Lisbon, day 1/2

After a deliciously free breakfast of hot chocolate and bread, the 6 of us started out for Belém, a suburb of Lisbon but loaded with touristy things to do. I booked a hotel at the tourist office for 20€ per night. The twist was when we saw the name of it: Dos Naçaos, the same place we'd stayed at the night before. I'd paid 35€, the others had paid 25€, but for the next two nights, I would pay 20€. It's Portugal.

At 11:30, we finally boarded the cable car for Belém. After a 30 minute excrutiatingly slow and packed ride, we made it to the Torre Belém (pictured, below left), Monument to the Discoverers (pictured, right), and the Monastery of Jerónimos.

After spending a few hours in Belém, we took a bus back that was faster (but not much) than the cable car to the Oceanarium on the opposite side of town. It was cool and definitely worth the time and money to see Europe's second largest aquarium, but didn't really come close to rivaling Shedd in Chicago. There were 4 exhibits representing the four main oceans (Indian, Atlantic, Pacific, and Artic) around the outside of the huge central tank that held sharks, sunfish (largest bony fish in water that can weigh up to 2 tons) and other larger swimmers. The Penguin exhibit was rather lame, and since I judge all aquariums by the strength of their Penguins, I couldn't give it my complete recommendation. Still, very cool, and one of the better things to do in Lisbon.

The group was a lot of fun, and even a day was enough time to get a feel for the individual characters and humor that everyone had. Lieven, one of the Belgians, needed some bootie badly and kept taking 'babe of the week' photos every hour.
We took a ton of photos, so hopefully I'll be able to include them later.

When they finally left, I felt as if we'd spent a lot more time together than just a day, and it made me realize how important it is to have someone to travel with, if just for sanity's sake.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to the hotel, they had given my room away 5 minutes earlier. They said I had needed to show up at 6 to ensure they don't give away the reservation. Fortunately, the woman was nice and worked her butt off to find me somewhere else. I ended up having to carry my two 20kg bags up two broken escaltors of 215 stairs each, but at the end, I found a 95€ per night hotel waiting for me with my own private bathroom and shower. Since she somehow decided it was her fault for giving up the reservation, I only had to pay 20€ each night. I think it was worth it.

After my relaxing bath, I headed out to Barrio Alto, the nightlife of the town for a bite to eat and to use the internet.

Today was nothing special, although I managed to find a fantastic old Moorish castle (Castelo São Jorge) and pretend to be an archer shooting down the Christians. I probably wouldn't have spent this day here if I had to do Lisbon again, but I did enjoy not having the need to rush everywhere and see everything before the ticking time bomb went off.

I'm not in love with Lisbon - I wouldn't agree with the Spaniard on my bus with whom I had the following conversation:

Me: Does anyone know where the bus is?
Spaniard: No. But this is common. It's Portugal. It's the third world.

...but I don't think it's got quite the history Paris or the extravagance of London. In fairness, it's probably a lot like Madrid with a bit of poor southern Spain mixed in. Not a ton to see, a few cool public squares, lots of sun, but a bit falling apart.

Tomorrow I leave for Dublin, at 10:20 Portugal time. I'll have a day there before I take an afternoon flight to New York to see Becka. If things keep going as well as they are now, I'll be very pleased....