February 20, 2025
Feb 20, 2025 - Lisbon
Settling in and Building a Bike
yyz to lis AC810 Chalet d'Avila Guest House
WHAT with being tired from yesterday's long day and with putting on a program that I wanted to re-watch, i fell asleep almost immediately once the plane got going last night.
I awoke to an orange sunrise followed by a 45 minute holding pattern just off the coast just south of Peniche. There was heavy fog in Lisbon, so ATC was ensuting that all flights had a lot of space and time to land under the tricky conditions. Instead of a 920 am arrival the plane touched down shortly past 10 am - or at least it kind of felt like that. The landing was so smooth which was all the more amazing since the thick fog went right to the runway surafce and I could only see the asphalt once we were actually rolling on it.
Rolling up to the terminal was slow and cautious as well since everything was fog-obscured. Once the plane had stopped, though, it was only a few moments before the doors were open and the passengers all spilled out the doors.
I am not a slow walker, so before long I was leading the pack and quickly got to and through passport control and down to the baggage belts. First came my duiffle bag and then shortly afterwards my bike came out along the oversize baggage belt. The box was a bit tattered, but nothing that I can't fix with some packing tape and plastic wrap.
Using a luggage trolley I quickly got to the metro entrance, bought my ticket and took the red line train to Saldanha. Though I have walked through this area on previous trips, I pulled out my tablet in order to navigate to the guerst house since I did not yet have my bearings sorted.
The staff here are excellent. As soon as I buzzed the door it unlocked and along came one of the workers to help me bring my bike up the stairs. He kindly stashed it away in the store room saying I could access the locked room whenever I wanted, simply by asing staff. My room is very small and has a shared bathroom (not my fave) but I am so tired from these two days, that I don't care. I'll be sleeping early today then walkling Lisbon most of the time at the end of the tour when I return.
I wanted to assemble the bike to make sure everything was good to go so I went back down and took the bike out of the box. That is when I noticed that half of the saddle clamp was missing - until I looked into the box and saw it sitting at the bottom. It is about the size of an eraser so I cannot imagine how it did not fall out of the ripped box en route. Small miracles.
I'm fairly adept at this bike thing now so I was done in about twenty minutes then decided to head out for a walk and to search for a sim card for my tablet. This way I'll have connectivity along my route in case I run in to any issues and require assistance. The first few shops were a fail with expensive sim cards with very limited data (MEO and Vodafone). I tried the NOS shop next where there seemed to be a really good deal (100 GB for 12 Euro over thirty days). The only problem is that the young Brazilian fellow working there was having problems with the store's system glitching. He eventually got it to work and then when I went to pay there were many customers ahead of me so it took a while. Though I assured him it was ok, the young fellow felt badly that 'this was the hardest purchase of a sim card ever'. I was happy with my purcahse and not bothered at all.
It was after having a snooze back in my room that an idea hatched in my mind. Not only would I go to the nearby Pingo Doce supermarket for dinner items, but I picked up an extra Milka chocolate bar. On the way back to the guest house I went back to the NOS which was just down a bit past my place and went in. The Brazilian fellow who had served me recognized me and came over with a crestfallen look asking if there was something wrong with the sim card. I assured him that it was working flawlessly, then handed him the Milka bar saying that this Canadian thanks him for all of his help. One random AoK with more to come. That was fun.
Now back at the room I am in the midst of organizing my gear in bags for tomorrow's first cycling day. I will be taking the train from the nearby Entrecampos train station across the estuary then hopping on the bike to head to my first riding destination - Setubal. When suddenly I discovered that I hadn't loaded my tour gpx tracks into my Garmin. Tonight was the night I'd find out if I could simply pop my uSD card from my Garmin into my tablet and save the tracks into the correct folder. But, I needed one of those sim card ejecters. Luck would have it that while I was heading down to the lobby to ask reeption for help, on the staircase I ran into a foreign student who lived in the top of the building. I asked and he happily went allthe way back up to his student apartment to get one for me to borrow. I thanked him and told him I'd leave it with the receptionist of this guest house. Which I did...with a 5 Euro bill to thank him... from a thankful Canadian.
By the way, the shows I re-watched on the plane were the first few episodes of 'Severance - S01'.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 2 | Link |
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 7 km (4 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 10 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 5 |
5 hours ago