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Today we arrived in Lisbon! The flight was smooth and everything went fine. We sat next to a Portuguese man who had lived in the States for over 30 years. He bought us a few rounds of wine and gave us suggestions on what to go see while we are in Lisbon.
After arrival, we went through Immigration and they just stamped our passports. No questions. No hassles. When we got out to where everybody was meeting the people picking them up, we couldn't find Christy! She was no where to be found!!! We waited for about 15 minutes before we started to formulate a backup plan. I couldn't look up her number because the internet was not free at the airport, and I couldn't call anyone at home to check for me becaue my cell phone wouldn't work. We waited for almost an hour before Christy came!
When she got there she told us there had been a time change so she thought it was earlier than it really was. She ran downstairs to her car, and it wouldn't start! So she ran to the taxi stand, about a 5 min walk away, and rode to the airport. Besides a little bit of worry, nothing too terrible. :-)
So we go back to her house and take about a much appreciated 3 hour nap. Then it is off to Cascais, a city about a 20 min drive away. We hop in Christy's car (which she has fixed while we were asleep) and get on the marginal, a highway that is comparible to an interstate but with no shoulders, no medians, and no real speed limits. About halfway to Cascais, the hood of Christy's car came open and hit the wind shield, destroying it. It look like a spider web. So on the high way with no shoulders and no medians, we stopped in the middle of the road and got out to investigate. People were yelling and honking at us. When we got the hood closed enough we slowly drove to the nearest gas station. After thoughtful debate, we decided not break the windshield out ourselves and instead drive to a mechanic that Christy knew.
We dropped the car off and headed again toward the train. While we waited on the train, Christy convinced us that it was ok to have a beer in public and on the train. I was skeptical and even made a small attempt to hide my beer when the ticket checking guy came around to look at our tickets. When we arrived in Cascais, we walked around for a little while. Cascais is supposed to be an old fishing village turned tourist attraction. It was really quite lovely. Christy informed us that Cascais was one of the richest areas of Portugal.
About dinnertime, we stopped in at the Palm Tree for some food and beverages. Christy said she was a regular there, but I did not expect the entire wait staff to come to our table and say hello in the first 5 minutes of our being there! The food was quite tasty, and we were able to get beers that we first had on our trip to Ireland (Kilkenny and Calsburg)! After a while, one of Christy's German friends showed up and we all hung out for awhile before taking a cab back to Christy's house for some much needed sleep.
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