After a long summer hiatus, Shortcut is resuming its portrait series - this week we're profiling Claudia, who reports from Lisbon and runs the popular blog "O Mundo De Claudia". Claudia joined Shortcut pretty much from the start, adding a weekly dose of quirky, urbane and poetic insights into the Portuguese soul.

How / Why did you start blogging?

A couple of friends had just started their blogs and I thought to myself that having my own blog would be an excellent motivation for me to stop being lazy and finally start writing what was on my mind - instead of scribbling keywords into notebooks for later development. There's nothing like public visibility to put some pressure unto yourself. Exceeding my expectations, it became my own searchable, categorized notebook. A notebook that I happen to share.

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by claudia dias

My favourite subway station in Lisboa is an enigmatic cave of walls filled with maps, mathematical and astronomical references, symbols, philosophical and literary quotations...the main theme being the Portuguese seafaring explorations.

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by claudia dias

The Lisboa Annual Festivities are here! The air is thick with the smoke of grilled sardines, the old neighborhoods are lively with pimba music and boys buy manjericos for their sweethearts. Buying a manjerico in June is a minor tradition around here. It's a plant closely related to basil - smells beautifully - and a paper carnation is usually stuck in the vase. The carnation carries a really sassy little poem involving love or courtship. They're called St. Anthony's quatrains.

Ó Santo António de Lisboa,

Tu que tens fama de casamenteiro,

Se o casamento fosse coisa boa

Tu próprio não ficarias solteiro!

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Illustration by VitriolicaFrom Vitriolica's excellent blog, unkempt women, comes this nugget of whistful cross-cultural analysis:

However long I live here (seven years so far if you're counting), I will probably always find myself in conversations thus:
Portuguese Person: My god, this heat is incredible.
Vitrischmolica: Yes, it really is very hot.
Portuguese Person: I mean, for May, it's really too much, isn't it?
Vitrischmolica: Yes, it really is a scorcher.
Portuguese Person: Really, it's unbearable. I don't know how I'm going to make it to the summer... I think I may end up sick because of it.
Vitrischmolica: Yes, it feels rather like August already, doesn't it.
Portuguese Person: I can't quite believe it. I feel like I might melt at any moment, I've never liked it when it's this hot. I'll never get used to it. Quite quite unbearable.
Vitrischmolica: Ooh, yes, it really is too much. I....
Portuguese Person: Well, you just aren't used to it yet.
*big sigh*

More of Vitriolica's cross-cultural analysis here.

Links: Unkempt Women 

via fabrica blog 

The folks at Fabrica are setting up shop in Lisboa:

After five years of creative input in the Portuguese capital, Fabrica Features store Lisboa, has been re-designed and re-energized by the Design team and the new head of department Sam Baron.

The new shop managers, Cristina and Marta were selected for their artistic background (Fine Arts school of Lisboa) and have been also themselves involved in the store re-design as illustrators of the 'free expression' wall in the loung area and music presentation (www.caoceito.com).

The store will host monthly events including cd and book launches, new poducts presentation and exhibits such as the latest 'Familiarities'.

Artists and designers are invited to submit their work and presentations - the space also functions as a gallery and host to creative works from around the world.

by o mundo de claudia 

Chemistry by Ignasi Aballí at the Fundação de Serralves, Porto

(stickers on a window) 

by o mundo de claudia

While showing a foreign friend around town, we bumped into a very characteristic sight in the old parts of Lisboa: knickers hanging outside right on your face. He took the mandatory tourist photo of it and, later, browsing on Flickr, I found out that he wasn't the only tourist to do so.

"Maybe, the knickers are a sign. You know, in Amsterdam they close the red curtains and in Lisboa they hang out the knickers while they're busy."

"Noooo! They're not prostitutes!"

But the touristy imaginative ramble goes on.

"Or, maybe, since they don't have windows like in Amsterdam, clients can judge their appearance by the size of their knickers. Boy, apparently all portuguese prostitutes are huge!"

So, the proper explanation is: these are old women's knickers. They hang them outside because these are centuries old buildings and they have no back yard. And yes, in small, old neighbourhoods people aren't as fond as their privacy as in most other places.

by o mundo de claudia 

Watch the ad that inspired the look of the men in mini shorts above. They are spoofing the sculptural woman who appears in the bottled gas commercial, the current Portuguese obsession....

The Kenyan Lel won the city's 16th Half Marathon. But much more interesting was the mini-marathon (7 km long) where just about everyone participates. You can see whole families strolling along the Golden-Gate-like bridge, grandmother's to toddlers. In fact that's about the only reason to participate on this event since pedestrians aren't usually allowed on the bridge which is a great place to have a good view of the city. It's also a minor tradition to dress outrageously so that the cameramen notice you and you can wave to mom.

by o mundo de claudia

As any Benfica supporter might testify, going to a Benfica match is more of a religious ritual than anything else.
Dress code: red.

Any match should start or end with a visit to the trailers outside the stadium. You have a choice between a variety of sandwiches which will increase your cholesterol to a probable-death-by-heart-attack level:

- "bifanas" - greasy pork meat sandwiches
- "entremeadas" - greasy pork meat sandwiches; can be identified by the stripe of pure fat in the middle of the rest of the meat;
- "coiratos" - greasy pork skin sandwiches; these are pure fat.

A tip: the trailer with the lowest standards of hygiene always has the best sandwiches

++++

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by claudia dias

A must-visit place in Lisboa is this versatile space near the Castle called Santiago Alquimista . There you can have a drink and watch a show, usually some kind of alternative-youg-artist-performance. This last weekend was dedicated to presenting some cutting edge work by Portuguese and international artists. A very interesting performance involved a trapezist wriggling inside a plastic wrap. Nice visual effect.

via mundo de claudia 

The real Lisboa can be found on the old neighbourhoods around the medieval castle - Alfama, Mouraria; each neighbourhood is like a small village, people walk around on their sleepers on the narrow streets and everyone knows each other.

It's the best place to hear some Fado sang by plain people and not the fancy "professionals". Fado is a traditional Portuguese song, melancholic and tragic at times. Fado means literally fate, but also conveys that inexpressible state of mind for which the Portuguese are famous for having a special word: Saudade. A longing for something that isn't there any more; the emptiness a loved one leaves in your heart when he's not around.

It's really fun to have dinner on these small restaurants where you feel like you're eating in someone's dining room. All of a sudden, they dim the lights and two men start playing the Portuguese guitar. A weeping sound. The neighbours come and, one at a time, sing their songs.

(but yes, Lisboa is growing quite a bit and becoming much more cosmopolitan than it used to be)

More on Fado. More on Saudade. More on the Portuguese guitar