A TALE OF TWO CHAUVINISMS

the beer is better in portugal. ...right: the beer is better in portugal than in spain. or, rather: the worst beer available in any given restaurant in lisbon is much better (and more varied, which is to say there exists a variety) than the only thing they're probably serving (which is to say cruzcampo) at any restaurant in seville. and in portugal they'll serve you your better than bad beer -- which does have the potential to be very good -- in a u.s. pint glass (and for no more than twice -- but probably much less than -- what they'd charge in seville for your eight ounce glass of mostly cruzcampo foam). just don't try to order it in spanish, because that's not what they speak in portugal (even if they'll tell you in spanish that, no, they speak portuguese). and of course they shouldn't have to, but one might be hard pressed not to be nonplussed at why english passes more easily on the streets than that other unspeakable language from the peninsula. (you can also try your hand at butchering french, the older portuguese understand it well.) for their part, the passing spanish tourists (and the andalucians are particularly unmistakable) are happy not to speak anything at all.

the coffee, i have to admit, is better in portugal as well. they must just make it better -- or it might just be fresher in the cafés in the port city than in the cities of inland spain. after all, the coffees produced in the countries of either former colonial empire have their respective merits. no, portugal did not invent the astrolabe, but the portuguese certainly used it to amazing effect. and alfonso x (the wise) knew that there was going to be some serious competition on the peninsula and ordered the construction of the reales ataranzas in seville for the building of his fleet -- the year before he captured the algarve (and gave it back as soon as portugal acceded to marrying his daughter), and well before spain (no, it was portugal!) discovered most of the rest of the fucking world. as soon as the moors were out, the race was on to see which emerging nation could make itself the better, grander, more sophisticated -- while also the most artisanally authentic -- even if it was impossible to distinguish the two on the basis of sovereign ruler. the king of spain and portugal was half the time getting elected the king of germany too, but that's just christendom for you. the people on the ground were still busy making their daily bread the best they could, regardless of who was sitting on which throne (and i have to admit that the bread is much, much better in portugal).

it makes a kind of funny sense that it was the treaty of lisbon that established the most recent constitutional basis for the european union, the establishment of which was based on the hope that europe shouldn't have to fight within itself any longer, and the result of which on the iberian peninsula appears to have been a simple shift away from the game of kings to a game of passive aggressive economic and cultural one-upmanship. spain pretends not to care. that's the privilege of the wealthier player (and spain should know because it's playing on the opposite side in a similar game with france). but the two newest democracies of western europe do seem to have something especially bitter behind their disregard for each other, and if portugal has been generally poorer, maybe that's just the price it's had to pay for being proud of actually deposing its dictatorship instead of just letting it die and then passing the reins. lisbon, as it were, has the better view.

this is dinner conversation. and yes, the food is good in portugal, but it isn't exactly what you could call cuisine, and i make that appeal to reason to the frenchman across from whom i'm dining, but he refuses to acquiesce. i don't care, he's only been to barcelona, and we all know that catalonia might as well be france (or portugal). but surely he must understand my point. that restaurant on the alameda, i tell him, was perfectly fine, it was even rather good. the portuguese were only complaining to complain (and even the portuguese said so). but no, he complains, he's tired of being greeted and thanked in spanish because that really isn't at all what he speaks (although he does speak all three languages of portugal). ok. i just thought he should know, you know, because chauvin was french. and we decamp.

later, on the streets of bairro alto, it's true: the spanish aren't doing much to make a better reputation for themselves. the neighborhood is still, in general, a bit shabby (if charmingly so), and the andalucians have felt enough at home comport themselves that way and disturb the native calm. but it might not be long before the neighborhood gets the treatment. for their part, the portuguese seem to have fostered a national complex after the earthquake that leveled the central flats of lisbon in 1755. the city and the country might need to be rebuilt at any moment, and so the city and the country are full of architects. but the frenchman doesn't find it at all funny when i point out that for all its english education and proud internationalism portugal wasn't able to supply its national association of architects with a design consultant that could keep it from emblazoning its headquarters all over with such suspectly nondescript aa's.

ugh. so not that i really have any allegiance one way or the other, but when the man trying to sell me oversize sunglasses between the bars hears mention of seville and smiles "de mi alma" in my direction i decide to give him two euro just because. it might not have been quite the grand gesture in spain, but at the bars in bairro alto two euro can buy quite a bit of better than bad beer. and after a couple of hours of drinking on the people watch, the borrowed rivalry between the frenchman and i is friendly again, but it doesn't mean that the game isn't still on. ultimately, what's two euro to me. i mean, you're the ones who didn't have fireworks at christmas.

maybe it's because it's carnaval weekend and the harder party-ers are off in setúbal or sesimbra, but the crowded, narrow streets of bairro alto on a saturday night are strangely bucolic. i wonder out loud if in a similar situation of drunken outdoor proximity there wouldn't already have been a riot were we in spain. but it isn't as if the portuguese are silent, and there are signs of protests and demonstrations planned for throughout the weekend. beer may still be cheap in portugal, but that's not exactly the reality of the austerities. lisbon isn't just taking to the streets at night. and neither, for its part, is spain. even beyond the noise of the valencian spring, sanitation workers are fighting city hall in seville and the agricultural unions are demonstrating for strict control of the use of transgenic seeds in front of the andalucian parliament building. not that the portuguese and the spanish are so ready to admit that they might be in the same boat (or to agree on which is the better boat builder), but there's no denying that french-portuguese or american-spanish, we might all soon be greek.