Much to the chagrin of my traveling compadre I continue to rise early. Usually between 4:30 and 5:00. I go up to have breakfast when the buffet opens at 6:00 . Doing that you get to see a lot of things early in the morning that others miss. Like where the medical team is administering Covid tests, and the several crew that pack the deck chairs down the stairs, and precision place them around the pool. The young lady is very serious about where the chairs go.
By far my favorite thing to watch early in the morning is the fellow that splits and toasts the muffins. He splits them with a chef knife while he holds the muffin in his hand. I really need to get close to this fellow some morning and see how many fingers he has left.
We have been to Portugal twice this voyage. First to Funchal and now to Lisbon. I believe I will need to return to Lisbon, since I have been to Funchal twice, and Lisbon only once, and it would be better to keep the visits to Portugal cities even, except for the Azores, I don’t know what to do about that one. Maybe once is enough?
It took us two sea days of wind and waves to return to Portugal. We got so much spray and splash up on our 8th deck balcony, that if I could figure out a way to harvest the salt left behind, I could become rich secretly selling it up on Lido deck 16, that in reality is deck 15, because superstition left off deck 13.
Sailing into to Lisbon the sea flattens out, and around 2 am I start to notice city lights on shore. Every time I woke up there were the lights of cities out our window, but at 5 am when I got up, we were still sailing to Lisbon. The coast of Portugal must be very populated, and when I have decent wi-fi I will google the coastal cities of Portugal.
The Ponte 25 de April bridge stands at the entrance to Lisbon’s harbor. The bridge resembles the Golden Gate in California, because the Golden Gate was the model for The 25 de April bridge, because of the Golden Gates strength against winds, and earthquakes. It is longer than the Golden Gate and has a metal deck for the roadway. Tires on that metal deck make a lot of noise as we cross under it, and at 1.5 miles long it would be exciting on a motor bike.
As we sail along the Tagus River, we spot the Medieval fortress the Belem Tower that was the ceremonial starting and ending point for many a Portuguese explorer back in the 16th century.
The ship is going to be here until 9:00 pm so there is no hurry to go do anything. My traveling compadre paid the big bucks for the ½ day whirlwind tour, and I just walked off the ship to explore around. I do have a mission and that is to find some ground coffee as my stash of Kaladi is just about gone.
The first store I stop into has no ground coffee but does
have an impressive stock of Nescafe. The second store does have ground coffee, and
a clerk that I estimate hasn’t smiled for 20 years. He runs my credit card and wants
to charge me 10 cents for a bag. I decline and go on my way.
Coffee and a King is almost more than I can handle so I think I will mosey back to the ship and wait for my compadre to return.
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