Butterfly in Lisbon




I used to feel that Paris was my favorite city in Europe but now that I have been in Lisbon for a few years I realize that was but a fleeting fancy. There are so many reasons to love a city and reasons cities attach themselves to your heart. I grew up in London and lived in San Francisco. I loved these cities too, but there is something different about Lisbon. I didn't know how attached I had become until I went back to San Francisco last year for a month and when the plane landed back in Lisbon after that trip I felt something. I was happy to see it. I had missed this beautiful flower of a city with it's calçada Portuguesa sidewalks, and that something about the way the light hits the buildings at sunset. Most times when you land at Lisbon Airport the plane circles around over the ocean at the mouth of the Tagus River and you get a beautiful view of the city, the Pont d'Abril bridge and the mini Christo Rey watching it all from the other side, looking out at the city.
It was lonely times when I arrived, not knowing anyone here and just a couple of words of Portuguese and to a very different culture from the San Francisco I had just come from. I spent a lot of time walking. Walking and thinking and lots of times drinking and wondering. What the hell had I just done?  Feeling deep pangs of regret and fear. I mean really? A completely different life at 40?




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