You’ve heard of tiny houses, but this was a tiny apartment. The bed folded out of the wall, as long as you folded the table and chairs away first to give it room. The suitcases had to live on the kitchen floor (which was also the dining room floor and the entrance floor). Not only couldn’t you swing a cat in there, you couldn’t fit it in. The cupboards didn’t have handles to save space. Actually a very clever piece of design where a single inch wasn’t wasted. Lucky we were neither tall nor overweight, or we wouldn’t have got in. We charged our devices on the stove top, and stored our clothes in the food cupboard. Given that nearly all we did whilst we were there was sleep, it didn’t turn out so bad.
Had a bit of bad luck today, and it didn’t go nearly to plan (which is pretty rare). I didn’t wear my contacts on the flight, and something must have gone wrong with them on the way over. I put them on this morning when I woke, and they stung a bit. Assumed it was the antibacterial wash we were using in the apartment, but no. Walked down the street for coffee and pastry for breakfast, then bought some essential supplies and took them back to the unit.
Mid morning we headed off to take the train to Sintra for a look around. My eye was sore on the train, got worse the further we went, and by the time we got to Sintra, I could hardly see out of one eye. So, after trying in vain to irrigate it, we reluctantly took the next train all the way back to Lisbon where the medicine and drops were, and Mandy led me up the cobbles all the way back to the apartment. Putting drops in hurt, and bright light was painful. Not the best way to start the first real day of a holiday.
That means we also missed the afternoon walking tour of Lisbon we had booked for, as I couldn’t open my eye. All in all, a bit of a bummer.
However the drops helped, and we did manage to go down and hop onto the famous yellow Tram #28 around tea time, and I sat on that with one eye closed trying to see out the window in the darkness as it trundled from one end of Lisbon to the other and back. At least Mandy seemed to enjoy the view. Bought a microwave dinner when we returned, so I could have some dinner and a lie down.
Didn’t see anywhere near as much of Lisbon as we planned, but the eye was getting better by the hour which was the main thing. Trouble is, wearing glasses while wearing a mask is troublesome as they fog up in the cold, so I’m using one eye through a fogged up lens to read everything in Portuguese, and attempt to translate it.
Sorry I didn’t find much humour in the day.