You are entering hell...
...should be on a sign as you enter Azeitão on the first Sunday of each month.
First Sunday of the month? Feira day! A huge market selling fresh produce, plants, 'ikkle baby animals for eating, extremely cheap tools and utensils and lots and lots of polyester clothing and knock-off dvds.
It attracts visitors like a huge jar of dubiously authentic honey attracts bees, so much so that I generally don't go anywhere in the village on these days... because I can't move for fear of being run over by maniacal drivers rushing to buy some knock-off Tommy Hilfiger (what IS it about Tommy Hilfiger?) or eat greasÃssimo churros or buy cds for a fiver that have NOTHING ON THEM!
This morning though, I had to leave the house and I sorely regretted having run out of EVERYthing that I needed to eat for breakfast. I was hungry. I steeled myself, let the house, and sat in a traffic jam for twenty minutes. I got stuck in a people-jam at Hell's Supermarket in the main village, being literally beaten up by several dozen old ladies and their shopping bags and hard bread whilst in the queue. Smiling sweetly all the time, obviously, I sat in a bicha (traffic jam) for another twenty minutes to get home, the village and "greater" village swarming with half the population of the country.
Well, there are bargains to be had and it'll be a long time till the next feira... which is next week in the next village but one... a good 6 km away.
Ug.
October 01, 2004
You are entering Hell...