The Carnevale which never was.....

I wanted to start this post on Monday with something like "Theres nothing better on a weekend than walking through a sunny day in Lisbon and having a coffee overlooking the Tejo". But it rained solidly all Saturday. The dangers of expectation.

I got to Lisbon Friday night after being delayed with beer, prawns, sauteed baby deer (it tasted like wild pig which has me wondering) and stewed grouse. Animal lovers are now going to lynch me. Wait til you see the next post or so. Oh musn't forget the chocolate cake either. With no-one out I went to see "Walk the Line" - movies in Lisbon are like the old days where you get allocated a seat and if you're late you get shown to it with a torch. After that I wandered round looking for a bar for an hour.

I still havent really found where to have a quiet beer in Lisbon. Bairro Alto is most of the bars are but in true European style you're as likely to walk into a gay bar or a skinhead bar as a "normal" bar (normal in Bairro Alto is Berlin normal so pretty alternative). Theres a couple of touristy nightspots with fake Irish pubs, a few yuppie bar/cafes but the the rest of Lisbon drinks in the narrow smoky cafe/cervejarias like those in the country.

So I ended up in a yuppie bar in Saldanha where they ignored me for 10 minutes, served me, ignored me for another 10 minutes after Id finished my beer before telling me they wouldnt serve me as there was only 5 minutes til closing. Just as I was starting to relax. I suspect because Lisbon is a city which has evolved from the country anyone wanting to run a "different" type of bar had to get away from the traditional to appeal to those who believe they live in a city. This evolution has a lot of similarities to that seen in Australian cities. The end result is too cool for school and not wanting to serve a thirsty country boy. However there was a silver lining as it meant I got a bonus phonecall from the girl.

Saturday became a mix of trying to chill out before my bosses arrived and make the most of being in a proper city - without getting wet. It became fairly typical of my time here - time wandering shopping centres for clothes, shoes, food - i found tonkatsu sauce! - and browsing bookstores. Then running into a couple of people and an explosion of conversation over coffee about where to eat, movies, how many points Porto were ahead of Sporting, describing Japan to those who want to go. Then alone just as suddenly and sitting in a cafe with a coffee and a pastry writing some postcards trying to make sense of it all.

And thats before I got sucked into the whirlwind of dinner, wine, talk of new projects, current projects, trips to Eastern Europe and Northern Africa next week, next month, later this year (todays post is brought to you by the letters A and M for those playing at home). Sunday was driving out to the project and back with 2 bottles of wine with lunch and "Why are you drilling that hole" "What has this done to the resource" "Why don't you drill a deep hole to test that?" "Maybe you should stay here til that hole's finished".... and then having to drag my arse out of bed Monday and make it all happen.

Monday night/Tuesday was Carnevale - dress up, mask up and party. Except no-one told me where the party was. My gym had a dinner on which I almost went to but who socialises with people from their gym? Mind you the instructors seemed happy enough dressed up as women for the night ("Its Brasilian"). And tonight they told me they were out partying until 8am. So maybe I shouldnt be so snobby about fratenising with the gym dudes. Personally I crashed out and slept most of the next day, even though I didnt think I had anything to recover from.