Ken and Elise's trip

Day 30: Arrival in Portugal

We got off the sleeper train and headed into the terminal. We had pretty clear directions from Orlando, our next landlord, on how to get to his place. We had to catch the metro to Cais Sodre train station and then catch a train to Sao Pedro where his condo was. Then he had drawn a nice map on how to get from the station to the condo.

All this would have been great had we come in when there were real live agents to ask question of. But it was early morning Saturday and no one was around, Again it was a case of Mr. Frick and Mrs. Frack trying to figure out the metro--even FIND the metro--figure out the tickets--did our pass cover everything. etc.. ect. Eventually with plenty of help from the natives again, we arrived in Sao Pedro. Two things I can tell you: Everything is easier in the daylight (I think our very worst experiences have been when we came in in the dead of night) and everything is easy after you’ve figured it out the first time. But the first time can be a bear!

As I said, we got to Sao Pedro and started looking at the map. I had told Ken that Orlando’s condo looked right out at the ocean, so understandably he assumed that meant we should exit the station oceanside. Wrong. We went through the now-familiar but never appreciated routine of dragging suitcases through city streets in the blazing sun. At first we didn’t ask for help because we had the map. But finally we conceded and started asking for help. As usual people were wonderful. “No,” they said, “you are on wrong side of tracks. Must get to other side.” That didn’t make sense to Ken who was absolutely sure he HAD to be on the right side in order for the condo to have an ocean view. After some rather heated words of disagreement, (I thinking we should listen to natives--HE thinking we should use common sense about direction of ocean) we headed off again. We had been told by one rather savvy appearing woman that the condos were to the left and there were many of them. “They are yellow and white and very smart looking,” she said. We found some very nice appearing yellow and white condo buildings and I saw one of the women who had originally tried to help us in front of them. She had been walking her dog and had come this far. Looking across the tracks she saw us still searching and she frantically waved at the yellow and white condos saying “this is it!”

Ken still was unconvinced, I was totally convinced. He bet me $100 I was wrong. He even shook on it. But he did grudgingly walk back to the station cross over to the other side and walk down to the condos. But here it began to appear he was right. We could find no address at ALL that was the same as Orlando had given us. Finally in despair I called Orlando. I hated to do it as his directions had been so concise and I was afraid we were the only people in Christendom who hadn’t been able to figure them out.

“We’re hopelessly lost,” I said to him, I heard him laughing. “Are you wearing black and white?” he asked me. “Because if you are, I am looking at you right now. Look up.” We looked up at a balcony above us and there waved a very attractive 40ish man without a shirt on (not that I noticed). He waved us in the direction we should enter and a few minutes later met us at the gate.

Shortly after that two hot dispirited travelers arrived in his condo and WHOA! THere was an immediate lifting of every spirit. What a place. It was gorgeous. I had tried to find a really special place for us to finish our trip and I had succeeded. About 30 minutes out of Lisbon by train, the condo was large. It had a huge designer kitchen, lovely living room with fabulous sound system and good sized TV with English speaking stations. There were two baths and two bedrooms. The master bath was enormous with a designer shower that had three levels. It was so complicated Ken never even tried it. To my absolute joy, the other bath had a full and absolutely lovely deep bathtub. We had a washer AND a dryer. We had almost every appliance imaginable most of which we never used.

But best of all we had a large balcony that looked directly out over the ocean. Yes, it was on the other side of the tracks and the only drawback to the whole thing was that the trains run exactly in front of the condo and they go by every 15 minutes or so. But if you closed the doors, you really couldn’t hear them. We never closed the doors. We just loved sitting on the balcony and feeling the fresh air way too much. And though the trains were frequent, we were never really bothered by them. There were actually THREE balconies--the master one off the living room, and two smaller ones off each bedroom, This place was fantastic. I would never want to leave.

And honestly, it was quite cheap--much less than we had paid in Switzerland or pretty much everywhere else.

Orlando put on his shirt (again, not that I noticed) and started showing us everything. He spoke excellent English. One of the very nice things he has done for those using his condo is to draw up a booklet explaining how to use the washer and other features of the condo. He explains the trains going to Lisbon in one direction and to the resort towns of Estoril and Cascais the other, He recommends restaurants, tells you where the grocery stores are, and describes the various beaches, etc etc. If I were ever to rent our house on Airbnb I would do the same. It was wonderful. He showed Ken how to get in and out of the outside gate, the front door and gave him a key to the condo. Eventually, he picked up his man purse and left. We were on our own. This fabulous condo was ours. All we wanted to do was just go sit on the balcony and look at the sparkling beautiful ocean in front of us (and yes there were some rocks and crashing waves as well as a great long beach--it was a GOOD ocean),

I was worn out but after awhile Columbus Ken decided to go exploring. I was very happy to rest my foot and let him go. He went out the door but a few minutes later was back. It seems he couldn’t get out the main gate. “Orlando said just to wave the entry card in front of it and it would unlock,” he said in puzzlement. “I’ve waved and waved and the thing won’t open!”

Well this is definitely not my area of expertise so I was of no help. Ken always figures everything out eventually so I just kept on looking at the ocean and resting my foot. Pretty soon he went out and tried again. And came back again. “It will NOT work!” he said in a very annoyed tone. He kept staring at me and I just knew that he expected me to get up and go out to try to help. “I don’t have a clue, Ken” I said knowing it was of no use. I was going to have to go out with him and try. So resignedly I got up, put on my shoes and walked out. I tell you we waved that entry card in every direction and under and above everything imaginable. We were locked in! No way out! We were going to spend the rest of our lives locked into this condo block.

“It just doesn’t make sense that we have to wave a card to get OUT of the block,” I said in frustration. “I can see having to use it to get IN, but not out.” “No I totally agree,” said my husband, “but I can’t see any other way to get out.”

We stood there at a loss. Suddenly a young Spanish guy walked up to the gate, waved his card and came into the block. We immediately stopped him and and asked what we were doing wrong. He looked at us in surprise. “You don’t need that to get out,” he said. “Only in.” And he proceeded to bend down, touch a latch that honestly was hidden from view and voila! the gate opened. We thanked him profusely. We offered him our first born child (it’s ok Blake, he turned us down),

Ken walked me back to the condo and let me in and then he took off exploring. After a while he came back with bread, butter and some drinks from the mini market near the condo.

Later that night we walked down to the beach. It was just beautiful. We walked a long ways further trying to find a place to eat, but everything had pretty much closed down. We were out of luck unless we wanted to catch the train to Estoril the resort town just up the coast. If we had known then how easy it was to do, we might have done it. But we hadn’t discovered Estoril yet, so we decided to cut our losses and eat bread and butter and the grapes we had.

Then we went to bed and slept with ocean breezes blowing through the glass doors onto us. What a great place! Ken still owes me $100.

End of Day 30