I’m spending a few nights in Lisbon with my parents and my auntie. As I stroll through the streets of Baixa and Alfama during the day, I’m struck by the fact that very few, if any, Portuguese people are walking around. I hear Brazilian Portuguese, English, and a smattering of other languages being spoken, but the only people speaking European Portuguese are police officers, or people working in stores. The last time I spent any decent amount of time in Lisbon was in 2010, and my memories of the place are wildly different. Then, Lisbon felt like the pompous, buttoned up version of my beloved Porto. I remember seeing other tourists, but I don’t really remember anyone speaking English (then again, I was traveling with my Portuguese host family). Bairro Alto’s spooky, quiet beauty will occasionally crop up in my dreams as the backdrop to some saudade-infused whirlwind through some imagined lusophone world.

I feel so uneasy here, like something is tugging at my heart but I can’t figure out in which direction.

After leaving the Castelo de Sao Jorge, I felt an odd emptiness in my heart. I sometimes feel that way when I go to beautiful places to which I feel no connection. It’s like seeing palaces in Prague or Cathedrals in Germany – I have nothing to ground me emotionally in the place, no romantic foothold to stabilize myself amidst the crowds of tourists and the onslaught of misunderstood history.

The only other place that I’ve been to that feels like this is Prague, where the downtown is completely overrun with tourists.

I feel sad thinking about going to a Fado concert. Who would be there? Who would it be for? Is it a living, breathing art form or something that is trapped in time, forever doomed to be performed as an homage to Amalia Rodriguez because that’s what the Tourist expects? I don’t think I could bring myself to do it. The melancholy would only be deepened if I saw some older Portuguese folks attending the concert. The commercialization of saudade.

So far the city feels like walking through a Renaissance fair, or a circus except that instead of taking place in an empty field on the edge of town its happening where people used to live out their lives. As we drink our strawberry matcha lattes, eat our avocado toasts and buy our cork-themese knickknacks the spectre of culture once inhabitated lurks in the shadows.

The saving grace of my first night in Lisbon is the haleem and parathas I got in this little Bangladeshi restaurant near the Baixa. The parathas were freshly made and the haleem was hot and spicy, with chewy connective tissue interspersed with morsels of tender meat.