Bairro Alto - yellow tram and brazilian drinks

One evening in Lisbon, Carolina's friends Isabel and To (short form from "Antonio") invited us for dinner. The first surprise of the dinner was that it was suppoused to be on their apartment's terrace on the last floor of the building. So the main dish was planned to be Bacalhau à Brás followed by Caipiroska. What a surprise it was to find out that it is possible to prepare Bacalhau à Brás without bacalhau. It turned out that Isabel is a vegetarian and she usually use leek as a substitute of fish. It was second time when somebody proved me in Portugal that vegetarian cuisine can be as delicious as meat dishes.

Meanwhile, To prepared caipiroskas with black vodka. Try it at home children.

As it was Friday night, Carolina, Isabel, To and Rui decided to show me the most legendary district of Lisbon by night - Bairro Alto. Few days before I went there with Iva and it was completely empty and actually seemed to be quite boring. It was another surprise that this time it was full of people having fun and enjoying the biggest glasses of Mojito I've ever seen. Some of the bars seemed to be quite normal but other ones had really interesting interiors, for example one had green walls and furniture in Japanese style. However, most of the bars had just a few tables inside to encourage people to socialize with the whole surrounding, I suppose.

While having our drinks To was pointing at some people from time to time and telling me what kind of Portuguese celebrity are they.

Bad thing is that the bar-owners are told by the police to close at 2:00am so we moved to some less crowded streets of Bairro Alto passing nearby Rua da Bica, which was so full of people that it was impossible to pass. I went back to that place on the next day... and they were all gone. All of them. Just the yellow Bica was still there on the top of the street as always since 1892.

Every place on Earth has its own mysteries. For me, the biggest mystery of Lisbon are those two little sandals that I've noticed in the middle of the sidewalk somewhere in Bairro Alto.

Hanging around the city at night guarantees seeing things that are impossible to be seen in daylight. One of them is the bakery in Chiado... but it's another story.

Oh well, I don't feel like making additional post about Chiado and Baixa - very touristic and commercial districts of Lisbon.
One night in the middle of the week, Iva and I were exploring the city center. As I mentioned before, Bairro Alto was a deserted place that night so we went down to the main street of Baixa - Rua Augusta. The main pedestrian of the city was quite empty as well... However, suddenly some strange guy appeared in front of us, holding a small package in his hand and whispering "marijuana? marijuana?". Few steps after passing him, the next guy appeared offering us roses. It was too many unexpected offers for that night so Iva commented it: "First they tried to sell us drugs, then thought we're lesbians... what will be next?".
Next thing was the MANGO shop with a bag, which was perfect for Iva's new shoes. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night and Iva never came back again to buy it.