The disease fades, spreads, and takes more victims.

March 2, 2003
Woke, breakfasted, and climbed on the bus as usual. The tour guide today was to be taking us over to the side of Lisbon not normally seen by tourists. We went on a tour of housing developments – public housing. Some of them had some quite good design principles, but had deteriorated depressingly over the years. They are still expensive to live in, and this is not a rich country.
We also toured a facility that is a school/rehab center for the disabled. It was interesting to see what you can get away with here in terms of building codes. There are a lot of two inch steps in the pavement that we all trip over with alarming regularity. This is even a problem at a place designed for people with some quite alarming physical disabilities. Astonishing.
After that we went to the site of the 1998 world expo, where there is an excellent mall and some interesting gardens. Walked around for about three hours, then took the bus home. Finally made it to the market and stocked up on such essentials as shelf-stable milk and alpen (no more breadfast for me – I feel ill if I even smell bread now), some oranges, a chocolate bar, lots of cheese, and of course – digestive biscuits. Tummy rumblies were consequently much reduced today, along with the other (much more amusing) flatulent side effects.
Had a great picnic in the hotel room (Sandra was briefly feeling better, but then lived up to her last name – Rolph – and tossed her cookies later.
I then went to a local internet bar with my friend Mike – a prince of a guy who promised to show me where this place is. It is a place that you must be taken, verbal descriptions just don’t work. “Go right out of the hotel and follow the tram line up into the largo, take the second right in the largo (is that including the one after the hotel? Hm, damn, can’t remember), take the first left (but you’ll get lost if you took the wrong right) and head up into the Bairro Alto past the drunks, all the polite gypsies, past the man peeing, up to the end of the road and it’s right there. Knock three times and ask for Antonio”. Well, not quite, but I’d never have got the critical first right turn correct without the excellent help of the charming Mike (whom we shall graciously forgive for briefly introducing us as the wrong person;)
Checked email, sent email, as a shockingly small number of you know. Where are the comments people? At least let me know if you’re reading this damn thing.


March 3, 2006
Lisbon
Today, we slept in, Yay! A free day at last! No stodgy staying back to do homework. Bah and humbug! No silly staying “home” and “relaxing”. “Errands”? What are those?
After a delightful and fibery breakfast of muesli and warm leite gordo (whole milk) served out of a glass and eaten with a pilfered plastic fork, Lynn, Jen and I collected the healing but wobbly Sandra and our most excellent Hannah and Molly to head back out to the expo. It’s a long way away, but shockingly easy to get to. Literally, walk fifty feet out of the hotel to the metro, take the blue line to the red line, and get off at the end. Voila, you’re there. We wanted to do a bit of shopping (bad luck – there are no size 42 shoes to be found. ) and check out the aquarium (largest in Europe, I hear).
So we went and Sandra wobbled around the aquarium and it was outstanding. There were otters and penguins and tuna and sharks and all manner of glowy jellyfish and anemones. My favorite was a dude that was really big, really ugly, and the largest bony fish in the world. Well, not the dude in particular, but his species. Or so they say. Google him “ocean sunfish”. Whoah. I called him “dude” because every time he came weirdly floating by we said “duuude! Check out that ugly fish!” He was awesome.
Then we went for lunch. We went to the “Mexican” place in the mall and everyone had a bit of an odd meal. For instance, Hannah’s fajitas had been steamed in soy sauce before being thrown on a sizzle plate. Weeeird. I ordered the enchiladas Rosita. They warned me that it was the spiciest thing on the menu no less than four times before they served it. They offered to bring me more water (I already had an untouched glass of water and a full glass of sangria). I declined. They loudly and verbally expressed their assertion that I would not be able to eat the meal, and offered to start making me something else straight away.
So I ate the enchiladas, much to the waitstaff’s astonishment. Well, they were spicy, but not insane. I’d classify them as a strong medium on the Joanne spiciness scale. Maybe a bit spicier than I would have preferred, but certainly quite tasty and enjoyable. Pleasant change after all the bland local food as of late. Plus, I had to clean my plate – matter of pride, you know. Once I finished, the waiter came over and took away my plate in astonishment and I was told that I was the first person *EVER* to come into the restaurant, order the enchiladas Rosita, and finish them. I don’t know if that’s just a line that he feeds to blonde tourists who he doesn’t think could eat spicy food, but he certainly seemed impressed. (note: the girls each had a bite of the enchiladas and said they were excellent, and like me they thought they were a ‘bit spicy but not too much’).
A bit more shopping, then we metroed it home, put some makeup on Hannah, then watched a chick flick on Sandra’s laptop. The movie was good, and Sandra didn’t barf again, so all is good in the world.
Sandra vs Pastries : Sandra continues to eat pastries, despite her assertion that she’s “gone off them”. The pastries must be congratulated for then excellent comeback? Comeuppance? Yesterday evening when a valiant duo of meat pastries made a last minute bid for freedom when Sandra got sick midevening. The fight is still strongly in Sandra’s favor, and we must commend her excellent performance today with the vanilla ice cream, banana cream filled thingy, and chocolate croissant.


March 4, 2006 (Saturday)
Lisbon
Today we woke up to rain. Lots and lots of rain. We got ready as usual (muesli out of a glass for moi) and then met up as a group at 11:30 in the lobby to go to the local university. The plan was to go out there, see the place, meet a couple of the professors, and get an idea of what the project is that we’ll be working on this week with local students.
Lynn and I made the mistake of wandering outside and got ourselves hustled rather unceremoniously into a taxi by Pedro (our local guide) with another couple of charming fellows on the trip. Pedro gave the driver some unintelligible instructions, and off we went – to places unknown.
About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the university and waited for the rest of the class to show up. We then got ushered into an auditorium and after a brief introduction we were give the problem statement for the week. They’re building a new campus on some previously underused ground north of Belem (remember? We visited the Mosteiro do Jeronimos there on the first day and Sandra got addicted to the Pasteis de Belem). The problem is that they’ve build some buildings, and a big road, but there are no connections between the buildings – it’s a bit like Eden Prairie. Our problem statement is to try and fix that by designing a building on another disconnected part of the site. Garr. We’ll have to see how it pans out, but they seem to have forgotten that they have landscape architecture students working on this too – the thing that we are trained to do is to do things like campus master plans. Within the framework of a good master plan, it’s easy to insert a functioning building that can help solve connection issues. It’s like they’ve given us a car that they want to convert for offroad use. They’re asking us to make a really good wheel, when we really need to look at the whole car. We’ll see how it goes…
So we wandered up the hill to look at the site – it’s a lovely site with good views, right next to the road that has become the local drag racing strip. There’s an amphitheatre buried in the woods behind the site, and other amenities as well.
Having exhausted ourselves looking at the site, we set off to walk down to the bank of the river to have a late lunch, then catch the tram back to the hotel. It was a bit of a dodgy neighborhood (Hannah actually got harassed there as she came through on her own in the late afternoon – she’s fine, and nothing was stolen, but she was a bit shaken up) so we picked our way through in groups and landed at a variety of restaurants. Sandra and I had an excellent lunch (salmon for me, lamb chops for her) then went to meet some friends to share a tube of pasties de belem and a bica. The pasties are, if you recall, scrumptious little custard tarts that they stack up in a tube for sale. Yummy. Bica is just the local term for espresso.
By this time I had a crushing headache and was looking particularly round faced as I had consumed a massive quantity of liquids, but hadn’t really peed yet that day. More on this later.
Back at the hotel, Lynn told us all about the awesome place they had lunch, and suggested we go back for Fado (the local music – rather good actually) that evening as it was supposed to be excellent. Well I just didn’t have it in me, I was still pounding down liquids and resolutely not peeing, and my headache promised to split my head in two. Especially if I ended up drinking wine and eating yet again in another smoky establishment. After brief naps, Sandra and Lynn set off for the fado night, and Jen and I stayed in the hotel room reading and sleeping. Hannah went off clubbing with the people who think that is fun – some of them stayed out until 6 AM. I’m glad I got that out of my system years ago.


March 5, 2006
Sunday
We have the day off today, so we slept in and had breadfast as usual. Around noontime we went for a walk around thmy headache, and am still retaining fluids like a sinking submarine. We took pictures as notes for one e neighborhoods adjacent to the hotel (Chiado, Baixa, Bairro Alto). We went gently, as I still have of the assignments we have to do, and ended up at the excellent Café Nicola in the Rossio Placa for lunch/dinner. I had Sopa Alentejana, or Alentejo Soup (delicious – garlic cilantro soup, with an egg floating in it).
Back to the hotel room to drink more fluids as am still all bloaty and to do some homework.