Lisbon

After two days in Lisbon, I can truly say, "I like this place!" The people are very friendly and the city is absolutely beautiful. Their english is somewhat sketchy, but I have managed to communicate with most of them. At any rate, the words for chocolate croissant and coffee must be similar enough.

My journey to Portugal was pretty uneventful except for the bus ride through London to the airport. I had an early flight out of Heathrow, so I took two London city buses at about 3:00 in the morning. On my first bus I met Frank. He was very big and drunk and claimed to be the "hardest man in England by way of Ireland." Frank was toting a can of beer and tried to guess my heritage. He was very hard to understand, but had a very firm handshake. He actually said goodbye when I got off the bus. As I was waiting for the second bus to take me to Heathrow, I met several young men and women who were leaving the pubs of Kingston (a subarb of London). One group when they found out that I taught statistics began a rowdy chant of "r-squared...it's the fit of a model." It turns out they had majored in econometrics and had taken a few statistics courses. They wanted to wait with me for the bus, but they ended up having to get their really drunken friend home to bed.

After I got to Lisbon, I took a taxi to my hotel. The hotel staff not only allowed me to check in early, but they upgraded me to their sister hotel, a five-star wonder right on Avenue de Liberdad (see picture). For a map of Lisbon, click here. Most of that first day I spent snoozing in my room and exploring a little bit of the city right around my hotel. I found a wonderful little shop called Picasso's Cafeteria located right around the corner. It is a local haunt that serves up great pasteries. They also serve the world's tiniest cup of coffee that packs quite a punch. They don't have any tables or chairs, so everybody stands at the counter. It is a pretty cool little place.

Wednesday, I attempted to make it to the conference center (Centre de Congress). The Portuguese are wonderful people, but rather poor when it comes to giving directions. They gesture and offer their directions in generalities rather than specifics. "Over there by the roundabout," seemed alright at first until I actually got "over there by the roundabout." There were approximately 103 different bus stops. After about half an hour of searching and asking people for help, I found the 727. I got on the bus only to discover that I took it the wrong direction. This wasn't discovered by me until the bus came to the end of the line. So, I got on another bus and eventually got to the conference center.
It turns out this detour was quite fortuitous. I ended up checking in at the same time as Alan Rossman (a statistics colleague at Cal-Poly). He, his wife, and I explored the city together. We decided to take a sightseeing bus of the city's statues and monuments. It was a great way to get an overview of the city of Lisbon.

Afterwards we got lunch at a little croissantery and then walked to the castle. We got lost in the Alfama district (the picture shows the view over the Alfama district) and eventually stumbled upon a local artisan's ceramic shop. He was very kind and spoke pretty fluent english. He gave us many suggestions, as well as directions to the castle...take a left and keep going up. These actually were quite accurate. We must have climbed 7000 stairs. We did eventually get to the castle, which had some great overlooks of the city, but decided against taking a tour.

After getting back to the hotel, I relaxed for awhile and then had dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants. I had the grilled codfish and a half bottle of local red wine. The food and drink were excellent. The cod was served in about half an inch - I kid you not - of melted, seasoned butter and oil. This was wonderful, especially for dipping the side of bread into. It also had the effect of making me very sated about three-quarters of the way through the meal. Needless to say, I slept soundly that evening.

Thursday - As I sit in the hotel lobby, waiting for Lauren to arrive and writing this piece of the blog, I have already enjoyed a chocolate croissant and a tiny cup of coffee. I am looking forward to more exploration of the city, some down time for relaxing, some shopping and getting home.