Well, I apparently picked a great day to be in Lisbon.
Benfica won the Portuguese League Championship and it was as big… well, as big as anything. As big as when BCN beat Manchester last summer, and I only saw pictures of that, because it happened the day before I showed up in the city. I had a fabulous ride home with my cab driver, who was honking at every single person he saw in the streets. And by honking, I mean honking. We had the very basic English conversation about how football is not as big in America—pause for more honking—then we sang the Benfica song together. “Campeãoooooos, campeãoooooos!” He concluded with, “Portugal, futebol!” I told him that Benfica is my team now, too.
Portugal is a pretty cool place, though I haven’t seen too much of it. It’s as if Madrid and San Francisco had a lovechild, covered it in graffiti and left it on the Atlantic ocean. Tomorrow I take off again, on the noon train to Porto.
