Monday, December 21, 2009

Lisbon

The last leg of my Spanish-Portuguese adventure took me to Lisbon, the land of egg tarts. They were seriously selling Portuguese egg tarts on every corner in the city centre. I had 3 egg tarts while I was there for a 2.5 days visit and the best one has to be in Belem where the lines for the store was constantly stretching outside the shop.

Lisbon's traditional centre was rather old as expected and you can tell that Portugal is probably not as rich as it used to be. The place itself is actually very cheap by Europe standard. I probably should have guessed since the flight over from Madrid only cost me £15 including taxes. Since the temperature was pretty much in the mid 30s when I was there, I decided to get a bottle of water from the supermarket. I also wanted some change for the tram ride later so I thought I would go to the supermarket and break my tenner. When I walked in and found what I wanted I had to check the price twice because they were selling 500ml of still water for 10 cent. I had 10cent in my pocket and since I don't like carrying coins I decided not to break my 10 euro and ended up walking up to the castle instead of taking the tram. To this day I am still amazed that I can get a bottle of water for 10 cent in Europe.

Apart from the tarts, the rest of Portuguese food was pretty ordinary. I wasn't very impressed with what I sampled but at least it was cheap. I think overall it is definitely worth visiting. A day trip out to Sintra was also very nice and the warm weather was definitely a welcomed escape from the crappy cold condition in the UK!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Lack of Updates

Have been busy with work and recently out of action due to illness.

Tried to register with a GP, filled in the form then they asked me to go in to show them my passport and other details. She specifically told me they open on Saturday morning and I even checked their website. I got there this morning and no one was there. How stupid is that.