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Source text - English Now Playing in Lisbon: The Late, Late Show
By ANDREW FERREN
Published: October 30, 2005
IT is midnight on a Saturday in the Bairro Alto, Lisbon's famously raucous High Neighborhood, but the only thing moving is the laundry fluttering in the breeze between the balconies of the grand but dilapidated buildings that line the streets. A few plaintive strains of fado, the distinctly mournful songs of longing that are said to define the collective Portuguese character, waft out of the small neighborhood restaurants geared to tourists. Some cafes and bars are open, but the feeling is that things are winding down, not up.
Don't be fooled. Navigating these lanes an hour later will require a very reduced definition of "personal space" to make any headway through streets teeming with enough high-spirited Portuguese youth to make one doubt - even granting that you may already be seeing double - if this can really be a country of just 10 million people.
Cheek by jowl doesn't begin to describe this crowd. The game is full contact - hand on back, hands on bottom, hand squeezing bicep, caipirinha spilled on special- edition Adidas - as revelers snake their way through the throngs.
The storefronts that were shuttered minutes before have burst open, revealing an endless array of small bars, the decoration of which seems to have been left to young art students and fashion designers.
At Alto Bar, Travessa dos Fiéis Deus, 33-31, lone bartenders manning 1950's- vintage crushed ice machines somehow manage to grind out enough vodka and strawberry or pineapple-laced slush - the drinks are called morangoskas or ananoskas, respectively - to keep everyone swaying through the night. Getting to the bar requires dancing with the three girls blocking it until one of them gets a call on her cellphone and leaves an opening.
(…)
In the light of day, Lisbon is breathtakingly beautiful, like San Francisco. There are steep hills, clanging cable cars, azure skies with sweeping vistas of bay, bridges and the vast expanse of ocean beyond, as well as an over-the-top architectural bent of the sort that seems to evolve in wealthy, worldly cities that have been devastated by earthquakes (85 percent of the city was leveled by a massive temblor in 1755).
The magisterial scale of Lisbon's buildings and public spaces, from the monastery of Los Jerónimos to the Praça del Comérçio, can be staggering. But as the Portuguese empire unraveled - the country once held sway over large swaths of Africa, South America and the Far East - it seems that the people stopped painting the buildings and let the weeds sprouting between the cracks grow into trees and vines that still cling to their crumbling tile-encrusted facades.
Restoration and renovation are rampant in the city today but still emanating from the fault lines is a wistful air, at once melancholy and poetic, that is so often ascribed to the Portuguese temperament. Central to fado's forlorn lyrics is the concept of saudade, a term meaning bittersweet nostalgia or longing that has no adequate translation. THAT sensation walks the night as well, especially for the generation of Portuguese who grew into adulthood during the movida of the 1990's, as the country's post-dictatorship social rebellion was called.
New restaurants, bars and clubs can come and go with astonishing frequency - often within the space of six months or a year - so it stands to reason that at least a few tried and true places, like the always packed restaurant Pap' Açorda in the Bairro Alto, or the bar Pavilhão Chinês (Chinese Pavilion), remain atop many people's lists. (…) Lux, Avenida Infante Henrique, Cais da Pedra a Santa Apolónia, is often the final destination of the night. Lisbon's biggest draw for worldly revelers on the international party circuit is in a former waterfront warehouse, and at 3 a.m., whether you're in its vast gilded and glowing spaces or still among the orderly lines of expectant entrants patiently waiting out front, the boisterous and rough- cut bonhomie of Bairro Alto seem worlds away.
Translation - Spanish En directo desde Lisboa: El show de medianoche
Por Andrew Ferren
Fecha de publicación: 30 de octubre de 2005
Es la medianoche de un sábado en Bairro Alto, el famoso y ruidoso barrio elevado de Lisboa, pero el único movimiento existente proviene de la ropa agitada por la brisa en los balcones de los edificios imponentes y ruinosos que dibujan las calles. Unas notas quejumbrosas de fado, el canto triste y nostálgico que, según dicen, define el carácter de los portugueses, llega desde los pequeños restaurantes del vecindario destinados a los turistas. Hay algunos cafés y bares abiertos, pero el ambiente es más de relajación que de agitación.
No nos dejemos engañar. Atravesar estos callejones una hora más tarde implicará una concepción del “espacio personal” muy reducida pero necesaria para abrirse paso entre calles tan rebosantes de jóvenes portugueses que le harán plantearse a uno —incluso aceptando que esté viendo doble— que éste sea un país de solo 10 millones de habitantes.
La expresión codo con codo se queda corta para describir esta multitud. Se produce un verdadero deporte de contacto —manos en las espaldas, en los traseros, manos estrujando bíceps, caipiriña derramada en unas zapatillas Adidas edición especial— mientras los juerguistas serpentean entre la muchedumbre.
Los escaparates que unos minutos antes estaban cerrados abren repentinamente y muestran una hilera interminable de pequeños bares, la decoración de los cuales parece haber sido delegada a estudiantes de bellas artes y diseñadores de moda.
En el Alto Bar (Travessa dos Fiéis Deus 33-31) un solo camarero manipulando antiguas máquinas de picar hielo de los años cincuenta consigue, de algún modo, preparar suficiente vodka con sabor a fresa o piña —las bebida se llama morangoska o ananoska, según sea— para hacer que todo el mundo siga tambaleándose toda la noche. Para entrar en el bar tengo que bailar con las tres chicas que bloquean la puerta hasta que una de ellas recibe una llamada al móvil y deja un resquicio.
(...)
Como San Francisco, de día Lisboa es de una belleza deslumbrante. Hay colinas empinadas, tranvías traqueteantes, cielos azulinos y vistas magníficas de la bahía, los puentes y la vasta inmensidad del océano, así como una inclinación arquitectónica desmesurada que parece desarrollarse particularmente en las capitales prósperas asoladas por terremotos (el gran temblor de 1755 arrasó con el 85 por ciento de la ciudad).
La magnificencia de los edificios y los espacios públicos de Lisboa, desde el monasterio de Los Jerónimos hasta la Praça del Comérçio, es asombrosa. Pero con la caída del imperio portugués —el país llegó a dominar extensas franjas de África, Suramérica, y el Lejano Oriente— parece como si la gente hubiera decidido no pintar los edificios y dejar brotar las raíces de las grietas hasta convertirse éstas en árboles y enredaderas que siguen aferrándose a las ruinosas fachadas de tejas.
Actualmente las tareas de restauración proliferan en la ciudad, pero de la fallas emana todavía una aire de nostalgia, melancólico y poético al mismo tiempo, tan a menudo atribuido al carácter portugués. El concepto de saudade, un término que significa nostalgia o añoranza agridulces y que no tiene una traducción adecuada, es fundamental en las letras tristes del fado. Esa sensación también está presente en la noche, sobre todo por parte de aquellos portugueses que eran adolescentes en la movida de los noventa, cuando la rebelión social posdictadura tuvo lugar.
Se abren y cierran nuevos bares y restaurantes con tanta rapidez —a menudo en espacio de seis meses o un año— que parece razonable que unos pocos sitios auténticos, como el siempre abarrotado Pap’ Açorda, en el Bairro Alto, o el bar Pavilão Chinês (el pabellón chino) permanezcan entre los favoritos de la gente.
(...)
El Lux (Avenida Infante Henrique, Cais da Pedra a Santa Apolónia) suele ser el sitio donde terminar la noche. El mayor reclamo de Lisboa para los juerguistas del circuito de fiesta internacional se encuentra en un antiguo almacén del puerto, y a las 3 de la madrugada, esté uno en sus inmensos ambientes de brillos dorados o esperando junto a la cola de fieles expectantes que aguardan pacientemente en la entrada, la afabilidad bulliciosa y prosaica del Bairro Alto parece estar a galaxias de distancia.
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Translation education
Master's degree - UPF (Barcelona)
Experience
Years of experience: 2. Registered at ProZ.com: Jul 2012.
I am a spanish translator with a background in arts and music. I offer quality translations at an affordable price.
I hold a bachelor's degree in Philosophy and a MD in Translation. My fields of expertise are real estate, music, tourism and social sciences, amongst others. I translate from English and French into Spanish.
Fields of expertise:
-Music
-Literature
-Real Estate
-Telecommunications
-Tourism
-Social sciences
I deliver quality translations with consistency, accuracy and idiomatic expressions in the target language. Having a musical background, I can also offer very good translations within the music field.
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