Rats in a Cage...

Lisbon, Portugal

November 23, 2007
N38°42.460
W009°08.203

Lucky for us, France’s train strike was temporarily resolved, since we had to catch a flight and had to rely on the trains to get us to Charles de Gaulle for our 11:45 AM flight. We boarded the Metro and transferred at Gare de Nord station. After we navigated our way through some changes to the lines, we boarded the train for the airport with plenty of time to spare.

One small problem… when we switched trains at Gare de Nord we forgot to buy another ticket, half thinking the single trip ticket we just bought would work. When we arrived at the airport, everyone exited thru to turnstiles, but we were stuck inside the Plexiglas walls. There was a sign above the exit turnstiles that said “this ticket not allowed” with a picture of the ticket and a big red slash through it. We looked down at our tickets and knew we were in trouble—they were an exact match!

A little frantic, we went from turnstile to turnstile, and tried our tickets several times, but knew it wouldn’t make any difference. We would somehow have to talk our way out of a fine with the SNCF authorities. The good news for us, I guess, was there wasn’t a single SNCF employee to be found anywhere in the area. Maybe somebody forgot to tell them the strike was over and it was time to get back to work.

As we stood alone in the glassed area like rats in a cage, a nice French man noticed our situation and pointed us to an exit at the far end of the turnstiles. He motioned for us to push a button and move into what appeared to be a handicapped exit gate. I pushed the button and a set of Plexiglas doors opened and we stepped forward into the small space. Once we move forward the doors behind us slammed shut, it now appeared we were going to be trapped in an even smaller area… But the panic was only momentary, the guy pushed the button on the other side, freeing us from the maze and escaping a steep fine from the train authorities. We thanked him profusely and quickly made our way out of the station to hoping to avoid any more attention.

As we descended into Lisbon, Marc noticed a bridge over the Rio Tejo that looks like an exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. He turned to me and said, “I think this is going to be a cool city.”

We weaved our way through the hilly cobbled streets of the city; excited to explore a new city after being in familiar territory for the last two weeks. The famous pedestrian street, Augusta, was already lined with lights, bells and garland in anticipation of Christmas. We dodged locals as they zipped from shop to shop, stopped to listen to a trio playing mandolin, accordion and stand-up bass, paused to watch a few street performers attempting to make a couple Euros and finally made our way down to the Arco da Victoria and the waterfront.

When dinnertime came around we choose a local favorite, Uma, known for their rice and seafood soup. The dish was made to order as we heard the chef cracking crab, shucking oysters and cooking shrimp in the nearby kitchen as we snacked on some bread and local cheese. The boiling pot of rice and generous portions of shrimp and crab was brought to our table. We got to work digging through the seafood to find all the good stuff while enjoying the tangy flavor of the rice. The specialidad de casa combined the best flavors of Spanish Paella and Cioppino; however, the sauce didn’t have any saffron, had a slightly spicy tomato flavor and a delicate fish broth married the flavors. It was a lot of fun working our way through the rice to find the pieces of crab, muscle, salmon, oysters and shrimp.

Tomorrow we will try another local specialty—the mini custard pies.