It’s been two weeks and things seem to have settled down a bit.
WiFi is still not working, but I’m getting by with WiFi from my phone and cafes.
And I’m almost ready to graduate from real homelessness.
Portugal is hot in the sun and cold in the shadows.
Such is the climate in December.
Let’s look back at what happened when I arrived.
Arrived in Portugal!
On 24 November, after a transit in Paris, I arrived in Lisbon, Portugal.
The Paris transit was five hours before the next flight, so I went to a café to relieve myself.
When I paid the bill, I was suddenly told ‘nijuunito, yonjussento’. It seems that he spoke to me in Japanese. I immediately met an interesting waitress.
Then we arrive in Portugal for the first time. Where is the exit? The first time I was lost.
It was a metro journey, but actually you can take the metro with just a credit card. It’s very convenient to be able to do that without having to put in an app or anything.
The Metro, as you know, is an underground.
You have to go up and down long flights of stairs with heavy luggage.
We were dying because we couldn’t go on…
At such times, many times, nice young men would ask us, ‘Do you want to carry your luggage? I’ll hold it!’ and they took the initiative (or rather, took the liberty) of carrying it for us.
We were tired, and when we were too heavy to lift, they quickly gave us a good impression of their national character to help us out.
Once on the ground, the road to the hotel is hard.
Lisbon is rickety, in addition to being quite hilly and inclined.
It was quite difficult for us to move around with three heavy luggage for immigration… I think it would be better to ask for an Uber if you can.
We finally arrived at the hotel. But it doesn’t end easily.
We were supposed to check in at the automatic check-in machine, but we couldn’t.
We found ourselves in a crowd of about seven people, including us.
After three hours of cooperating with everyone speaking other languages, we managed to check in. It was really a time when I was touched by the kindness of the Portuguese.
By the way, I had two big hurdles, especially how to deal with the phone call and asking in English. I had two big hurdles, especially asking in English how to deal with them on the phone. At the very least, you should learn to express your opinion!
And so my 26-hour journey from Japan to Portugal came to an end.