Next came the first social impact travel experience…

We left Dublin on day four, after having adjusted to the time difference. We caught an early flight to Lisbon, and arrived at 10:30 am.

As we crawled through a sardine style overpacked and decisively disorganized customs and immigration round looking “queue”, I was fast reminded that we were now in a very different part of Europe, the part that has a very different appeal from the northern one, the piece in which the appeal is a little far removed from anything to do with efficiency and organization. After spending roughly two hours clearing an extremely congested airport, we picked up our backpacks and headed to our place– an apartment in a residential area of Lisbon named Belem, about 10 mins from downtown. We stayed in my sister’s friend’s apartment. He lives in Lisbon but had come back to the US for a wedding while we were there so he was kind enough to loan us his really attractive two bedroom place.

Oh, also, it was a sultry 95-98 degrees while we were there and no air conditioning. I am notorious for perspiring like a steam room in anything above 85 degrees.

Anyway, we quickly dropped our backpacks and went for a traditional Portuguese lunch: grilled sardines, boiled potatoes, salad, at a little restaurant down the street as we were starving. I absoultley loved the sardines. They were SO fresh. Then we took a walk in the neighborhood. I felt super sluggish because of the heat but I tried to ignore it. We had some “pasteis de nata” – they melt in your mouth, it’s unreal. I was really out of fuel so we literally just sat in a park and relaxed, waiting for worst of the heat to move out.

But the best thing that happened in Lisbon is when Persia and I got locked out of the apartment for an hour and a half, in sweltering heat on the second night, because Najah, (the perennial introvert, worse than me) decided to stay home and fell asleep. I stupidly left the keys with him– (a mother who knows her son should know better), and sure enough, when Persia and I got home around 10:30, we were locked out. I was drenched in sweat and really, really ticked off. We rang the doorbell, called his phone and knocked the door like crazy people, and what was astounding was that the neighbors didn’t mind. This was evidence enough for me that Portuguese people are super chill lol. I imagine if we had been somewhere in Germany or in the UK making so much noise at night someone would’ve called the cops on us or at a minimum cussed us out. Am I making ridiculous assumptions?

Finally, at about 12:30 am, Najah woke up and opened the door. I did not abuse him but I was very tempted.

On day 3, our first farm adventure of exploitation started.