phone box

saturday was my final full day in lisbon. the conference concluded about noon, so i was left with a few hours in which to experience the city and see some things.

i elected to go and explore alone, as i had had pretty intense constant human contact for a few days and was quite drained. plus when with a big group there's a lot of dithering and what-not.

so i walked from the hotel, which was by the instituto superior técnico, towards the castle. there was a strike so i couldn't go in the castle (apparently there are peacocks), but the surrounding area was nice to wander around in. there were views out across to sea and over the rest of lisbon, and also some beautiful tiled houses. this house was in the corner of a square right by the castle, and i was really taken with it but couldn't quite figure out how to compose things, but i knew the colours were really incredible. this came out really well, but sadly and foolishly i thought not until i saw it again later - so i didn't take the photo with my film camera as well.

after this i did some wandering, found a chinese new year festival which was quite funny - lots of little girls doing funny dances dressed like horses - and then continued towards the coast. there i sat on a wall and looked out at the water and watched the waves breaking by my feet for a while, which was very relaxing (besides a fairly regular stream of people asking if i wanted to buy 'weed, marijuana, hash, cocaine'). i think people took some photos of me with slrs which was quite flattering, but made me a bit self conscious.

after that i went to look at casa dos bicos in the daytime, and bought a plate. then i went back to the coast to watch the sun setting behind the bridge.

i finished the day with dinner with my friends alex and olin - we went back to the restaurant we went to on our first night, which was great. and then for some reason to an inca themed cocktail bar... very bizarre!