Lisbon

6:00 a.m. It's early when we arrive in Lisbon. Too early. Yet I can't wait to get off the bus. Not because I'm excited--because I've been wedged in among too many people for two many hours. I had the misfortune of a window seat crammed next to one big dude and behind the only guy in the bus who reclined his seat. Weasel. Three hours of sleep, tops. None of it any good. Even still, I miss my stop and get dumped off at the marina. Which, actually was perfect, because it allowed me to get a shot like this.



This part of Lisbon was pumped up for the 1998 World Expo something or another. Yes, I am making that up. I forgot what it was really done for.

6:20 a.m. Lisbon has a fantastic metro--four separate lines that run you throughout the city. Unfortunately, it only helps so much when you don't know where you are going in the city.

8:40 Looks like another non-breakfast day. I down a cappuccino in a little coffee shop in the classic neighborhood that looks a lot like this.


Actually, this was it. Block-and-a-half on the left. Had free wi-fi and a good bathroom so I could feel a little more clean. Could barely order in Portuguese, which is close-but-not-quite Spanish. Enough to be annoying.

10:00 They said they had an area that showed the Moorish roots of Lisbon. I just saw more tiles, and it took me two hours of wandering to get there.


By the time I found my way out of there, an hour had passed and I'd stumbled into a crafty-market. Like the one I live in, only without pressure or narrow streets or jacked-up prices or dust or sellers that don't speak English. So it was nothing like it.


1:15 Now I'm grumpy. Lisbon is a city built on seven hills. I knew this. I didn't know all seven hills lay between me and the nearest metro stop. And there are no signs pointing to it. I've been wandering uphill for the last 90 minutes without any clue if I'm even close to where I'm trying to get. I'm hungry, grumpy, and badly in need of a caffeine buzz.

1:55 Lisbon has the two largest malls in Europe. Apparently. I couldn't find one. But No. 2 had a huge food court. I learned two new phrases.
1. Chicken in Portuguese is Frengo. and
2. Bacon sounds a lot like Vegetarian.

Pri-Pri chicken is famous, spread by Nando's around thh world. I've eaten it in both Kenya and South Africa. I was hoping to find it here. But I settled instead for a bacon-chicken sandwich. At least, that's what I ordered. The guy made a veggie-chicken sandwich. As anyone on break from an Arab country will tell you, the two are not the same. I sent it back. They yanked off the veggies and slapped on two slices of bacon.

If I remembered the name of the restaurant, I'd tell everyone to never go back.

4:00 So there are two things still that set Lisbon apart still. They both are across the bridge from the main city. the first is the bridge, a duplicate of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Named Porte April 25, it commemorates the day Portugal threw off it's own dictator. The bridge was designed by the same architect that did the Golden Gate bridge.



The second is the Criste-Reio statue, Christ the King, a slightly-diminutive version of the Christ-the-Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. It's 28 meters tall and stands 300 feet over Lisbon.


I spent three hours trying to reach them, only to be turned back around 200 feet shy. Bleh.

7 p.m. I have to be conscious of time. The bus leaves in 2.5 hours. It's time, but not a lot. Have to be 30 minutes ahead of schedule. And I still have to find pri-pri chicken. I race through the restaurant district. Italian food. Spanish food. British (?) food. Everything but Pri-Pri chicken. Finally find one guy who is apparently not trying to rip people off. Get the food. Eat it. Delicious.

Then I got the tab. He'd added bread. And olives. And a tip. Added up to €11.80--twice what was the original cost. Not so cool.




8:10 Street musicians--black woman and white man in dreads playing some African-sounding music. Sounds impressive.
8:30--Race back to the subway. Wait for four minutes. I've got 30 minutes to be back to the bus station.
8:41 I overshoot the stop by one. I race around the side and wait on the other side.
8:45. No subway.
8:47, No subway
8:51 Subway finally shows up. Longest wait of the day.
8:58--Get off the subway. Race up the hill. Wait 15 minutes for the bus back to Seville.

One more day...

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