Thursday, March 14, 2002, 08.00 am Weather: rain, sun, who knows? Wait 5 minutes… Location: coffee shop next to Pensão Prata I can´t believe how much I’ve lived and experienced in the last four days! Last Saturday seems an eternity ago. And it seemed that way last night when I walked up the hill to […]
Wednesday, March 13, 2002. 17.10 GMT Weather: rained all day on and off — now sunny Location: coffee show outside Baixa-Chiado station I got another early start today, making it down to the Praça do Comércio by 8:40, which gave me twenty minutes to kill before the tourist office with its precious net terminals was […]
You may note I´m having difficulty getting Blogger to show the correct post time… I´m working on it, but I´m not sure if it can be solved from here. Tuesday, 12 March 2002. 17.03 GMT Location: Commuter train from Sintra back to Lisbon Weather: Cloudy, but it stopped raining Wow, what a hike! The three […]
Tuesday, 12 March 2002. 09.10 GMT Location: Tourist office, Sintra Weather: Sunshine? Hah! More rain. I returned to the Pensão for a nap. All that walking is tiring! When I emerged, I planned to go out for a leisurely dinner before the concert. However, I was intercepted by the guest house keeper, Fernando. We conversed […]
It´s now 2:40 and I´ve had a busy day! Shortly after my previous post, I gave up on the ticket office and decided the whole thing would be easier from the correct train station, Barreiro. This however is across the river from Lisbon, so I walked down to the port and hopped on a ferry. […]
Location: Rossio station coffee shop Weather: high cloud with tiny sunny holes After the coffee yesterday evening I returned to the restaurant I´d seen earlier. Now, it didn´t seem like such a draw: while its sign promised Fado (the local mournful singing that is apparently the window to Portugal´s soul but is more likely now […]
I´m sitting in an outdoor café in Baixa, in hillside neighbourhood overlooking the downtown area where I´m staying. I´m shivering slightly as it has cooled off with the sun set. There´s a restaurant around the corner where I want to go for dinner, but it doesnºt open until 8pm. Apparently Lisbon runs late! To kill […]
Location: Pensão Prata, Lisbon Weather: cool, grey, overcast I just finished unpacking and I´m sitting on the bed looking out at a tiled rooftop of the building next to me. The Pensão Prata is a small guest house in the heart of Lisbon, and the traffic noises coming through the open window make me wonder […]
It’s Saturday evening and I’m at the airport, looking out at the rain on the dark runways and typing away on an Internet terminal in the lounge. I’ve made it this far without thinking of anything serious I’ve forgotten. This is much better than the time a couple of years ago when I realized, while […]
I’m back from Vancouver! I had a great day on Thursday driving into the city from Kelowna, a long drive but with very dramatic scenery. I arrived chez les Fords at about 4pm and met Carolyn, who is extremely cute. She looks just like Catherine, and in fact is a spitting image of Catherine’s own […]