Jon and I arrived in Coimbra at about 9PM without having reached Rui first. At the train station, the public phone decided that it would eat all our money, leaving us penniless and without transportation. Fortunately, the hotel next door changed some bills for me and I returned to the station with a pocketful of change. Rui came within 5 minutes of us calling, and he took us to dinner at a place called Ossos de Whatever the owner's name is. The specialty of the house is salty boiled ribs served with a big bowl of tomato rice. And according to Rui, the chocolate mousse is out of this world.

 

After dinner we headed to a bar near the university that used to be a communist hotspot. Now, however, its a wannabe communist hotspot. Lots of young people in grunge. Apparently the new fashion these days is to wear wrestling shoes with normal outfits. I saw a lime green pair at a table nearby. Rui decided that we'd sit with the two oldest men in the joint, both street artists. One is known as the 'drunk Iraqi' and his nickname held true that night. He was both intoxicated and Iraqi, as was quickly made evident to us. He gave me a pastel drawing he made, only to take it back at the end of the night because he decided that he liked it. It was this abstract portrait of a woman with one big eye and black hair, only by the end of the night they eye was purple and green and so was the hair and the whole thing was all smudged around. I'm sort of glad he decided to take it back. What really annoyed me was that he kept mooching cigarettes off people and asked Jon for a beer not only for himself but for his friend as well. And then asked for more things. Once is enough, I say.

 

Because there were three of us at this point, Rui drove us to his summer house in Figueira de Foz, about 40 km away from Coimbra to the southwest. In total contrast to Rute's place, this apartment was immaculate. We all stayed up to the wee hours watching silly TV shows and talking and eating chocolate cookies. Unfortunately, that meant we didn't wake up until well past noon the next day, only to have to hurry Jon to the train station to catch his train to Lisbon. In the two hour block between that and my bus to Leiria, Rui gave me the whirlwind tour of Coimbra. We walked up and down the old city steps that have the name 'backbreaking steps' because they are so steep and worn smooth with time. Myth has it that every student must fall at least once to graduate. Much of the University of Coimbra' s architecture is Fascist, built in the 1930s under the regime of Salazar , which also means the spoon you scoop salt with. I didn't get to see much else, but overall got the feeling that Coimbra is a nice town, sort of like an older, greyer San Francisco.