Tuesday February 20... In the morning, I took the bus to Lisboa. When I bought the ticket, they told me
that I would have to change at the border town and I could buy my ticket to Lisboa. So after a four
hour bus ride, we stopped at the border "town", which turned out to be a gas station on a long
deserted road. See the photo on the right!
The bus driver spoke no English and only nodded his head when
I said Lisboa. As I got off and looked around, I was wondering how far I would have to walk to the
nearest hotel, if I was at the wrong place. I wasn't too worried, but it was quite amusing. Luckily,
there was one young person on the bus who could speak very little English and he told me I was at the
right place. There was no ATM machine around, so I couldn't get Escudos (Portuguese money). So I had
no Portuguese money to buy a ticket (which I bought at the gas station by just saying "Lisboa"), but
luckily, the gas station took Spanish money. I had to wait three hours for the other bus to get there.
So I sat on the curb and ate my Pringles and tangerine, of course.
So eventually I arrived in Lisboa around 7PM, found a hotel, and walked around the city. I found a fnac,
which is like a Virgin Megastore, and bought some Harry Potters in Portuguese for a Brazilian friend.
Sadly, I could only find a touristy restaurant, which I should have avoided when I heard how well they
spoke English. And sadly when I ordered water, they gave me bottled water, but I could tell they just
refilled it with tap water and pretended it was tap water. The saddest part was hearing how an English
couple next to me came to the restaurant for the second night in a row. All the other people in the
restaurant were tourists.
The hotel was pretty nice and I was very happy that they basicaly spoke fluent English. I was lucky to get the
last room, as they were many rooms for the summer. There was scaffolding and plaster dust everywhere, plus
power tools were used until midnight and then commenced in the morning.
|
"Border Town"
Lisboa
|
|
