Davin and I woke up at 10am. We skipped breakfast and were off the ship at 10:30am. We planned to walk around Lisbon a few hours and then return to the ship. We picked up a map from the port, determined our location, and started walking went. We were going to walk to the monuments area on the west coast. After about ten minutes, we saw the large suspension bridge that crosses the harbor. The monuments area was to the other side of it. We decided that it looked farther than we really wanted to walk. So we turned back and headed the other direction towards the city center. On the way back, we noticed a lot of old people and other tourists headed west and we felt sorry for them because they walked a lot slower than we did, and we didn’t even want to walk that far. Of course, we were feeling particularly lazy.
We walked past the cruise ship and headed the other direction. Along the way we passed a few museums, like the Military museum. We walked inland up a steep hill and came to a large domed building. I couldn’t find it on the map though. We walked a bit more, through residential areas, constantly up. We didn’t want to go down in case we had to go up yet again. The buildings and homes weren’t in very good condition. We kept walking east, through more neighborhoods, and past little hole-in-the-wall grocery stores. Finally, it became apparent that we were stuck in a neighborhood. The place we wanted to go was on the next hill over. So we walked all the way back down the steep hill and turned east again at the bottom. We followed a busy street until it opened up again. A road turned south across a bridge, and north to a largely undeveloped area. Hmm...
I checked our map again and my eye was caught by the words “Military Museum”. Finally, something I recognized! The military museum was just slightly east of where we wanted to go, and we had past it a long time ago and had been heading east all along! It was at this point that we realized that we had gotten our starting location wrong. The city center was west of our starting location, not east! We had been lost for 40 minutes and walking in the wrong direction, and we hadn’t even realized it! Davin and I got a good laugh about this.
We turned around, walked back to the cruise ship, and past it going west. We were back to where we had started. Apparently, all those old people and tourists were the ones who knew what they were doing. They weren’t walking ALL the way to the monuments area, they were just taking the short walk to the city center. That makes sense for old people, right? For a pair of highly intelligent individuals, Davin and I sure have our moments. :p
We finally arrived at the right place. We admired the architecture of the buildings. I like how the Portuguese like to tile the outside of their buildings. We walked through the shopping area. Davin had his picture taken with a fountain (another one for the fountain collection). Then we decided we’d walked enough and headed back to the ship.
Oddly enough, the most enjoyable part of our walk had been through the residential area. There we were able to see how some Portuguese people live. It is quite obvious that Portugal is a poor EU country. The roads, buildings, sidewalks are all in some form of disrepair. Obviously we saw only one poor part of the city. The port area of most towns doesn’t tend to be very affluent.
It was enjoyable to get off the cruise ship and walk around for awhile. Still, I can’t see that this is a good way to visit parts of the world. You can’t possibly get an impression of anyplace by spending 4-6 hours there. You can’t get a true, or real impression anyway. Most likely you will only be exposed to extremes. If you go on an overpriced, whirlwind tour provided by the cruise or other company, you’ll most likely get an overly optimistic impression of what life is like at any given location. From our walk, Davin and I probably got an overly pessimistic impression, but it was fun anyway.
It was interesting how much Portugal smelled like home. It had palm trees and bougainvillea, and in the undeveloped area we recognized the native scrub land. Lisbon is much more humid than San Diego though. We were sweating climbing those hills! We could see that additional water taking shape in a greater amount of greenery. It’s not a whole lot greener than San Diego, but it’s significant enough to notice. I also noticed that the way Lisbon is built of tall hills that reach right up to the sea, is similar to the city portrayed in ‘City of Men’ which takes place in Brazil. I could see some ways that the Portuguese might have felt at home in Brazil, and strongly influenced its development. Brazil is A LOT greener though, of course.
After two and a half hours of walking, Davin and I went back to the ship, and we were happy that we had gotten through our visit to the port without spending any money at all. Our Dad had recommended that we eat fish in Lisbon, but we decided we didn’t want to deal with going to a restaurant. We just ate lunch on the ship. If we ever really visit Portugal, then we will get the fish Dad recommended. It seemed like it might be a nice place to visit someday.
On the ship, we grabbed some lunch. Then we returned to our room and spent the day working on our RPGs, watching Voyagers (only 2!), and playing computer games. I was sooo happy to be able to play Mass Effect 2 again. I’m kind of sad that I’m so close to beating it though. I think that ME1 & 2 are the closest games I’ve played to being more like interactive movies than games. The story is exceptionally well done, the gameplay is tons of fun, and it’s a lot of fun that the cinematics change based on the choices your character makes. It’s all been done before really, but everything seems to come together perfectly in these games. My brothers and I have all had completely different gaming experiences even though we played the same game. It makes it a lot of fun to discuss the game with others who have played it, to compare how things turned out.
When the ship left port, it started getting rocky again. Davin and I went down to get more free sea sickness medicine. Back in the room, we had a message. It turned out that the tour we had chosen for the Azores had been canceled. Not enough people had signed up for it. We went down to the shore excursion desk to pick a different tour. We couldn’t decide. All the other tours seemed mediocre compared to the one we had originally chosen. It was the most expensive tour ($150/person for 7 hours), but you did the most things and lunch was included. The rest were half the price, but did less than half the things. We were close to a decision, when the whole matter was taken out of our hands.
The captain came on the loudspeaker to announce that due to Tropical Storm Otto and a low pressure system in the mid Atlantic, the ship was going to change course. This more southerly course would allow us to avoid the worst of the storm, and arrive at Port Canaveral on schedule. Unfortunately, it also meant that our ship would no longer be stopping in the Azores. “Well, problem solved!” I said with a smile to the shore excursion lady. (She didn’t look so pleased, and mumbled something about hoping we’d make it to Florida in one piece. [I kind of doubt crew members are supposed to say such things...]) I wasn’t really bummed to be missing out on the Azores. Sure it would be nice to visit the islands, but the tour we wanted had been canceled already, and we were going to be forced to settle for something mediocre. Now we didn’t have to choose, and, as a bonus, we saved a lot of money by not having the choice to go on a tour!
I’m not too worried about the ship making it to Florida. I figure personal safety aboard ship is something to worry about, but the ships are going to be taken care of by the company. They are the main assets of the cruise line, so even if they don’t worry about the humans onboard, they won’t unnecessarily endanger the ship itself. With that in mind, I’m fairly confident that the ship will follow a safe route, and be generally well looked after. If I’m wrong, there is still no point in worrying since I’m stuck on this ship in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.
Besides that it’s completely boring, I really like the middle of the Atlantic ocean. It is unbelievably vast, and beautiful. It’s also powerful. Its swells knock this monster sized vessel around like a play thing. (Another good reason not to brave a real storm.) The ocean is also so full of life, and yet it seems desolate to us surface dwellers. For us, there is nothing but blue waves for as far as the eye can see in every direction. The ocean is also merciless. If we sank out here, in the middle of the sea, it would mean certain death unless we could get in the life boats. Happily, these floating hotels aren’t easy to sink.
Anyway, enough contemplating. After a late dinner, and a Voyager, Davin and I went to bed at 12:30am. Oh, and the time changed one hour back at midnight. (So we really went to bed at 11:30pm).
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