Lisbon, not yet

Charles, a black Englishman at the airport helped me pass the time in conversation while I waited for Glen. He was waiting for a Lithuanian shipping crew to come through the arrivals gate. I was waiting for Glen with his shoulder bag and sunglasses to stroll nonchalantly down the slope from arrivals to the café I was sitting in.

Charles, the shipping crew waiting-for-er had been to and from Lisbon to London several times in the past few weeks - problems with a leaking vessel in a port just south of Lisbon. He was a stocky sort with a baseball hat and gold chains. He let it slip several times that he was carrying thousands of euros, cash. I made like that was normal behaviour and perhaps I too were carrying similarly large sums of readies.

Au contraire, I must have had four or five euros in my pocket, enough to get me a café con leche and a seat on the aerobus into town.

Glen, on his way out, met an Irish TV journalist with whom we chatted while the bus timetable proved to be wrong again and again. It was when we threatened to all bunch into a taxi that the bus finally came, stuffing us all into an aisle while there were seats at the back.

The road into town was first a motorway tunnel affair leading on to a mix of art nouveax seamed up against rational; joyless straight lines that make for good photographs but connect little with the soul.

Glen pointed out an interesting sight on the corner. I saw a large yellow house, set back diagonally such that a triangular garden put greens against yellows. It was indeed a site to relish. “No” said Glen, not the building “look at the very small man”. I wondered whether my companion’s reference to a remarkably small man with a cane and trousers which visually accounted for more than half of his mass, was to set the tone for these few days in the capital.

The hotel proved to be neither more nor less than its Internet presence had represented. Seventies severity with flamingo flourishes in the cocktail bar area. The staff answered “No” when asked whether the establishment was busy. The two female receptionists’ nonplussed yet friendly reception reassured me that I was not dealing with a hostelry that was getting above its station.

Our second floor street-facing room had all the essentials with none of the non-essentials. It was not till five minutes had passed that we noticed we had inadvertently turned on the metal-bar heater in the bathroom. On entering its pristine cleanliness the soaring temperature led us to suspect something was amiss.

So far so good. We have set down shallow roots in the less-than-million-dollar hotel. We have even had an after lunch nap.

It is now time to enter. Lisbon.