We welcomed the new year in beautiful Lisbon, a place on earth that I will always treasure as my refuge. Since I first lived there in 1991-1992, it has grown and spilled over the edges here and there. But you can still reach the old Lisbon on a city bus from the airport (which by the way also has grown substantially) and there, very little has changed while some things, however, have changed for the better. I love the many independent bookshops, the unassuming coffee bars and ambling Lisboetas clad in black. I love the smell of roasted chestnuts that lingers in the air of the busy Baixa and the dull roar of the trams on their breathtaking rises and plunges through the narrow streets of the Chiado. Occasionally you will still see a little, wrinkled face linger behind a half closed shutter furtively surveying the ongoings outside or maybe a curved back swaddled in an apron appearing in a door frame and memories of a time past will resurface, but most of Lisbon is quite polished now with shining chic boutiques, perky hexagenarians, and a lot fewer street dwellers (both human and animal) than twenty years ago. I also must admit that having comfortable heated accommodations was a definite plus, even though the sun was very loyal to us throughout the new year. Truly, as I remembered the many cold, damp evenings, when I had laid awake under several equally cold and damp covers, unable to keep my teeth from clattering, I could not but hail the arrival of progress - even in Portugal.
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