As I got my bearings better, I found myself enjoying Lisbon more, especially after finding additional good food options and not walking through the worst areas of town. As it turned out, near my apartment was a great collection of diverse restaurants, and not just Nepalese! Though I ate Nepalese four times (two different restaurants, both of which played Bollywood dance music videos, much to my delight!). In just a couple of blocks I count six Bangladeshi restaurants on Google Maps! I also enjoyed a fantastic meal at a vegan joint with great service and fluent English (I had been thinking for a while that I had to go to a Nepalese restaurant to get good spoken English in Lisbon, haha).
On Tuesday I visited a museum telling the story of the dictatorial years in Portugal (mostly under the leadership of Salazar) and about various resistance movements, from 1933 to 1974. It’s a familiar tale, where the museum is housed in the same building as the former government’s interrogation center and jail. As bad as they were in Lisbon, the things they did seem to pale in comparison to the horrors I learned about in Krakow and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
Below are some assorted additional photos of Lisbon and the surrounding area.
Bonus side note #1: In the museum there is a coed restroom with three stalls. In the stall I visited there was both a toilet and a urinal. What was unique was that the urinal had a raisable lid! I’d never seen that before, but it seems to make as much sense as a lid on a regular toilet, doesn’t it?
Completely tangential bonus side note #2: This has nothing to do with Portugal, but I recently heard about the proposed “The Line” in Saudi Arabia, and I thought you’d enjoy hearing about it if you hadn’t already. It’s a planned city to be 170 kilometres (110 mi) across, and consist of two mirrored buildings with an outdoor space in between, having a total width of 200 metres (660 ft) and a total height of 500 metres (1,600 ft). It would be the 12th tallest building in the world, and it would be 110 miles long!!! Perhaps it’ll never come to fruition, but ground has already been broken along its length. It is planned to have nine million residents, which would mean a population density of 260,000 people per square kilometer, by far the highest density in the world. It would have no cars and no streets, and all daily services will be designed to be within five minutes on foot (meaning a lot of duplication, of course). It’s ambitious, for sure! I can envision this utopian dream devolving into a dystopian hellscape, but I hope that doesn’t happen.
Bonus side note #3: On Wednesday evening at a local brewery I overheard three American men discussing some of the logistics of moving to Portugal from the US, in their personal experiences. Coincidentally, I came across this recent CNN article about thousands of Americans moving to Portugal. It’s a real trend. I don’t intend to follow.
Today’s dad joke: Why does the man still coping with many unpleasant past experiences have to keep paying more when he takes flights?
Because he carries excess baggage!
Today’s limerick:
I'm running out of ideas for limericks
Other than a few I have had to nix
That is true at least for now
I'll think of something, somehow
Once back in Prague I'll add more to the mix.
Today’s travel quote:
Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.
Seneca
Major Meander 