may flower in lisboa

May flower in Lisbon is a light purple flower in the tree backed by the early summer sunshine, which at least I had not known its name. I saw it on a local bus going to the historical Belen district. It was in the morning, maybe at 9:00 am, on Friday. There were lots of commuters in the bus and at the narrow street that the bus went through. When the bus turned around a corner, and suddenly we, the passengers on the bus, were surrendered by the roadside trees that had full, light purple colors. As usual, the bus commuters read books, push cell phones, and chatted with each other. An out-of-towner, I, kept looking up for a while without thinking anything.

Here was Lisbon, in the morning, on May, early summer or late spring.

cabo da roca

Reaching the west end of the Eurasian Continent, I saw the blue sea, just like the sea I used to see in somewhere. It may be like the one I saw at the beach in Nice, France, muuu, no, it's not. Not like my favorite sea I had seen in my home country for 18 years. It's hard to say how the Atlantic was like what I had in my mind. Anyway, I kept seeing the Atlantic, thinking that several years ago, I used to see the opposite direction of the sea from Boston, USA. Coming to here, I took a local bus. The driver made his local bus speedy as if he enjoyed kinds of his newly created motor sports, or roller coaster in his amusement park.

Here was Roca, I came here from Sintra.

restaurant sacrament

When I asked one of the best restaurants in here, the guy in the hotel reception said, restaurant sacrament, without hesitation. The guy was young, maybe in his early 20's, and sharply wore the hotel's tailored uniform. He kept telling how we could reach his most favorite place in Lisbon. He kindly gave us, I mean, my wife, son and me, a map with the mark where we must go.

We took almost an hour to find the avenue or maybe street named "sacrament", at the center of the city. Walking around there, I found the streak of the rio tajo's light reflecting the sunset glow through the narrow alley. The breeze was a little bit cold, but the heat in daytime still remained around here and there.

At the middle of the sacrament street, we found the restaurant. Going through the front glass door, we found the stylish decorations set nicely. The colors of the tables and chairs was enough dark to make us calm after taking a long desperate journey to look for the dinner. Obviously, this kind of mood in here was not suitable for the typical family tourist, in short, us, but for the young couple who were eager to enjoy having a lovely date. We convinced it when finding the beautiful red roses on top of our dishes.

Anyway, the all dishes we ordered were fabulous. Maybe, the reception guy truly had good memories in here, and we were happy to know that.

Here was Lisbon, we can say Lisboa, Portuguese Republic.

mechelen

Walking down a street in the city of Mechelen, I hardly saw the stores and shops open on Sunday. Along with this street, I found several famous, expensive apparel shops, like Hugo Boss, but closed. Only small-sized grocery stores, like a mini-GB (chain-store owned by Carrefour), were open, and these somehow seemed to prevent the street from being a part of the ghost town.

The street comes from in front of the train station of Mechelen, and when starting from there, I firstly found myself in the middle of the quasi-American, normal, or unusual, street. There were restaurants around there with a little bit big and colorful, but old and lost luster signboards. The buildings were not new, but not too old.

Until walking across the small canal in the city, and finding the top of the cathedral, I hardly realized from now on, I was going to the small parts of the medieval romance in this small city. The small canal was like a boarder between the new and the old, or 21th and 13, 14th.

As getting closer to the heart of the small city, I heard the tone of carillon coming from the cathedral. Amazingly, one of the songs was relatively new, "Yesterday", the Beatles number.

Here was Mechelen, Belgium.