Ding ding ding went the Lisbon trolley

I have very much enjoyed my free 12 hours in Portugal. And by free, I mean both in terms of my time and my expenses. Being put up in a 100Euro/night hotel (and that's with a special rate for the line) and being able to expense lunch and dinner (and I'm thinking breakfast in the morning...the literature mentions continental buffet, but the word COMPLIMENTARY appears nowhere) is very fun. Lunch was fairly nondescript although I did get to play one of my least favorite games: "I wonder what I just ordered." To play it safe, I picked a complete meal that was on the menu. I didn't know what it all included, but I figured it would be fine. There was a choice of entree and the waiter said: "chicken?" and I said, "no, fish." Needless to say, I got chicken. It wasn't bad or anything, I just thought i had ordered fish. No big deal. The white rice was cooked with a little chicken fat I think and it was YUMMY.

For dinner, I was debating whether to be lazy and just find another place aronud the hotel or take the metro to the more touristy part of town. I was also reluctant because I know I'll be back to Lisbon twice on this trip and I'm pretty sure down by the port is where we'll get off the ship. But, I felt like I should take advantage of my free time (and meal) and take the metro. It turns out I made the right choice. First, the metro was really simple and clean. i was a fan. The old business district of Lisbon was really beautiful. It had an uncanny resemblance to Madrid complete with cobbled marble roads, a fountain by the port, a fountain square in the middle of the city, and a statue of a guy on a bull or horse or something. They also had a trolley system which made me think of my upcoming production of Meet Me in St. Louis. I imagined Judy Garland waving to me as she rode by on the Lisbon Trolley. I don't think the song would translate well to Portuguese anyway. Can someone look up what "ding" is in Portuguese? I ended up sitting in an outdoor cafe and ordering a wonderful steak and mashed potatos and a house beer called "spring" which lived up to its name. Originally, I wanted to get fish since it's a port city, but there's something about a free steak that's hard to resist. I even had them put the beer on a separate check to simply things when they expense the meal. They wouldn't care about the beer, they just wouldn't pay for it, so it's just easy to not have to itemize the check.

I'm back in the hotel watch euro-MTV (which actually plays music...crazy). It's just about 9 (or 2100hr). Hopefully with some reading, I can fall asleep for at least the majority of the night. I don't get picked up until 10:30am (or 1030hr) but I have a wakeup call at 8:30am (ok, I'm done with that joke). IF I actually need it, we're in business and I will have more-or-less successfully pre-jetlagged myself. At that point, I will copyright the technique and name it after myself.

"Are you excited about your trip in a couple of days?"
"Yeah, I'm setting my alarm for 4am tomorrow so I can Hoffman myself before my trip."
"That's a great plan! I Hoffmanned before my trip to Spain and it worked perfectly."

Obreganda! (the only Portuguese word I know..it means thank you_.