Lisbon and Leiden

Lisbon and Leiden so far:

“Passport” is spelled “paspoort” but “vacuum” is still “vacuum.”

Some form of Japanese amphibian (I think it might be a type of salamander) is 7-feet long, or else the kid I sat next to on the plane was lying to me/ill-informed. He’s a 14-year old amphibian connoisseur who I asked for some fun facts.

Notes from going to the supermarket in Leiden. 1) I cannot fit on the back of a bicycle. 2) Oumou, a 5’6” woman from the Netherlands cannot successfully pedal her bike with me on the back up a hill. 3) I can pedal with her on the back and successfully got us most of the way to the store. 4) Oumou discovers that riding on the part of the bike where you’re supposed to store a sleeping bag is actually as uncomfortable as people have been telling her it is for years after riding there.

TAP Portugal airlines serve you a twix bar and a sandwich for breakfast. There are also Mars, Inc. sponsorship ads all over the Lisbon airport.

Lisbon is BEAUTIFUL. After metro-ing to the financial district and asking at least 7 different banks if they would exchange my dollars for Euros I finally succeeded in a really upscale hotel with an extremely nice custodian . Note: do not get directions from bankers in Lisbon. They will point you to a place down the street, then when you go in that direction and stop in another bank to try there and ask them for help, they will send you off in another direction entirely. This is a tiring way to spend a morning after you barely got any sleep on a red-eye.

After getting cash, I wandered into a nice church-looking building that is apparently a restaurant. Though the restaurant was closed, the guy illegibly scribbled out the name of some subway stops that I visit to wander around downtown. I have bad handwriting and I can tell you the things he wrote down were barely words. After eventually finding the stops he recommended on the metro map, I went to the first one and came out onto a beautiful intersection with mosaic tiles on the ground and a statue in the middle. It’s hard to take statue imitation pictures when you don’t have another photographer, so you’ll have to trust that I was mimicking the statue’s pose while I took the picture. This seems to be an unusual practice judging by the looks I got from the locals. Anyway, the streets had white buildings awash in sunlight, trees everywhere, and Portugese red roofs that look even cooler than they did from the plane.

When I left my friend the statue and walked towards his friend, the other statue, the breeze started to pick up and I turned left see (many blocks down a side street) the ocean and coast that had looked so gorgeous from the plane. I half-walked, half-ran down the giant hill of street with the cool wind off the ocean on my face and the 70-degree sunshine on my back and started laughing with a goofy grin on my face. I didn’t even know the city got that close to the ocean, and I couldn’t help but laugh at how epically surprising and awesome it was. On the way down I cruised by pastry shops and people laughing at the funny-looking tourist with the giant red frame-pack laughing to himself.

I spent a few minutes by the ocean before it was time to head back to the plane, to meet my friend, Eduardo the lizard-fanatic, arrive in the excellent town of Leiden to meet Oumou, her bike, and the setting of the next few days of my trip.