Status Updates From Tales of Lisbon (English Ed...

The second Antonio, Saint Anthony of Lisbon, aka of Padua (…) God put Anthony in charge of helping people to find lost objects and dealing with matters of matchmaking, procreation and marital harmony. (…) He has never given any importance to the contributions and the donations made to the church by supplicants, which is, even among the saints, a true rarity.

Everyone notices that the sky of Lisbon has a different hue than any other, two tones closer to indigo than the regular sky-blue.

(…) when the court physician lit the match in front of the Prince's eye, his pupil contracted - he was still alive. Moments later, when the second match was lit, the Prince's eyes showed no signs of life. In this place, in the Terreiro do Paço, between the flicker of two matches, his entire reign passed—it was here that he inherited his father’s throne; it was here that he handed it on to his younger brother.

In an armchair in the foyer sits a Frenchman reading a Baedeker. He is an extremely tall man, almost two metres in height, with a rather big head and clumsy movements, very loveable and well mannered, just slightly eccentric and perhaps a bit of a poser. He is an aristocrat, more precisely a count, but he is a pilot by profession and a poet in his soul (…)

He explains that his language isn't exactly Spanish or Portuguese, but Judezmo, the language of his ancestors, Jews from these parts who had to move far from the Iberian Peninsula hundreds of years ago. They took their language with them and kept it alive. He himself learned to speak in Judezmo (…) but he can never forget it. Impossible. You don't forget your mother tongue.