It is Monday the 18th of March and I am On The Road Again. I took the grand dog Piper Pears to the kennel about 10am. Her mother will pick her up Wednesday. Spent the rest of the time packing and charging the cell phones and computer. Left for the airport bus station about 3:30 and actually found a parking space.
One learns to recognize the open spaces as they are flagged by a break in the double parked cars. The valet operation puts all the cars in their control perpendicular to and blocking all the cars that are owner parked and not in valet control. A break in the double parked cars signals that someone has arrived to pick up their self parked car and valet had to create an opening for the owner to get out. My opening looked tight but no problem getting Kim’s new Subaru Forester in and sending her the col and row coordinates where she can retrieve it Thursday after work with the spare key she carries.
The bus ride to Logan was uneventful except for the first spotting of my trip partner. A trip partner is someone you do not know but run in 3 times on a trip. My partner is 76, ex Air Force. I have not spoken to him but the rules are that I will when I see him a 3D Time. He was on the tap flight with me to Lisbon but I only saw him in the snaking line waiting to go through Portuguese immigration. Never saw him the required third time!
Somehow I managed to print the boarding pass without having entered the pre check TSA number. I had to take shoes, belt off and have the backpack re-scanned when the snor machine was detected. I tried showing the letter from TSA that I carry and thought about going to the TAP counter to get a new pass but the line looked too long.
I had dinner at Logan’s beerless beer works. Last time! The bar on the other wing had several good looking taps while beer works had only 3 beers on when I ordered and I had drunk them down to only 2 to offer to people after I left. I had the buffalo grilled chicken with sweet potatoes fries. Really quite delicious.
I had a great couple next to me on the bar stools. She grew up with a summer house in south Bristol Maine. One summer she worked at The Rocktide motel and restaurant in Boothbay Harbor and met him husband. He had been making snow at Sugarloaf and came down with a group from Gepeto to work at the present boat house restaurant. They now live in Worcester where she teaches 3d grade. They are off for a week to Rome, Siena, Florence. I think this may be a repeat of a trip last year. He is a big cyclist. Does a long Oregon ride and goes out at 7am from South Bristol regularly. We somehow got on the topic of Maine and South Bristol and that Kim and I have a house on Squirrel Island in Boothbay Harbor. This couple likes to come to Squirrel for lunch but lately has had trouble finding a mooring. I was able to give them a card and hopefully they will remember the name Pears and we can help them find a mooring. They have one daughter in NYC.
After leaving Beerless, I picked up a S-L-O-W Cesar salad to go. I dropped the grilled chicken when the server warned me about a 15 minute wait but still had to wait and I boarded the plane late. I dumped the 3 coats and the rolly before arrival at window 13k but then held everyone up as I stuffed the snor machine, tubes and binocular into an extra backpack and overheaded it. Finally had the woman in 13h stand so I could enter.
The problem is that the coats do not fit in my suitcase. I carry them so I can always put them on if required. The backpack is also too stuffed to go under the seat so I transfer items not needed in the air to what would be an illegal 3d carry on and overhead it. Now the backpack fits fairly comfortably.
My seat partner is from Bulgaria, living in the US. She is on her way to meet her grandmother in Barcelona. She watches movies. We do not talk. I always pay for an isle seat but decided to risk it and save the 100$. It is only a 6 hr flight. Yesterday I logged on 24 hours ahead as soon as the check in was available and saw the window seat assignment. I could have bought an isle then but decided to try the window out. The only real downside is in unloading. I can’t jump up, claim the isle and repack before the gate is open and people are deplaneing. But my seat mate stood up and retrieved my auxiliary backpack so I was able to reload and was ready when our time came to exit.
The 6 hours were harder than I anticipated. I could not order 2 small wine bottle with the sausage dinner as they only poured glasses. But it was free. I had a beer later, but it was the bud like sagras. I watched a good documentary about how Steve Jobs used MP3 to kill the music industry and recreate a dieing Apple. I watched the start of Green Book and Girl with the Tattoo. Dozed but never slept. It was nice to have the storage space between the seat in front of me and the airliner skin.
My left angle is arthritic or strained. Aleve helps but upsets my stomach. I did buy, bring and take one tylanal to no effect. Once landed, I did try one aleve at lunch Tuesday and that really lasted 24 hours, or maybe it was the constant drinking in Lisboa that had the analgesic effect!
The challenge of Lisboa arrival is first immigration. The plane came to a gate as opposed to a bus. The snake line to immegration took an hour? There is no baggage check, just a long walk out and to the subway. People coming to the airport to leave give you metro cards. I finally put 1 ride on one and made it to Baixa-Chiado metro stop. I pulled the suitcase down to the phone store and learned it had a 10am open. I sat down on a stupe and rested for a while
then pulled the 1k to the Airbnb address. Nothing obvious. He had said 10am and it is more like 830. Pulled back out to the square and sat in the sun watching the parents with young ones on their way to school.
Airbnb had said I could drop the luggage at 10am so I was there, or rather I thought there but no door that said #2 and no one appeared. So at 10:10 I pulled back the 1k to the cell phone company. They were wild busy, I was #11, finally at the top of the que and bought a SIM card. They installed it and allowed me to buy another 10 euro of time to USA. I have my normal US Verizon phone that stays in Airplane mode all the time I am abroad and I have a second unlocked iphone that I had to get last year when I forgot my regular phone. This second phone is the one where I have the Portugal SIM installed.
Now I could call the airbnb host and figured out that instead of #2 I was supposed to be at #164. I made it there, the host was waiting and the room was ready so I was able to leave my things. Off to Delirium, a famous Belgium brewer, for lunch and the bar tender gave me suggestions for dinner.
My next goal after Delirium is a wonderful beer bar, Cerveteca Lisboa. Back in 2016, on my first cycle trip to Lagos, I came back to Lisboa a day early to commune at this establishment. Every year since, I arrive a day early and leave a day late to spend a night on each end in Lisboa at Cerveteca. But, Cervetaca only opens at 3:30.
For the first time, I walked down to Praca Do Comercio. It is a wonderful open space right on the water.
A young couple enjoying the space.
The water is right here:
On my way to Cerveteca, one of many street performers in Lisboa, but this one was unique!
At Cerveteca at last. They have 15 or so beers on tap. All of which one has never heard of. Many Portuguese. On the reverse, leaving Lagos and Libon, I took come more pictures and they should be in a departure posting.
I have flights of 5 each. My notes say the first 2 flights were of 1-5 then 978 10 14. Anna is on the bar and she was here last year so she knows the routine of helping me pick 6 bottles of beer and pack 2 of each in a box for transport to Lagos. She wants me to drink the beers in a certain order, thus the funny numbering in round 2!
A selfie!
I ate dinner at a strange inexpensive place called Casa India, but is not Indian! The young lady at Delirium recommended it. It is on the main drag very close to Praca Luis de Camoes where I watched the children go to school many long hours ago. Easy to sit at the counter and even talk to the people next to me.
Back to Cerveteca to finish off the samplers and pick up my beer box. To bed and up early for the 10am train. Took a cab to Entracampus train station. Key trick: write the name Entracampus in a note on your phone and show it to the cab driver to avoid 5 minutes of me saying and his not understanding. Of course, as in any new situation, one always asks how much and has the person show you using fingers! Upon arrival, bought my ticket and had breakfast.
Now I am on the platform and you can see my beer box with the rest of the luggage,
And a selfie for the road.
I really enjoy, well maybe enjoy is too strong a word, don’t mind? the train trip from Lisboa to Lagos. I go second class. The trick is that they put on your ticket, that I buy at the Entracampus train station, a car and seat number. You have to board the correct car and find the correct seat. You can leave your large luggage at the end of the car but keep an eye on it at stops. I have never had any trouble.
On the Lisboa-Lagos travel, there is a train change at Tours. The conductor, who only collects tickets after a few stops, will talk to you about this and be sure you understand what is involved. Luckily with GPS you can really be aware of when Tours is coming. A fellow passenger expressed interest in going to Lagos to the conductor. I volunteered to help him make the Tours change. He was from a slavic country and came up to talk to me. Turns out he was on his way to Fargo and thought he would take the opportunity to see Lagos. I was able to convince him, using train time tables, that this was a bad idea and he did not get off at Tours.
One of my most interesting “person on the bar stool next to me” incidents occurred in 2018 at this Tours train change. There is no bar. I am just using the phrase to denote talking to a stranger. She was a young lady on her way to work on a farm outside of Portiamo. Had been robed in Lisboa. Anyway, now I am on the lookout for someone to talk to on the Tours-Lagos run as there are no assigned seats. Sue presented herself. I spotted her right away but she wondered down the end of the platform alone (turns out she smokes!) and a man followed her, maybe a husband, turns out he smokes too but is unrelated. Anyway, Sue returned, I sat with her to Lagos and really enjoyed hearing where she was coming from. I offered to give her a ride in my Taxi but I was too scary and she decided to walk. I of course pushed Baffi Bar but she never showed up.
The taxi driver and I could not communicate about the Lagos gate where I wanted to be dropped off. Turns out I need to use the name of the street there, R Infante de Sagras. Hopefully I will remember it for next year. We were able to agree on the put-put golf gate and then from there I used pointing and no no yes yes to get us to the correct gate. As with most natives in Portugal, pointing to a place on a map was a non-starter.
I rang all the door bells at Casa a Sul and finally called the owner, Sara. She had not seen my texts. She called back in a few minutes to say her cousin Anna was on her way to open up. I enjoyed my half hour+ just watching the street traffic. Anna and I agreed that the assignment of a room on the first floor was wrong, given that I had a bike that did not go up stairs so I took my old room on the ground floor. We had to change a light bulb, get the keys sorted out but then I had arrived!!
Might as well put in here that I had dinner at Baffi Bar. It was wonderful to greet Simona and Valentina again. I did not notice for a couple days that they had expanded into the next store with a pool table, fooseball etc. They said they had been open a couple weeks. I purposely came a little later this year as last year I got to Lagos on the first day they were open and I certainly did not want to chance coming before they opened as this is my home for the stay!
Valentina had printed a WONDERFUL new color menu with pictures. I asked what was special today and had the vegetable soup and later in mushroom pasta. Both wonderful as always.
One picture of the clouds over the main square.
