Where to even start with this day? It was a shit show to say the least. I don't need to remind you that we were so totally unprepared for this trip.
Picture this: Get off the flight and plan to grab some euros only to find out that my cards are locked because I had to apply for new PIN numbers. So now I remember that by the grace of god I happened to have $80 in cash on me. No place to exchange. Head to the metro blue line. I obviously have to mooch off of someone, so why not Katelyn? So katelyn is at the purchase kiosk trying to get our passes (nothing is in english) and goes to pay with pounds. I knew they didn't look right, but I am no currency expert, so I went with it. Well now that puts both Katelyn and I without any euros. JOY. So now we both mooch off of Cybil (Thanks Cybil!!). Finally get cards and get in the station. We know where we are going because a nice lady in the airport at Toruist Information gave us a map and semi explained how to get there. We arrive with no trouble at the location indicated by the woman to be our destination, to find that we are truly not where we need to be and very very lost in a town where hardly anyone speaks english. We would get a cab but we don't have the full address to our hostel and no one seems to be able to recognize the street name anyway. Now what? Katelyn is going off pure memory looking at the metro maps and insists that we get on the green line and get off at one of two consecutive stops. We have no phones, no language help, no smarts and we are literally exhausted. What the helgado do we have to lose at this point? P.S. the street name is Rua Heliodoro Salgado so that was a little play on words for your entertainment.
KP is one smart cookie because she gets us there. I haven't even mentioned all the trouble we have encountered with the metro pass along the way, but we are now 2 hours later arriving than indicated. We happen upon the unmarked apartment building and while a Portugese woman is trying to help us, the proprietor pulls up from running errands. Like fate. All I can think now is what the hell would we be doing if he hadn't walked up at that exact moment and directed us? It would be a friggen train wreck. Now you should know that this is a 6 story walkup and we are wearing out 35+ lbs packs. Holy sweat.
After getting settled and showered off, we find out that our host was a tour guide for the past 2 years and he is brimming with knowledge of Cascais and Sintra. He told us what he thought we had to do while we were here and we set off to find somewhere to finally exchange my dollars and KP's pounds. Found. Now food, for the love of god, food. We ended up eating in this sketchy shit hole area of town in some hispter looking park... Mexican. As you can probably imagine, it wasn't great. Board train to Cascais; all 4 of us pass out after aggreeing to sleep in shifts. HAHA. But we do finally make it and see the ocean and the sailboats and it was a huge difference from the dirty streets of Lisbon. There isn't much to do there besides go to the beach, but surprise, it's raining and is 50 degrees. Such a perfect beach day, right?
Honestly, we didn't eat well, we didn't sleep at all; we saw very little that was impressive, but we got our sea legs and we finally understand how to navigate the city, the people (a tad), and our patience. No one lost their cool today or dominated, or even showed frustration. We all worked together to figure it out and we did. We are pretty smart when we have to be. Which really leads me into another point about relying on cell phones and internet and how it makes us dumb. More on that later... right now, I am going to climb into the top bunk with Katelyn and catch some serious z's.
No comments:
Post a Comment