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It's been a while since I was in a new country. Mostly I've traveled in places where I speak the language and where I have enough experience that I know a few basics like when and what to eat. Being by myself in Lisbon for the night was the most foreign experience I've had in a while.
Maps don't work very well in the tangle of alleys and stairs in Alfama. Going home at midnight the streets were quiet except for soft voices or the clink of plates behind lighted windows. Coming across dreamlike tinseled plazas was disorienting in the quiet, without anyone to ask about what the occasion was. Behind a billowing white sheet outside a window I was startled to see a woman watching me without expression. And of course I met many a Portuguese cat, none of which wanted anything to do with me.