Peachy in Portugal

So far, excepting my week with the lovely Becka, today was the biggest success I've had on vacation. I made some friends with some intelligent europeans (and a brazilian too) and spent a pleasant and peaceful day in the company of others without having to freak out about everything going perfectly. Again, some valuable lessons learned.

I arrived in Lisbon last night at 8:30, but by the time I loaded up on Brazilian import sausage, got my metro card stuck in the machine, worked my way across town, and eventually found the neighborhood I needed to be in for cheap hostels, it was close to 11. This brings us to note to self #5: don't show up to cities at 11pm and hope to find cheap accommodations. They will either all be taken or be so difficult to get to that you will get frustrated and end up staying at the first available place, often at a premium price.

Seemingly the beginning of another disaster Munich-style, I managed to turn it around with a cool head and a more adventurous personality. Walking past an outdoor restaurant, I overheard some English. Instead of ignoring it and walking past like I might have done before, I stopped, turned around, and asked them, "Do y'all speak English?"

After kicking myself for making a worse intro line than "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?" I was able to pull it together enough to ask a better follow up: "Do y'all know where to stay around here?"

Turns out they did. And they had a buddy who was looking for someplace to stay for the night as well. Maybe we could split a room at their hotel and save some money. Although we ended up paying $35 (for two) instead of the $25 they paid, I wasn't crying about it, just happy to have a place.

The group of 5 (including my recently arrived roommate) and I went out for a bit for some drinks and ended up meeting some other folks in the process. Of the 6 of us, we were a Spaniard (not me), two Belgians, a Czech, a Brazilian, and of course, the Emerican. Four of them were studying at Coimbra, a big Erasmus destination 2 hours north of Portugal. The fifth was working on his medical degree there as well. All were practically fluent in English, although the Belgians and the Czech were a notch above the Brazilian who was herself a notch above Pablo, the Spaniard.

Pablo and I were to stay together, in a tiny room hardly big enough for the smallish double-sized bed. All the Euros rebuffed my attempts to suggest it might be too small for the 6'2" Pablo and I to share, saying "beds are smaller in Europe than in American."

However, when I walked in their room the next morning, I remarked, slightly surprised, to Karel (Czech), "did you guys (he and the Brazilian, Ana, are dating) have two beds?"

"Yes, of course. What would you expect?"

"Well, Pablo and I slept in the same bed."

Laughter ensued. Only made worse by the following comment: "That's too bad, b/c we didn't even use one of the beds!" grrr...

Pablo and I already hadn't gotten the day off to the best start when we trusted my alarm clock I hadn't used in a month to wake us up. It worked alright, and even woke us up at 9:00 like we wanted. Only thing was Portugal's an hour behind Spain and the rest of Europe. Pablo and I didn't realize this until after we had showered, packed, and got ready to meet everyone for breakfast. Having gone to bed at 4:30, every hour counts. I whuffed.

The difference was these whuffs, these problems, this kinks in the plan, didn't affect me as much. One reason is I'm more experienced as a traveler and I've been through some pretty unfavorable situations. But the biggest was that I had other people there to cushion the blows. This was an important lesson.