40 Days through Europe - 0-2, Lisbon, Portugal

My first (very stressful) steps in Europe, plus the lasting impact of a childhood video game.

Recommended music: Nujabes - Feather

Day 0

Technically I didn’t start in Lisbon. Due to some weather-related shenanigans (I think?), my flight to JFK got redirected to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I was a little annoyed about the change in timing but pleased at the free dinner I got as compensation. I was even more pleased to see that I would be on flight AF1024 - it’s probably going to be one of very few times in my life where I have such a fun flight number¹. That ticket will be a nice first page of my scrapbook.

We took off at 6:15 PM local time in Detroit. After boarding, I went into my phone settings and changed to 24-hour time in preparation for the next 10 months.

Day 1

We landed at around 9:00 Paris time, so 3:00 in the timezone I was used to. I remember how as we started our descent, my fatigued brain went I’m in Europe…wait, holy crap, I’m in Europe. I’m in Europe! I’m in Europe!! For so long, Europe was an abstract concept, that little continent with all the countries from the history books I devoured as a kid. And now, here I was, about to take my first steps on Europe².

As I sat waiting to board the flight to Lisbon, a lady asked me something in French. In retrospect, it was probably whether the seat next to me was taken or not? I was so startled to hear sounds coming out of someone’s mouth that had no correlation to the phonemes I was familiar with (uncultured American stereotype notwithstanding). I gave her a somewhat pathetic request for “anglaise?” and she replied “ah”, smiled slightly, and walked away. Some Americans³ walk around with the attitude that “all Europeans speak English” and that you don’t need to bother learning the local language or culture to get around. I would say that’s untrue; in most countries, it felt like I was expected to put in a minimal, respectful amount of effort into both.

I boarded, chatted with the Chinese-Canadian professor sitting next to me about America and my job, got scolded by the lady sitting in front of me for being too loud - really just checking off all the American stereotypes, so I suppose those ones do hold up - and subsequently passed out until landing in Lisbon. I took a taxi to the hotel, the driver warned me against pickpockets, he took 55 euros in cash from me, and he patted me on the shoulder and welcomed me to Portugal.

Around 50 dollars from the airport is what I paid to go from SeaTac to my hostel in Seattle, so I didn’t think much about the fee. Those of you who have actually travelled in Europe will know that I got scammed like a buffoon. Honestly, well played to the guy - I was an absolutely clueless target. A confused, anxious, and overloaded target too, because it was my first time going to Europe⁴ and I was alone, overburdened with heavy luggage, and locked into this 40-day journey across 15 different countries with no guidance except my own planning and my own condescending post-cognition. My knavish side applauds his discerning gaze.

In case it’s not clear, the 40 days didn’t start smoothly. After getting overcharged again at dinner (albeit not nearly as badly, and it’s my fault for not speaking up when I got the receipt), I went back to the hotel, wrapped up some work I had promised to finish for my research contract, and laid in bed wide awake, wondering what and where on earth I’d gotten myself into.

(There was a bidet in my bathroom. Knowing some of my friends, they will be deeply upset if I do not include this.)

I don’t think I picked the best starting city either. For one, mountain ranges in Iberia make it hard to travel to Spain from Lisbon via train. This forced me to take a flight instead of a train to Seville, which ate into my budget more than I wanted. For two, Lisbon and the whole of Portugal have a dicey relationship with foreign real estate investors that, at least personally speaking, gives the city an uncomfortable feeling. I’m not an economist or anything close by degree or profession, so take my word with a bit of salt here. But I think it’s worth saying for anyone considering going:

Per the BBC article here from May 2023, the average rent in Lisbon is about three times the local minimum wage. Inflation and a maybe-recession in America have also driven up rent prices relative to wages, but if you spitball the American minimum wage at $1,200 / month⁵, rent isn’t three times as much except for the priciest cities in the country. Even then, the states with those pricey cities I think have higher minimum wages set by the state government, so the situation isn’t actually as bad. My point being: Lisbon has a really, really bad rent crisis.

The reason for this can be roughly boiled down to “foreigner with lots of money sees pretty house and throws money at it” multiplied by…a big number? I dunno, I’m not an invester. Per the same BBC article, about 60% of all properties in Lisbon’s Alfama neighborhood are short-term rentals for tourists. Additionally, Portugal has (or had? not sure what the progress is on potential changes) a program colloqually dubbed the “Golden Visa” which allows foreign investors to come in and invest. In doing so, they get a resident visa that opens up opportunities to travel in the Schengen Area. It’s a good deal and draws in a lot of outsiders, but the wealth imbalance between these foreigners and the locals causes a lot of problems - including crazy rents.

I think relative to the local population, I saw more tourists in Lisbon than anywhere else I went in the 40 days. Nothing against tourists - I mean, I was one of them - but I had this expectation to come in and see Portugal⁶ and instead…it just felt like I was seeing other people see Portugal? It was just so weird, and after learning about the real estate situation I feel very uncomfortable thinking about whether I contributed to the problem.

Day 2

Still, I did see what I came there to see.

Since I was still not in a good state after the first night, it took me until 14 in the afternoon to muster up the will to go outside and explore. The weather was equivalent to a hotter, more humid day in Michigan - nothing like what was awaiting me in Spain, but not what I’d consider a nice day either. Heatwaves are becoming more common and more severe in Europe. It’s plain old global warming, unpleasant but not surprising.

Taking the Lisbon metro on my own was an arduous task, since it was my first time alone on a European train and I was paranoid about pickpockets. Pickpocketing was my main fear traveling alone in urban Europe. Since I was so distant from my support networks, moving hundreds of kilometers every two or three days, and not in an amazing financial position to buy my way out of any losses, I was scared of losing my stuff more than anything else. I never ended up getting pickpocketed, and as long as you have your wits about you I don’t it’s really that big of a deal. More on that in later posts.

I exited the metro and started walking a few kilometers along the coastline. Was this a smart decision? No, but I foolishly decided that going further with the metro would be cheating. (And maaaaayyyyybe I was too mentally overloaded to try and figure out how connections work. Spoiler alert: it’s not that bad.) I did stop by a cafeteria along the way to get some custard tarts which, according to the ever-reliable internet, were traditional.

I had to find a few empty seats to finally sit down and eat these; the first few times, a Portuguese would kindly inform me that the seat was already taken. A taxi scam and people telling you to please leave your seat - not the best interactions to have at the start of this kind of journey.

After downing my custard tarts, I made my way further along the coast.

My friend Paul is studying aerospace engineering and is a huge plane lover, so I did my best to photograph planes whenever I spotted them.

Might be hard to tell from the picture, but this is a tennis court.

There was a massive earthquake in Lisbon in 1755⁷ that, beyond being one of the deadliest earthquakes in history, destroyed many buildings with a distinctive style of architecture called Portuguese late Gothic⁸. Some of the buildings I photograph later use this style. The skyline below would look very different without that earthquake; I still think it’s pretty.

I stopped to pick up water at a stand, then photographed the gas prices because I thought they were low and I figured my gas price-obsessed friend back home would appreciate it (re: send some very annoyed and jealous texts). It was only after taking the shot that I remembered Europe uses liters⁹. The photo isn’t clear at all but I think it was around 1.89 for 9/10 of a liter?

This is the Monument of the Discoveries. It appeared just a few hundred meters before my goal, and it memorializes the many Portuguese explorers who sailed around the world during the Age of Discovery: Vasco de Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, and a long list of other names that aren’t mentioned in American texts but will readily appear if you do a little Googling on that period of Portuguese history.

I remember seeing someone setting up a shot of themselves in front of the monument with a tripod. It seemed so silly - isn’t it enough to appreciate a flower bed without also documenting the fact you dropped a turd in it? No the person wasn’t a dog, I was just a bit irritated. Between a sculpture like this and a generic smiling face, I just don’t see a generic smiling face as being that interesting.

It’s a petty thing to get annoyed about - I bring it up because I won’t have many photos of myself throughout this journey. I just don’t think my face needs to be in all of my photos.

Walking past this monument finally brought me to my target: the Torre de Belém, a naval fortification that, according to Wikipedia, “served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon” from 1519 onward. This was the unique home city building for the Portuguese civilization in Age of Empires III, the third game in the first video game franchise I ever played. My brother played the games first, and after I had grown up a bit and learned how to stick CDs into the optical drive of the family laptop, I sunk hours upon hours into both Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III. Organ guns were such a satisfying unit in the third game, even if the Portuguese in general weren’t my favorite civilization to play¹⁰.

See the tower on the left side of the card? That’s the Torre de Belém.

When I put Lisbon on my itinerary, I recalled my childhood and put the Torre de Belém on the top of my priority list.

The Portugese were added to Age of Empires II when I was in high school, with the same organ guns for their castle age unique unit and the same Torre de Belém as their wonder. Fun fact: in competitive AoE2, the Ports are currently one of the best civilizations in pretty much every situation¹¹.

Considering that Age of Empires II uses a two-dimensional isometric camera, I think the artists did a pretty good job!

I didn’t get great natural lighting for these shots, and I didn’t really pick up on the importance of that until later. I did play around with framing and getting an angle that gave the tower some space to breathe in the photo. I think this one’s my best.

By chance, there was an ongoing ceremony at the nearby Monument to Overseas Combatants - a changing of the guard maybe¹²?

The ceremony drew my attention, so I went ahead and investigated the monument. It was a small thing - I don’t think Portugal is a particularly aggressive international power¹³. Still, these Portuguese soldiers died for their country, and although I didn’t know the circumstances or morals behind the conflicts in which they died, I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and paid a small amount of respect. I generally view soldiers as people willing to put their lives on the line to protect people, so I try to honor them whenever it is appropriate.

From there I walked a short ways back and explored the nearby imperial gardens. These are in front of the Jerónimos Monastery, one of the few buildings that survived the aforementioned earthquake.

After finding a very specific physical spot where I could snatch some wifi (I didn’t have an eSIM until Poland), I figured out how to take the tram back to downtown Lisbon and found a small restaurant by the shore. The Lisbon metro area is separated into two halves by the Tagus river; from here, you could watch the southern half fade into the sun as you ate your food.

I ordered calamari and grilled fish. I’m not sure what the specific fish was, but overall it was a light and flavorful meal.

I caught a boat launching out into the river, maybe starting an Atlantic cruise. Eating fresh fish and watching this vessel’s departure, all backlit by the Mediterranean sunset - this was more like my dreams.

The way I went about day two ended up shaping my philosophy for the rest of my trip: pick one or two big things you want to see that day, then let the rest of it be exploratory. I did end up getting physically fatigued (European cities are very walkable!), but I think I managed to avoid a lot of mental fatigue by not giving myself packed itineraries everywhere I went.

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When I got back to the hotel and asked the receptionist about ordering a taxi for the airport, she asked me if there was anything else I could help with. Apparently, I looked so stressed out that she thought I was in trouble.

I wasn’t being trafficked or taken anywhere against my will, but I was terrified. Terrified of all the things that could happen to me alone, away from everything I was used to…in short, the prospect I’d signed myself up for that wouldn’t end until June 30 of next year. International students in the US do this stuff for years - it amazes me.

I didn’t sleep well that night either. I don’t remember crying from stress like the previous night, but I do remember my thoughts racing and my mind drifting somewhere very, very far away. I didn’t want to be in Lisbon. I wanted to be in Ann Arbor again, in college again, surrounded by the friends and professors and students I had gotten so comfortable with. Right now I’m glad for those 40 days, but in Lisbon, I detested my spontaneous, short-sighted self for choosing to go on such a difficult journey.

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In the end, I feel bad looking back at all this because I don’t think I experienced Portugal. I experienced the panic of landing in a completely foreign place for the first time and not knowing what to do, with Torre de Belém from the Age of Empires series randomly getting included in the chaos. I’ll still reiterate that Lisbon felt off, and if you plan on visiting Portugal, I recommend reading up on the economic impact that tourism and foreign business have had on the country. Even taking this into account, I doubt I saw the country at its best. Maybe Porto next time? But I don’t think I have a good reason to visit Portugal over a different country in the future; all I have, then, are memories of getting scammed, getting emotionally lost, and - at the very least - finding a childhood memory in real life.

My souvenir, like my trip to Lisbon, wasn’t well-planned and didn’t have much depth behind it; I bought it in the airport an hour before my flight to Seville. You can see the tear from where it got bent in my luggage. Oh well, at least it’s proof I went?

In any case, off to Spain, and off to brighter days in Seville! (It’s bright because the sun wants to kill you)

1. Reason being: 1024 is 2 to the power of 10, which is the number of bytes in a kilobyte! It’s a common number to see in a typical introductory computer architecture class, so seeing it on my ticket was a nice callback. Shoutout EECS 370! ↩

2. didn’t really think about the France part of it, probably because it was 3:00 in the morning in Michigan and my consciousness can only go so far ↩

3. I think typically the wealthier ones who have only been to Europe for a month or a few weeks at most? Because those Americans tend to experience “tourist Europe” which is made a lot easier for them. Granted, I was also a tourist, but I wasn’t going around with tour guides / paying to enter all the touristy spots / etcetera. ↩

4. I’ve been to Asia before for family visits, but those were mostly dealt with by my parents and I didn’t really have much agency / need for agency / desire for agency. ↩

5. federal minimum wage comes out to $7.25 an hour, which if you multiply by 160 (40 hours * 4 weeks) is $1160 per month. If you’re working 40 hours a week this is a slight underestimate, but if you’re in a part-time job or a different arrangement that is under 40 hours, it might be an overestimate. Still, it doesn’t seem like comparatively as big of a difference as in Lisbon, at least in most situations. ↩

6. I realize going to Lisbon to “see Portugal” is a statement probably in the same vein of going to New York City to “see America”. If I had twice as much time and finances then maybe I would explore more of the country, but alas. ↩

7. “Fun” fact: this earthquake was one of the (or maybe the?) first to be studied scientifically. Seismology and earthquake engineering both have roots in this event. ↩

8. Also called Manueline architecture, named after King Manuel I. Manuel I financed many of the explorers who helped bring about the Portuguese Age of Discovery, so I guess they named an architectural style after him for that? ↩

9. Well, litres. ↩

10. I enjoyed the Germans the most. ↩

11. as of 26 November and also this is mostly based on the opinions of a few pro players I watch. Great team bonus, units costing less gold, early econ bonus, pretty flexible tech tree. ↩

12. I believe changing of the guard strictly requires a guard to be posted at whatever site you’re changing the guard at, and I’m not sure this specific monument has a constant guard. Might’ve just been a parade - I think this day was when Japan’s surrender in World War II was announced, so it would make sense? But it would also not make sense because Portugal was neutral¹⁴ in that war. ↩

13. I don’t know what decolonialization looked like for Portuguese colonies, which is why I am hesitant to say more. To my understanding, Brazil did have a messy post-colonial period, but I believe that (along with a lot of the South American juntas) was a result from the United States’ Operation Condor moreso than Portuguese meddling. ↩

14. Very picky people will correct me here to say that the Portuguese became a “non-combatant aligned with the Allies” after giving the US permission to build a base in the Azores. I say to those people to please go outside and lick a streetlamp ↩