Lisbon, Portugal.

Day 1: I sure can pick ‘em. This hotel was in an of out the way back alley. I waited 3/4 hrs for a bus that's supposed to come every 20 minutes to get into the vicinity of the place and then walked through winding back streets that made me afraid I’d be mugged, but made it safely to the hotel and it was a nice clean place with a comfy bed.

Day 2: I ate the basic breakfast provided with the room and then wandered down into town to try to find a train station. Which was actually a lot more difficult than you’d think given the number of places I’ve been to now. You’d think I’d be good at navigating to and identifying different transport systems. The problem is that for every place you go to, the signs for how a train station is marked change, so I spent a good 20 minutes wandering around a massive intersection that was marked on my map as having a train station within it but only stumbled on it by accident because it wasn’t marked like any other train system I’d ever come across.

However, once found, the metro was clean, efficient, fast and spacious. It was very easy to understand too and absolutely lovely in comparison to the tube. And I’m sorry Helen, but it's even nicer than the Swedish equivalent. Which is odd, because the rest of Lisbon is well warn, quite frayed around the edges and has an air of decay. But in its defence it is old, and very well used and very well loved by the feel of things, so this isn’t necessarily a disadvantage.

As half of the reason that I came to Portugal was to see some sunshine and a beach and the sea, I wandered down into the centre of town, down the main boulevard and down to the shore. It was bitterly disappointing. It was all fenced off and very rocky, really not much to look at all and definitely not the sort of place you’d relax on. So I went to a café instead and had a cup of tea and a custard tart, which is a specialty of Lisbon (a more jellied version of your standard tart and sweeter), then went off to play tourist.

A little description; Lisbon is surrounded by, and drapes itself all over, 7 hills, and so has developed a network of quaint trams to get it’s inhabitants around, up and down. I caught the no 28 tram to the top of one of the hills, to a region called Alfama, and boy are parts of Lisbon ever STEEP! The tram was on a 45-degree angle for a lot of the time, and no, I am not joking!

Once up, I walked around and took pictures of and visited various places including the Igreja de Graca (a church), the Feira de Ladre (thieves market), had lunch in front of the Museu de Artes Decorativas and then wandered on to my main objective, the Castelo de Sao Jorge (Castle of Saint George!).

Which was Wow may I just say! It was better than sex, more exhilarating than a roller coaster ride, better food for my soul than any music and more satisfying than chocolate. It was fantastic. A real castle with real arrow slits that had been used in real battles, with a real draw bridge and real moat, real towers and the whole turret thing happening… I was in heaven. The castle’s first foundations were laid in 138 BC…. 138 BC. He he he he…wow. It wasn’t until 711 though, when the Moors arrived, that it was fortified and the mosque was built. It was fought over and sacked in the crusades in 1147. The actual crusades… yes I’m repeating myself but just being there with so much history made me dizzy. And I got pictures of some cats play fighting in the moat and some very gorgeous peacocks wandering out the front of the draw bridge, so it was all in all a magical interlude for me.

After which I took many, many winding streets down to the centre of town again. My feet were incredibly sore by the time I reached the bottom and my calves were killing me, not from walking but from the limestone cobbles everywhere that make walking an interesting proposition. So what did I do? I decided to put them through more torture and walked up another hill so see the bones of a church ruined in an earthquake in 1755. The Convento do Carmo was a Carmelite convent built in 1423. It has been 1/2 restored so is now a false ruin, but is breath-taking none-the less.

Then it was time to find my way to the place that was the ostensible reason for my visit: The Publico Atlantico, Lisbon’s entertainment centre equivalent, situated next door to the convention centre. To get there, I had to take a train, and coming out of the Orient train station, I will admit to being shocked. The station entrance looks like a crab about to eat you. Very cool.

The mushroom of the Publico Atlantico is also impressive. The roof is open under the eves, so even in the walkways surrounding the main stadium, the sound is just as loud as if you were inside the stadium itself. The Cure produced a fantastic concert as usual. The entire stadium was on it’s feet jumping in time to the music by the halfway mark. I was thrilled to hear some old favourites amongst their new stuff but left early to avoid the rush. I caught a taxi to save 30 mins of extra train travel and it cost me only 4 euro... Portugal is nicely not that expensive! I then crashed.

Day 3: Today I decided to be decadent and find a place to sit and read and absorb sunlight. In hopes of which I went first to the Parque Edwardo VII. It’s a huge linear garden but acts as more of a thoroughfare than a place to sit, and it was very steep and very windy, so I didn’t stop. I did however find a lovely restaurant behind the garden, situated beside a pond where I was able to relax for a bit. I had loads of tea and saw a tortoise, some tadpoles, some huge goldfish, and ducklings... But sitting at a restaurant table didn’t meet the requirement of sun-bathing.

So it was on to the university botanical garden, the Jardin Botanico. I think I might have mentioned that Lisbon is hilly? Well this was the first botanical garden I’ve been to where hiking boots are almost a requirement, not because of the muck and dirt but because of the steepness and rockiness of the paths. No manicured paradise this. Like all of Lisbon, a little warn, a little frayed around the edges, a little old and very well used. There was not much grass round, but here I finally found a place to lie down and read in the sun. Until the clouds rolled in… *sigh*… home time.

Just one more oddity to mention; traffic lights in Lisbon. They are very interesting. They use really small lights which are situated in the same alignment as the line that the cars stop at. I honestly have no idea how the drivers could see them, because I couldn’t, and they don’t get a second set across the intersection either. A mystery to be investigated on another visit I think.

Coming home our plane was delayed due to horrible weather in London. Delays seem to be part and parcel of plane travel. If you do enough of it, you’ll be delayed. It is just a fact of life. And at any rate, this delay wasn’t too bad. It was nothing compared to the delays in the US I had when I went through LAX when nobody wanted to tell us anything. The staff on this flight kept us informed at all times of what was going on, and the captain was really gracious, inviting anyone who wanted to, to come up to the flight deck and chat or ask questions or anything. Really lovely.
Of course, expectation management is the hardest. We got on board on time as usual, but then sat on the plane for two hours whilst the time we were able to land got pushed back and back at Heathrow. Eventually they told us all to get off, so we sat in the terminal for another couple of hours. Then they got us - hurriedly - back on board but we then had to sit and wait for another hour and a half. A lot of the passengers were getting upset because they had thought we were leaving the first time and to be delayed again… Well, I arrived at Lisbon airport at 5 am, was supposed to have landed at Heathrow at 9.30 so was hoping to be at work by 10.30. I didn’t make it to work until 3.30 pm. I suppose all things considered a delay of 5 hours isn’t bad. But I was totally wiped out by the time I did get to work.

Mind you there really is no point in getting annoyed or angry in any situation over which you have no control. It only makes you feel miserable, and by griping, you make everyone around you equally miserable. It’s best to take it all with a relaxed attitude which is what I tried to do. There’s nothing you can do about it, so what’s the point in making yourself sick with worry? There was one guy who had a tendency to be extremely ornery and who was doing just that – making everyone else around him miserable. I was getting very annoyed with the way he was badgering the poor flight attendants, when they couldn't do anything either, but luckily his attention was caught by the lovely lady sitting across the isle from him (intentionally on her behalf I believe) and his demeanour changed markedly. Last I saw of them they were sitting cosily in a cafe in Heathrow having both missed connections but not seeming to care at all - 8 hours of forced contact and co-inhabitancy will do that to you. So all’s well that ends well.