I spent a week in Lisbon for the RIPE conference. Another week-long trip, flying thousands of miles to give a 15-minute talk to about a hundred people. There was not much time for exploring the city. The one time I did venture out , in search of a mobile phone store, it was raining and all the stores were closed because of a national holiday.
For dinner on the second evening a group of us went to a touristy row of restaurants down by some docks. I think the proprietor was very happy to see our large group. Joao handled the ordering -- a few appetizers and fish for entrees. The servers proudly showed us the cooked fish and we all went "ooh" and "ahh" even though we had no idea what we're looking at. Everyone I talked to agreed all the fish tasted the same.
The only other times I left the hotel were for the nightly social events. We travel there via bus, which makes it kind of hard to see much of the scenery going by. And being at night, its hard to get any good pictures. But here's a few:
One of the social events was held at a botanic gardens. It was raining hard so we spent most of the time inside inside a giant tent. On the way out I set my camera on a bench and got this long exposure shot:
Earlier, inside the tent we were entertained by some locals singing and playing guitars. I assume most of the songs were traditional/folk, but for some reason they ended with a medley of American oldies.
Another social event was a long, complicated bus trip away to an old (whaling?) warehouse that has been converted into a restaurant or banquet hall. The decor was somewhat mideval due to the stone walls and all the candles. The two bars had these giant candleabras with lots of built-up drippings:
At this event we were also entertained by local youngsters, this time playing drums:
The only other decent picture is of this famous Aqueduto das Águas Livres. Its pretty prominent feature in the neighborhood. We drove under it a few times. During a brief trip to the nearby mall the weather cleared and I walked over to a fence to take this picture:
