As odd as it may sound, I have never ever taken a real vacation in my life. I mean yes I visit places on conferences and collaborative visits. But then its always work related and while being away I keep almost full presence online and keep doing most of my official duties (as far as they can be done over internet). And when I am in India, visiting family and friends goes to almost to the level of chore. So when I decided on taking a vacation with Chris, I did not know what to do and how to do. We chose Lisbon because of the cheap flights I could get from Cape Town.
Story 1: Where is my Uber?
After almost 25 hours of journey I did not have the energy to use public transport to get to our Airbnb. So I called for my Uber. Uber app told that “meet your driver at the Kiss-&-Bye point on 4th floor”! Lisbon airport has multiple mezzanine floors and its confusing what is what. We asked a lady in one of the shops. She told go straight and left and take the lift. We did that and ended up in a huge underground parking lot. Then I messaged my driver and he told he has no idea how we should get to him! Then we moved out, asked a security person and he sent us in another direction. Then a lady in a restaurant and she sent us in a completely opposite direction. And finally the driver told something sensible and we went out of the building and asked the guard there where can we find the parking place. He told go there…..pointing his finger to some vague direction. But finally we found our taxi. Its as if people enjoy telling things even if they do not know what they are telling. We shall see this story being repeated often. So much so that we made our own hypothesis!
Hypothesis 1: If a Portuguese tells you to go left then ignore her or
if at all you want to follow then go right!
if at all you want to follow then go right!
Story 2: Where is my check in counter and boarding gate?
In a day I had to take a flight to Tallinn. Reaching the airport I realised that there are more than 4 clusters of check in counters and navigating between them needs some special skills. And again, I had to ask 3 persons; get lost a few times before I could find where to check-in. (That being said the security check and other processes were pretty streamlined). Once inside, one would need to wait till 15 minutes to the boarding time before they display the boarding gate. Its pretty counter-intuitive to me. I mean most of the flights do not originate from Lisbon and hence they would be knowing which gate will used for which flight. But for some mystic reason they won’t tell you the gate number till the very last minute!
Story 3: Where is the good food?
If you are a food connoisseur then be warned. We have tried in multiple places and the food is either terrible or you have dropped your expectations to such a level that even an absolutely plain food may taste OK. We were pretty brave in terms of experimenting with food and tried in a range of place starting from Pizza Hut ice-cream to a health food-place to Portuguese food in the tourist heartland to recommended brunch places to Asian food to Nepalese food to Pizza! Somehow people have lost the taste for good food or have just kind of accepted their destiny and manage with whatever crap is available.
Story 4: Where is my castle tour?
One fine day we wanted to do the most touristy thing and visit the castle. It was a decent 20 minute hike from ground level roads. The first trouble came when we stood in front of a trifurcation and there was no sign telling which way to go! Bifurcations and trifurcations kept surfacing up but never could we find any signage! I mean tourism department in India is pretty pathetic; yet they care enough to put some signs (especially something of this importance)!. And once we reach the top at the front gate of the castle there was a notice saying the castle is closed because of strike! How is this even possible? And even if it happened is not it just a kind gesture to put the notice below before people start hiking or taking taxi to come up?
Story 5: Where is my pizza hut?
After the castle saga, we took a really really long walk and by the end of it were too tired. In the search for something crap we thought of having pizza at pizza-hut. We checked it in Google-map and took an Uber. Reached in our street and there was no pizza-hut. Never ever has Goole-map failed me so far (not even in India or Thailand)! But I guess in Lisbon even Google learns a trick or two :) The pizza-hut was just not there! We tried to call and it linked to the pizza-hut office in Porto!
The Epilogue!
That being said, it’s not all bad of course. Lisbon is a fairly small city with pretty good public transport. The apartments have a nice vintage look to them; and the coffee is really nice. So if you have some great company then Lisbon is not a bad place to spend few days in!
That being said, it’s not all bad of course. Lisbon is a fairly small city with pretty good public transport. The apartments have a nice vintage look to them; and the coffee is really nice. So if you have some great company then Lisbon is not a bad place to spend few days in!
