Porto Sketches, i.

i arrived at a bombsite.

i landed in first daylight, thursday morning. the metro is 8 years old, its amazing. grand futuristic cars gliding along silently, wide glass doors and clean, airy platforms and stations. wardens periodically checking to make sure you validated your pass, which you did not do, and telling you the fine you’ve incurred is a cool 95 euros. but they know you’re a young american idiot so they walk you off the train at your station and hold your hand at the validation kiosk, and say <be careful next time.>

then the city. it was grand, wide, like some imperial concourse (which it was, id gotten off at aliados, the main avenue/rectangular plaza full of banks and ministries and hotels with european capital names). and it was dead. deserted. i entered a giant, empty cafe and got an espresso and buttered toast for 1.5€ (that would later prove to be an expensive price).

then i made my way down - south to the river duoro. there i saw that the city wasnt deserted - it was freshly killed. the streets were carpeted with broken glass, cups, cans, bottles, streamers, plastic toy hammers and horns. everywhere. vomit filled the gaps. something big had happened, and now everything was empty and shut. but i pressed on and found myself in the old part of the center, springing from the arrivals of the world via the river mouth. everything was still paved with stones - these small, sharply cut flat square ones that are rough and black on the road and comically smooth, shiny and white on the sidewalk. one lane streets and narrow snaking alleys and all of it hills.

echoing whatever message the debris heralded, the walls were covered with colored posts and flags and large palm fronds. paper lanterns hung over the pedestrian alleys.

the city was more lively then, getting toward noon and in the touristic and commercial heart of the city. i walked all over, enjoying the colored tile walls and laundry lines and flags. rough looking baroque monolithic churches atop each peak - like a medieval seaside san francisco if it were on a river rather than a bay, and with much more grime.

tasos

then i walked back in from the river to find the house of the cat who agreed to put me up - an internet acquantance through that community i used in bologna and granada, Couchsurfing.org. the guy, a greek student named tasos, was asleep. i knew because he said as much when i called to wake him at 2:30 pm. so i walked a while back toward the center until he called me 30 minutes later to come over. i waited on the street near the end where i knew his flat to be, hoping to spot him when he came out. 10 minutes and a tall, dark haired young man stepped carelessly through a small doorway. his hair was short and spread in a thin beard over his face as well, half hidden behind sunglasses. i stood, hoping to get his attention and he waved and smiled. we walked into each other, grabbed each other's hands and pulled together into a hug. << do you want coffee, my friend? i take to you to my friend's place, very portugese. >>


his friend's was closed like the rest of the city and tasos cursed it and took us to another place nearby. we stood against a metal bar in a small, bright corner café. << you don't want milk or sugar, man? alright, malaka. everyone in porto drinks this all the time, man. you know. >> leaning on the bar, tasos sipped from his little cup and sighed hard. << man, i thought you were coming yesterday, man. >>  << yeah, what happened here? >> << man it was são joão last night, malaka. shit, man it was crazy. >> << são joão? >> << yeah man, the saint of porto. the whole city was on fire man. all night, too, malaka. 4, 5, 6 am without stop. party party party.>> he slapped his fingers down with each “party” like packing a can of dip. << you never saw something like it, malaka. today the city will be dead. i  would still be sleeping, to 5 or 6 probably. >> his big teeth flashed as he grinned remembering the night.


back on the street walking back to his place, he asked about america.
<< man, is america like the films, malaka? why do they do those things? >> i tried to explain, but i really didn't need to. << i have seen these girls, malaka. the ones that drink so much they throw or pass out. on the tv i see about the parties and the car collisions and the guns. this is not what happy people do, man. why are you so unhappy in america? you're like a country of children. it's bad, malaka. >>
for some reason, it was too early to get offended. maybe it was his use of tv as a reference, maybe i was committed to giving him a chance, as he had done when he read my couchsurfing request - a message that referred to his own online stories and suggested that we make even more in my short time in his city. he'd simply said that he normally does not host two guys, but the message was thoughtful and he wasn't busy so he would give my friend and myself a chance. babak, who was to join me in 36 hours, and i were grateful to have found a host and i wasn't looking to call it off just yet.

the greek’s flat was incomprehensible. it was as if some students were given a building and free license – that could entirely have been the case. in from the street we walked up a flight of stairs and that was it. to the right was a living room with a tv, couch, and a door leading into a bedroom. at the end of this little hall was another door – tasos’. to the left of the stairs were the kitchen and bathrooms. all this was accessible from any part of the building. you had only to find the front door open and you could walk in, cook some eggs, have a shower and watch a film. i never felt really safe in that shower.

he unlocked the door to his room and tossed the keys on a shelf that was sparsely populated with empty product boxes, markers, old computer speakers and some textbooks. two bare mattresses lay on the floor against opposite walls. he walked through the wide space between these, looking less tall under the high ceilings. at the far corner of the room he sat in a bile-colored lounge chair in front of his laptop supported on a stool. he beckoned for me to sit in the back-less office swivel chair beside him. apart from this there was one large armoire next to the door and a long writing desk against the window wall, whose two large windows were partially covered by the outside wooden shutters to keep out the intensely bright sun of porto. on all surfaces dust, cigarettes, ashes and small coins. in the corner a small colony of empty bottles. this was to be my home for the next 5 days. i was thrilled. 

i'd bought a bottle of wine and a case of beer, not sure which he preferred. << i brought lunch, >> i joked. he laughed lightly and told me to open the wine. then he reached for what looked like a stack of small brown dominoes, and broke one into bits in his hand. he rolled the hash into a massive spliff and put on a youtube video of some eastern trance music. bobbing his head and smiling he asked me if i was familiar. << no, malaka?? you need to hear this shit, man. hey man, listen. you need to speak greek. you have to say 'malaka'. it means...'dude', or 'motherfucker'. everyone in porto uses it now. call me malaka. >> i tried it. << excellent, malaka, >> he smiled broadly. << now you need to see some shit. >>


and we spent the afternoon smoking and listening to his balkan music and psychedelic reggae. once i tried to show him some of the music i thought he would like. << we have very different tastes, malaka. you need to hear more of this, man. it will change your life, malaka, change your life. really. >> apparently i'd missed the awakening. << me, malaka, i live here almost 9 months. i'm supposed to leave in january, but i don't want to. so i stay. and greek government pays for me. they give me money to be here, malaka, smoking hash and living life. so i don't work, i don't go to class. malaka they talk bullshit, anyway. i like to live life, you know? i see my friends and we go out. and everything i have is theirs. i don't care, malaka. you want hash? take it, man, you are my friend. nothing of this shit is important. but you need to see life, malaka. you need to be good to your friends. people here, they think they want trouble. i ask them, 'man, what is the problem? do you want problem?' (they don't want problem, man). they look scared and tell me no. i say, 'it's ok, man. let's smoke. you wan't hash?' and that's it, malaka. they are my friends. nothing else matters, you know? everybody here is my friend. me, im suposed to be in greece. no way, malaka. porto is too much fun. >>


in the evening he took me around, to some of the places i’d seen and to many i hadn’t. he showed me the ghetto. in portugese cities, the ghetto is a few streets in the center. there are several of these in porto. the junkies do their thing in broad daylight. so many junkies in porto. sometimes they’ll catch a lost look on your face and give you directions. its a bit mad. we had one fantastic chicken, potatoes and rice roast in a restaurant near tasos' flat where the young waiter slapped hands with him and led us into a small dining room in the back. << everyone knows me here, malaka. >> and at night we had francesinhas (a sandwich that no explanation can give except that it would drive americans nuts, increase obesity by 30% beyond its current figure, and be made illegal). 

just before deciding to turn in after an easy evening with so many things still shut, his friends from one of his local bars ran by drunkenly haggling him for greece's world cup elimination and took us to some underground bar to drink beers and shots and scream rock and roll songs for hours.