My travels (travails) : Going Home

Well, it's 2:16am Lisbon time, but I wanted to seal this trip up with the last blog entry.

We flew into Lisbon last night. We gave our final talks today at the Portugal Tech Days conference. It was a good conference, but I don't think I could stay here long. Everyone smokes everywhere. I'm so sensitive to the smoke it makes me cough all the time. Europe doesn't have the same laws about smoking that the US has so people smoke everywhere. In the conference halls, in the hotel lobby, in the hotel halls, in the bathrooms, everywhere. And _everybody_ seems to smoke, so the lobby in the conference hall, by the end of the day, was filled with smoke so thick it looked like fog.

Anyway, the conference talks seemed to go well. I'm sick of my content now. Having given essentially the same talk 8 times now, I don't think I could bring myself to do it again. At least, not in the near future. I'm doing them in my sleep now. :)

After the conference, Grant and I went for a walk around Lisbon. We were treated to some pretty incredible architecture, a castle, a fantastic church, old palaces and residences. Simply amazing stuff.

This is the gate at the entrance to the huge residential area that is now essentially a giant outside shopping mall. The walls of some of the stores in this area are literally 2-3 feet thick. The intricate workings on this gate were impressively detailed and elegant.

This is the view down the entrance. Those buildings are beautiful and built out of solid rock. Everywhere you go, the sidewalks, much of the roads are made out of chunks of marble laid out in patterns. The amound of work that went into crafting these roads, arches, buildings and castle is incomprehensible.

This is Grant studying the local fair. He's really into seafood and was looking at what seemed to be an underwater plant that looked like turtle feet. This was actually appealing to Grant. Grant was a great speaking/traveling partner. When he actually did something. :) Most of the time he was taking time off because "he couldn't get a visa." :)

Yah, I'll have to remember that one next time. Seriously, it was enjoyable to travel with Grant. Great sense of humor, healthy apettite, interesting viewpoints and robust attitude.

We made our way through the streets of Lisbon. There were so many pictures I didn't take because my camera batteries died. I was amazed at how much tile work is done and the quality and detail of the work. There are hole homes and hospitals covered with tiling. This picture is taken from a small hospital that looks like it was a mansion at one time.

We worked our way up to the most prominent structure in Lisbon, the castle. It sits at the top of a hill overlooking the entire city. There is a view of the river from the ocean all the way inland. It was a fortress. The security guard (you get information from whereever we can when you're an incidental traveler) told us that the original castle was built in the 1100s as a fortress against conquistador expeditions into Portugal from Northern Spain. It's simply an amazing structure built of huge stones. The amount of effort to build this fortress with technology of the time is incomprehensible to me.

This is a picture of the central castle. We couldn't get in. We were lucky to see this much. There is a restaurant on the grounds. We got there after the place closed and were turned away. But, as we were leaving, three women walked in. Naturally, we were curious how that worked and the security guard said that they had reservations to the restaurant. So, Grant got the number of the restaurant and got a reservation. The restaurant was a bit snooty for me. You know the type where you're supposed to feel honored that the waiter talks to you and the food looks more like art than grub. Anyway, it was bizarre, sitting in the ancient building eating Steak and au gratin.

Well, gotta go. They just called boarding on my flight home. Woot!

If I get some time, I'll post more pictures.