Dashing and Bold Adventure: Quarteira to Lisbon to California

Yesterday we took the train from Quarteira (actually Loule) to Lisbon. It was supposed to be 3.5 hours, but for some reason the train just sat at a station for close to an hour, with no explanation. We came into the Oriente station in Lisbon and took the redline (vermelho) metro to our new place. This place is more like a boutique hotel. It has a communal kitchen and three shared bathrooms. It’s really pretty and the people working here are nice. The only complaint I have is, I chose this place for our last two days because they have a breakfast included. I asked what time breakfast would be served and they said, “Oh no, we can’t do that right now because of Covid-19.” What a crock of sh*t. We have shared bathrooms and a shared kitchen, but we can’t have a cold-cuts and fruit set out for us? No, it’s just an excuse to save money. Plus, we didn’t get the room shown on Airbnb… it was smaller with one window instead of two french doors, and it was on the ground floor (sidewalk level). That being said, it was clean and comfortable.

Our time here in Portugal is coming to a close. I have mixed emotions. Usually, by now, I am really looking forward to getting back to America. Often our trips are to places more dangerous than the US, albeit much cheaper. Portugal is much, much safer and it’s much cheaper. We’re trying to prepare ourselves for the sticker shock when we get home. A dinner costing $80-90 back in the States costs us about $25 here. But the safety is what I’ll miss the most. The people here are just so mellow and friendly.

I’ve been struggling with how to describe Portugal. The easiest part is the beauty of the landscape. Being a Californian, I define beauty by my standards—it varies from lush greenery to rocky mountains to arid inlands to majestic beaches. But really it’s the culture that won us over. Portuguese are very earthy and straight-forward. They believe in God, family, and fitness.

The government as a culture seems to look at every problem at its source. Here’s a few examples. Health care is important and expensive, so they have free fitness areas everywhere and wide-open, well lit walking areas. Crime is bad. Why do people commit crimes? Their approach was to look at the family unit and make sure that all children have a male and female role model (by indoctrinating the culture to take care of the children).

Drug addiction is bad. They legalized drugs, all drugs. And spent a ton of time and resources determining what is the cause of addiction. The answer? Loneliness. So, when a person is identified as being an addict, they have a system in place to alleviate the loneliness and disconnectedness. A few years ago wild fires swept through the mountain wine country and destroyed much of the crops. Typical Portuguese-style they asked what caused the fire to burn uncontrollably. The answer; eucalyptus trees. So, they made eucalyptus trees illegal to plant.

I’ve never been anywhere that was so carefully designed to be enjoyed… trees, benches, walkways, grassy areas, cafes, and fountains make people want to be outside. Interesting, huh?

Today we took the metro to the airport to get our Covid tests. We had our results in twenty minutes—negative. Part of me was wishing it would be positive just so we could stay another couple of weeks, but of course that wouldn’t be very fun… they’d probably make us quarantine. We decided to head down to the river area from there and breathe in the fresh cold air. Up here in Saldanha it’s a bit muggy and overcast. We ate lunch down there and discussed the outcome of our trip. If we move to Portugal, which part would we move to? This isn’t the first time we’ve had this discussion, but we felt like we’ve rounded out our time here with some good info.

If we move here, I think we’ll start in Lisbon. We like the Alameda and the Avenida da Liberdade areas the most. Our first couple of days were spent in the Alameda area. It’s nice and open with a big beautiful park.

Liberdade is a tunnel of giant trees with little kiosk cafes everywhere. Even though it’s a main street, it feels peaceful and cool.

It leads up to a park like what you’d expect to see in Washington DC or something. But then again, it is the capital of what was once a world power. A wonderful mall is right at the top of the avenue on the right. Inside are two levels of open restaurant seating (somewhat like a food court but different). It’s full of people working at their laptops and sipping coffee. A slice of heaven to me.

Speaking of writing, I have been doing some writing on this trip (besides this blog). I’m writing a very complex novel. It’s my first attempt at fantasy. Of course it’s still a crime story, but with a twist in time or place or something… kind of like a portal. I don’t want to give it away completely, but the main character, a detective, falls in love with the girl reading the book. :/ Weird, huh? I figured that readers always fall in love with the main character—what if it was the other way around?

Back to reality; One reason for wanting to move to Lisbon is its ease-of-access to the rest of the country. Another is the airport is here, so when you come visit we can come pick you up. The other reason is because of the services. We’ll probably join a gym with a lap pool. The smaller towns don’t have lap pools, and because of my spinal problems that’s my main workout.

I doubt we’ll permanently settle here in Lisbon though. We like Sesimbra a lot and Ferragudo (though I think we’d probably choose Alvor instead of Ferragudo itself). Quarteira was too mellow and Porto was too crazy. We need to travel around some more and decide.

So we fly home tomorrow—God willing and the creek don’t rise. I’m looking forward to seeing our cat, Loca. I had my friend’s son come over every day and pet her, but apparently he’d only pet her with one finger. She gets frustrated with us when we pet her with only one hand… I can imagine Loca was confused!

So, I’m sitting here in my kitchen in California. A delicious flower-laden breeze is flowing through the house. I’ve concluded that I must have a garden of some sort in Portugal. I love my yard. We came home to a little surprise—a giant branch broke off from our Chinese Pistache tree. My neighbor and cat-sitter cut up everything he could without a chainsaw, which was incredibly nice of him.

Our experience at the Lisbon airport left much to be desired. If you’re going to be flying out of that airport, you need to pay attention to this part because we came very close to missing our flight. Normally when you go to the airport you first check in. They have a set of kiosk computers, which were easy enough. Then instead of going to a ticket counter to drop off your bags, you’re pointed in a mysterious direction to drop the bags off. We searched around for a few minutes before an employee took pity on us and pointed to a bank of conveyor belts. So, we cautiously approach this new entity. First you have to scan your plane ticket, next you place your bag on the belt, only to be rejected, and to try again, and be rejected again. This goes on for several minutes until you accidently hit upon the perfect… something. I don’t know what it wanted, but it finally accepted it. Now repeat with your other bags. Then head upstairs for security check-point. This line was about 400-500 people long. Once through that, then you head off to your gate. If you’re flying locally within the EU, this is probably where your troubles stop. However, if you’re going to the international gates you’re far from done. This is why I’m warning you. We found the “N” gates and stopped to have breakfast and buy food and water for the flight (remember they only give you two very small meals in 11 hours on TAPair). It was getting close to time to board so we gathered up our stuff and headed off to our gate—News Flash!!! We still had to go through another passport check-point before we could get to the international gates. It was at least 1000 people long and was identical to the process of customs on arrival. It took us an hour to get through the line while listening to everyone else in the line panicking about missing their flights. We got through it with about two minutes to spare, and our gate was the furthest one. So, Joe and I jogged/walked to our gate with backpacks on. Not fun. Then when we got there an airplane employee told us we had to fill out a 6-page attestation of our shots, boosters, and negative test results for the USA. Unbelievable!