One Way Ticket

When I was a boy, my father would get one week of vacation during the summer, which was spent at a cabin on a lake in northern Wisconsin. Each year we would go to a different lake. It always seemed that we would catch fish and have learned the lake by the day before we were to leave for Milwaukee. Today we will leave Lisbon. During these past two days we have become comfortable with this cities unique cultural vibration which begins at 9 PM. We are no longer intimidated by the dark, narrow streets, groups of loud talking people or having discomfort by being an obvious minority in terms of age, race and tourist status. 

On New Year’s Eve, we made the decision to venture out to the large city Square where a celebration would be going on until early in the morning. Up until that time we had spent our days walking up, steep hills and down so that we could visit fabulous historic locations. The result of this was that by 6 PM each day we were really tired. So after our evening meal, we did not go out. But in order to experience Lisbon, you need to go out after 9 PM. Celebrating New Year’s Eve with 40,000 people caused us to feel that we were participants of this worldwide human experience and no longer simply tourist observers.

Lisbon is built in part on 7 hills.

The souvenir shop from our balcony.

Our view from the balcony of our apartment.