Days 4-7

Desperate times...desperate measures!

Tuesday we went down to the lounge for our last “free” dinner at the Marriott.  It was very nice outside, so we moved to a table out on the patio(?) to enjoy the fresh air.  Sadly, the fresh air patio is also the smoking area, so we avoided the cigarette stank, and moved back inside.  We struck up a conversation with a woman we saw the previous night, and she invited us to join her little group of four.  Her husband is retired Delta, and they seemed to live the traveling life.  Theresa thought they might be like us in 20 years.  The other couple—he has some super status with Star Alliance, so all six of us were very well travelled.  Conversations fell along those lines.

Enjoying wine with fresh air! 

New hotel, new room.

Wednesday morning we had breakfast, and got back to work.  We took a break to hit the lounge to assemble and smuggle a lunch, and then pack up.  Since Theresa had a conference call at 2:30, we left our room about 1:30 to head to the other hotel, the one for which Bill’s company was paying.  His cohorts on this trip were mostly staying there, and it was the only company approved hotel available in Lisbon.  Our Uber dropped us off, and we presented ourselves to the check in desk.  At that point she said, “Oh, uh, we don’t have a room for you.  We are fully booked, so we moved you to another hotel.  We will call you a taxi and they can take you there.”  Uh, yeah.  That’s not going to work for me.  We bantered a bit but it wasn’t going anywhere, so fine.  We’ll go.  The taxi driver showed up, and proceeded to argue with the woman.  It was rather aggressive, but she summarized it as “he wasn’t agreeing to the flat rate charge”.  Apparently, they worked it out and we got into his car.  He then pulled up two addresses with the name of the hotel (a brand/name we really don’t know anything about) and asked us which one.  I don’t know?!?  I showed him the map she gave us with the other hotel’s location circled. He then called someone on the phone and had an aggressive conversation with that person, and we ended up at a hotel that seemed to be where the map indicated, so we got out.

View from our balcony.

We walked into the crush of humanity that was their lobby.  They had our name, but did not have a room open yet.  They insisted we check our bags (we did not hope to be there THAT long!).   Theresa was getting a little antsy for her conference call, but 20 minutes later he came by and gave us our room keys.  A porter brought our bags to the elevator (would not give them to us), and on the way up tried to make nice.  So we tried too.  The room was on the top floor (7^th) and had a balcony, and was a larger room.  Ok, ok.  Time to start being happy and quit grumping about the discordant series of events. 

The room really was nice, and although the chairs on the balcony are hard as can be, Bill joined his staff meeting on the balcony with the camera on, so the folks back home might enjoy!  (or envy…either way!)

Sometimes "Deep thoughts"
benefit from deep drinks!!

Staff meetings are all bad!  :-)

Lisbon city center (from the water)

In the evening, we joined a colleague of Bill’s (from Montreal) for a “river cruise”.  The ocean sort of flows into a bay through a narrow neck.  They call it a river, but I doubt it really qualifies.  Anyway, the “river” cruise started near the Lisbon city center, and went down to about Belem.  The coast was very nice, with several monuments along the way. 

Cool bridge.  Probably has a cool name.

Cool building with the ugliest tank possible next to it!

The quaint little town of Belem.  We'll come back to this!

The monastery in Belem.

A monument to Portuguese explorers (like Vasco de Gama, maybe?)

Tanks!!  Because, of course!!  (the spheres hold light gases)

Not sure if this is a fort or what, but it looks like a ship!

This looks like a ship too, but probably because it is one!

I liked the silhouette.  Also notice the people on the beams! 

The Portuguese national airline (TAP)

Not sure if this led to the
statue in Rio or that led to this?

Proof we were on a boat!

Lisbon

One of VERY many statues we saw around town.

The alley where we found our dinner!

After the cruise, we joined a second colleague (from Frankfurt) for dinner.  Theresa found a place (Lisboa tu e Eu) with good reviews, and we meandered our way there.  They say this city is hilly, and while that is technically true, it doesn’t so much “look” hilly, it’s just that some alleyways are stairs, some are slopes, and some are level.  Well, this place was up a steep set of stairs, maybe two-three stories worth.  There was a short line outside, and we noticed they only accepted cash.  Hmmm…  We counted the 25 Euros between the two of us, but opted to stay and work it out later.

Once seated in the very crowded little space, we quickly determined this place was probably way too “hip” for us, as it was filled with young people and every inch of wall had graffiti/writing on it.  But, the food was really good, and very reasonably priced!  We had a nice time.

Using phone to work out our food options!

Success!!  (Yes, that's a fried egg on top!)

A random archway!

Uber-ing in the back seat of a Peugeot 305,
I couldn't help notice the rider in the Benz
next to me, wondering which of his life
choices got him to where he is?? 

Thursday morning was the day for which we were there.  Bill headed to the “lab”, while Theresa worked from the hotel.  It was a LONG day of mostly standing.  Four test kit companies demonstrated how to use their kits to test the fuel for bugs.  Several of the lab techs tried the tests and asked several questions, and in some cases struggled with the steps.  Ultimately, it was good that they got the hands on training, so when they tested the kits against each other they were doing them right.  It was also a great chance for Bill to see the test kits firsthand, and he learned a lot!  Finally, at the end of a long (work) day, they gave us a quick tour of the whole facility where they tested lots of food items (like validating labels such as calories or fat; confirming contents such as in spices that it was the actual spice and not cut with random bush clippings; and swabbing for germs on surfaces in grocery stores etc).  Then, they had a dinner planned.

Theresa took a break in her morning to walk to a local grocery store to buy lunch and dinner, and sat out on the balcony for a meal.  She had a conference call at the same time our dinner was supposed to start (8PM), so she didn’t join the group. 

The dinner was enjoyable and the socializing pretty good.  Five of our group of nine were Microbiologists with advanced degrees (Masters or PhDs).  We had quite the brain trust, with two airline guys (myself and the guy from Frankfort) perhaps at the bottom of the education level.  It really shows how incredibly deep and diverse the knowledge pool is.  Our world has an incredible number of people intensely educated in very narrow fields.  I can only imagine the depths of things I don’t know!

I think this was the last King of Portugal.

Not sure what those arches are doing, but catching light?

One of the "street elevators".

The oldest bakery in ...Lisbon?  And a grumpy photo-bomber!

Beer at dinner!

Breakfast (of leftovers) on the balcony!  We're "fancy"!
(Theresa was not quite awake?)

Friday was sort of a “travel day”, in that, I could have come home but it would have been all day.  Instead, I worked it out to stay an extra day, and come home on the weekend.  Theresa made the day’s plans and after a quick breakfast of her leftovers on the balcony, we headed out.

One of the tree lined streets near the city center.

Tram 28 is supposed to be “the thing” to do, as it goes by all the best sites.  But, the lines are purportedly very long to get on at the city center, so we headed to the other end to ride it back.  We bought our public transportation for the day, and missed busses, hopped trains, hopped busses, got off in dubiously wrong spots, and tromped over hill and dale to find the right spot.  It was…not as easy as it “should” have been.  We finally made it, and basically only had to wait for the third tram (about 20-25 minutes).

An AIRPLANE!!!  (United, but still!)

The "famous" (?) Tram 28

Here comes our tram!

It's a bit rustic inside...

Maybe we've had too many dogs...
Or maybe they're on to something with this
window thing!!  :-)

The tram is electric, but otherwise looks like it’s from the 30s or 40s!  The seats were small, and supposedly enough for 20, and standing room for apparently 20 more.  But the number of people packed in could have been 30-40 standing.  We waited an extra tram to get actual seats, which meant not only not standing for the whole trip, but able to see out of the windows (which those standing couldn’t quite achieve).

One of many pics from the tram...

If you look between the buildings, you can see how hilly it is.

A lot of traffic!

Hey buddy, move it!

Windy roads!  (wiiiindy, not winnndy!)

The narrow roads and tall buildings make
things look stretched vertically.

This 2-3 story building has a street level at the top and bottom!

Why is there a stop light here?

Not much of a side walk here!

Goodbye trolley!!

Check out the line to get on!!

Lunch!!

At the end, we were hungry and happy to be off of the trolley, and looked for lunch.  We found a little spot crammed with what seemed to be locals, and grabbed a table.  Theresa looked at the specials board, and we ordered two things from there, slightly unsure what we’d get.  We also got a couple of beers, since by this point…yeah!!  He brought us two 500 mL beers (which was a surprise, and probably due to our not specifying the smaller size).  Bill had the “Cod stew”, and Theresa had “mystery meat balls” (maybe they had a different name, but it was a mystery to us).  Both were very good, as was the beer!

St. Jeronimo (Jerome) Monastery.

We then headed down to Belem, a picturesque little seaside spot with lots of attractions.  One of which was a monastery (St. Jerome, or “Jeronimo” in Portuguese).  The church was incredible (and free), so we spend a good 45 minutes taking it all in.  (Bill liked the architecture, so we hope you enjoy the pics!)

What an edifice!!

The detail in the archway is amazing!

The back of church.

We thought maybe this was a king.  Nope.

The Nave.

The Sacristy 

Vasco de Gama's tomb.  (first to sail from Europe to India)

Then it was time for pastries!!  Before setting out, we were told “Go to Belem!  Get the pastry!!”  So dutifully, we found the well known “Pasteis de Belem”, and had their ubiquitous “Pasteis Nata” (well, one of us did…one of us get a piece of cake for 2 Euro, which was a great deal comparatively).  We actually had the “Nata” pastry every morning in the Marriott, but “needed” to compare.  We planned to get them with a coffee, but by then we were hot, and the thirsty, and not in the mood for a small bitter cup of joe.  In Europe, often the non-alcoholic drinks are as much as the alcohol, and beer didn’t seem to fit.  Plus Bill had been looking forward to a local “port” the whole trip (as “port” is a Port-uguese contribution to the world), so we each got one.  It actually went VERY well with the little sweets. 

Treats...sweet and otherwise!

After our enjoyable afternoon treats, we headed back on a mis-adventurous collage of “missed busses”, “is this the right bus?”, “if we get off here and connect, we can save 8 minutes”, “Where are we?”, “Are we stranded here?” and finally arrived in an area we could identify as walkable to home. 

I guess we sort of HAD to try it, right?

We got cleaned up a bit and cooled off, and partially packed, then headed out for our last meal in the city.  Theresa spotted this place earlier and it had 4.9 stars.  So, that and the name sort of meant we HAD to try it.  The place was very clean, the one guy playing host, waiter, bar tender, and more was very friendly and welcoming, and obviously happy to have customers.  We picked a couple of items and of course the necessary beer!!  Bill got the “Spicy Chilli Burger” with “Mexican Chilli” (a burger with sort of a ”chorizo chili” with serrano peppers and cheese).  It was messy as heck, but SO tasty!  Theresa tried a ground chicken burger which she enjoyed.  Even the fries were good!  We highly recommend it!

A very good meal!

We passed a restaurant with a woman singing over the street.

The rest of the night was finishing packing, getting ready for the way home.