slightly different as languages, but they've obviously got a lot in common.

Both are descended largely from Latin (as are French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, some of English, etc.) Both are written using the Latin alphabet, and my French and Latin are still passable, so I find Portuguese fairly easy to read - I can understand a decent proportion of sentences, especially when they don't use more difficult grammatical constructions. It is of course much harder to speak them, and though French helps in understanding written Portuguese, speaking it doesn't help people understand.

The real problem in learning the language is the accent. I fully accept of course that Portugal and Brazil are as entitled to the Latin alphabet as England and the US, but they use it quite differently. It's quite unusual to find a word I can pronounce correctly the first time. Pretty much all of the vowels are different, and consonants such as l and r are used very differently. As far as I can tell, they mix up the English sounds r, l, h and w, together with some gutterals, and then two of the resulting sounds are r and l, but which you hear depends on its place in the word. There also seems to be a phantom pronounced "e" on the end of some words, which comes or goes depending on position in the sentence and emphasis.

Sometimes when I try to speak a foreign language, the person I am speaking to switches to English - this especially happens in countries where English is generally spoken well, like Holland, and is a bit annoying. But what I found in Portugal was that I would say something pretty much correctly according to the phrase book, and people sometimes just wouldn't understand. On the plane from Lisbon to Brazil, I found myself sitting next to a lady who only spoke Spanish and Portuguese. When she read aloud some of the English instructions for what to do in case of emergency, I couldn't even tell she was speaking English!

Lisbon 4 - Belem

Probably the best sight to see in Lisbon is the old buildings at Belem. They have even been made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of Lisbon was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake, and the surviving old buildings in the centre were rebuilt afterwards. But not a few miles up the river at Belem. Belem was the port from which most of the great Portuguese voyages of discovery and conquest set out. The main sights are the Tower of Belem, which was a fortress built in the middle of the river (and now very near the shore).

There's also a big quasi-fascist monument to the navigators.

But the most spectacular building is the monastery there, which includes the tomb of Vasco da Gama. One of the things that surprised me most was the fact that everywhere gave me a full student discount using only my University of Oxford card.

Lisbon 3 - Laws

As far as I know, these aren't actual legal laws, just ones I've observed... And no, I'm not in Portugal any more, but I'll keep blogging about it for a bit.

1. Department stores and supermarkets larger than SPAR in England are forbidden.
2. All pharmacists should look like boutiques.
3. Labelling of prices is strictly optional. In pharmacies, it is discouraged. If you really have to label a price, try to make it insignificant, like in the small print under the bar code.
4. No pharmacist should sell razor blades or shaving foam. Neither should supermarkets.
5. One in ten shops to be given over to the selling of loose leaf tobacco. Such shops should always be a few cm below street level, and are allowed to sell men's magazines on the side.
6. There should be lots of police on the streets, often using slow electric transport like golf buggies or Segways.
7. Police should always be visible. This is to ensure that tourists feel very safe on the streets - Lisbon has a very low rate of violent crime - while still ensuring that there is a plentiful supply of drugs. I was offered drugs 7 times in two days. Unless "hashish" is Portuguese for "my, that's a nice T-shirt". Or maybe I just looked like I needed them.
8. Big brand stores are not allowed, with the following three exceptions: McDonalds, Subway, H&M. Actually H&M aren't a big brand - they're only on the border of my consciousness, and I'm not sure what exactly they do, except for sell vastly overpriced clothes.
9. Sandwich shops are allowed to sell alcohol. It was quite interesting to realise that one of the soft drink options was beer.

Lisbon 2 - Christo Rei

A couple of thing I didn't know about Lisbon before coming here that weren't exactly prominent in he guide book were the near-replica of the Golden Gate Bridge and the giant statue of Jesus.

To give you an idea of the scale o the statue, look carefully at the next picture. You see that little black thing at the bottom of the base? That's a normal-sized door.

Christo Rei, the statue, was built by the Roman Catholic Church in part to thank God (or, as they put it, Christ of the Sacred Heart) for Portugal not getting drawn into WW2, and partly as a way of saying that Christ would be exalted over Portugal. Some people would doubtless say it was a bit of a waste of money, and that the money could have been given to the poor instead or something.

I suspect Jesus migth reply with something like Matthew 26:10

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me."

I'm not sure whether I ever approve of statues of Jesus theologically. I certainly don't like little ones. But 110m high ones, even if a lot of that is the plinth, certainly have something going for them.

Lisbon 1 - Words

At the moment, I'm in Lisbon, on my way to my placement. As people who know me realise, I'm a bit of an equal-opportunity mocker. I'll mock just about anyone and everyone when they do something silly, especially myself.

With that in mind, here are some funny photos from Lisbon.

When Jesus said "store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, I'm not sure this is what he meant...

Yes, I'm pretty sure that means "Bank of the Holy Spirit"...

I'm also glad I'm training to be clergy. There seem to be different traffic rules for us here...

And some of the local cuisine is a little suspect...

Lots more sensible stuff about Lisbon to follow at some point, depending on time and internet access.