I forgot to mention yesterday that my sandals, my secondary footwear while in Europe, have failed. The right shoe has torn out and is no longer really attached. I was able to wrap up the day yesterday but they are done for. I am going to risk them again today as they allow me to stay cooler and we will be doing very little walking but when on the tour buses it is really easy to be way too hot so staying cool trumps being able to walk easily. It is handy that the sandals can just be left behind here in Lisbon and have no need to return to the States. So that is one place where we are going to reduce the weight and space in our suitcases for the return. Dominica is thinking about ditching a few things as well. If we don’t need them again, might as well not fly them back.
We got up at a decent time this morning. The room was nice and chilly thanks to a nice air conditioner and Luciana was able to go to sleep pretty well with the pack and play placed out on the patio where the fridge is, this isolates her from the noise and light from the main room. We have the patio area closed off but with a single window open to it so she is right next to us but seems far away. This also allows her to sleep a few degrees warmer than us now that we can have it cold again.
We decided to do split breakfasts again today. So Dominica went first and found it nearly empty downstairs. Breakfast in the hotel here in Lisbon is a bit different than we have seen elsewhere. The bread roll and sliced cheese that you find everywhere in Europe continues but here there are cookies, similar to Oreos, as a main component of breakfast. That is surprising, to me at least.
Dominica came back up and then I headed down for breakfast. When I headed down the girls were still asleep. Breakfast for me was very different than when Dominica went. The room was packed and there were no empty tables. Our friends from Madeira that we met yesterday were there and invited me to join them.
We were off straight away this morning to take the blue line bus around the city. It was probably eleven when we boarded. This bus line was a bit more interesting than the red line from yesterday, mostly because the bus route did not double back on itself significantly like the line had done yesterday. This run went far out to the east and we got to see the modern city of Lisbon which was very nice. Much of Lisbon, very much to my surprise, feels much like a really nice American city. It is laid out and has the general feel of a North American city, in my opinion of the little bits that I have seen, rather than a European one.
The girls were being really restless today. Actually it was just Luciana, Liesl was being very good on the bus. Even though we got the more spacious place in the front of the upstairs of the bus Luciana was just out of control and eventually we gave up on doing a straight run through of the tour and got off at the zoo thinking that we would go through that to take a break.
Before entering the zoo we stopped and ate lunch at, yes I know, the McDonald’s in the zoo. It makes things easy sometimes. Then we went to go into the zoo and found out that it would be around $65 for the four of us to go in! That is pretty steep considering it was already after one in the afternoon and I have to be back in the hotel and working at three thirty. At best we would get one hour for that price! That is not going to happen.
Liesl was extremely disappointed that we were not going into the zoo like we had said but she handled it pretty well. We think that we are going to try to make tomorrow an all day zoo day and justify the price. We will go first thing in the morning via the Metro and be there from the time that they open until I have to go to work and we might even leave Dominica and the girls there while I do that and then have me returned during my lunch break to spend another hour in the zoo and help them to get back to the hotel later on. We will see how they do in the zoo once we get there. From what we can tell it looks to be a really nice zoo.
We walked around for a while in the zoo area and watched the fountain and the ducks in the pond and did our zoo souvenir shopping prior to going to the zoo rather than afterwards. A bit backwards but now we don’t have to do that tomorrow, you see.
We got back on to the blue line and finished the tour – almost. For the few remaining stops Luciana was still so squirmy that we gave up and disembarked early up at the top of the hill and walked down through the gardens to get back to the hotel more quickly. I was thankful for the additional walking rather than sitting and I had wanted to have seen these gardens anyway.
The walk back to the hotel was easy. We went up to the room and Luciana pretty much went straight to bed. I got right on to the computer and signed in to the office so it was right at three thirty that we got back. I had fifty one thousand emails to deal with at the office. That is actually a lot fewer than I had been anticipating.
Liesl tried to lay down but was restless so just played for a long time with her toys. Today Dominica gave her the last of the My Little Ponies that she has been saving to give to her over the course of the trip. It was Rainbow Dash. Now Liesl has all seven of the main ponies. Dominica laid down and basically napped all evening. She wasn’t really asleep but was in bed the whole time.
Several times, three, in fact, I was sent out to get food. First a scouting trip, then to get pizza and pasteries, then later to get a grilled cheese for Liesl. It was rather a busy evening for me handling working and doing the food runs.
Luciana got up for about thirty minutes in the middle of the evening but was actually down for the night around four this afternoon! She is worn out, no doubt. Dominica was effectively down for the night at the same time. Only Liesl and I had real energy. Liesl made it until about eleven when Dominica officially went to bed as well.
Short update today, I am not sure why. So tomorrow we try the zoo for our last full day in Europe.