Happy Birthday to Me!

It is my birthday, I am alone in the city of Lisbon, and so what did I decide to do? Buy myself a lobster of course. I don’t ever recall eating lobster in my life, so at the ripe age of 29 I figured it was about time I took the plunge. It was good. My favourite part was the arms (there were no claws on my lobster). I also had a small bottle of Portuguese ‘green wine’, so if there are obvious grammatical errors in this note, please dismiss them as a sign of half-drunkenness. Other than eating lobster, my birthday has been rather uneventful. I took the train from Lagos back to Lisbon and sat across the isle from the grumpiest old man with the worst hack (what is it with grumpy old Portuguese people?). He yelled at me (in Portuguese) for putting my feet on the seat in front of me. He was rather high tech though listening to his mp3 player and talking on his cell phone (really loud).

Last night I had an encounter with some other characters, these of English decent. A couple from Manchester were ‘picked up’ (literally) by my 3 day Lagos landlord. Instead of spending money on a wedding, they were travelling the world for as many months as they could. They, along with the Swiss guy, my landlord and his friend celebrated my birthday, a day early, and their ‘honeymoon’ last night. I was avoiding my ex-rasta flat mate as he had turned rather stalker-ish and was freaking me out.

Tomorrow, I plan on seeing a few more sites in Lisbon and doing some shopping. I have been inspired by European fashion and figure I owe myself another birthday treat. I’ll try not to swipe my credit card too much, but can’t really guarantee anything.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes on Facebook and emails … they definitely make spending it alone in a foreign country much more bearable! It’s been a good trip, but I can’t wait to get home (and see Morgan).