Lisboa Day 2

Today we woke up to rain - a lot of rain. After starting our trip with our backpacking gear, we realised quite quickly that the cordura backpacks that we were using were not going to cut the mustard and that we would need better day packs. As the weather was appalling, and we know that there's not much chance of getting some of the things we need in Cuba, we decided to take a trek to a shopping centre and see what we could find to sort out our equipment deficiencies.

After making our way there and buying some of the things we needed, we decided to walk back. We continue to fall deeply in love with Lisbon. The plethora of decorative squares, fountains and other interesting things such as viaducts keep you staring in awe.

The weather made short work of lots of umbrellas today. 

Aquaduct

Small park on the way through the city

These brilliant sailing ships adorned all the street lights in a particular section of Lisbon near the university.

Beautiful entrance to the park near the botanical gardens.

Nikki loved the colours of the buildings here.

Mmmmmmmm...

Beautiful buildings

Nikki perusing the shops on Rua de Rosa

You have to love the old-school trams.

Mayor's building

Estacao Fluvial

Post-modern (cheers Ken) fish eating fish

Port in Portugal seemed quite fitting for a night-cap.

Amazing meal. It might not look like much, but it was absolutley delicious.

With dinner this evening. Fantastic house red!

Pasteis de Nata from local patisserie

We walked home from there, made our way to a small local restaurant, and had some a.mazing food.

After this we decided to grab a port and watch the rest of the local football match at a different place.

Signing off from London Town - Ready for a new Adventure!

So today was the day that we finally said "fare thee well" to London. It's been quite a hectic build-up to it, but we finally packed up our backpacks, finished off cleaning the flat and set off.

All was going very well, and we were pretty much ready to walk out the door with a gigantic bag of rubbish sitting at the top step (balancing precariously). Of course it was only a matter of time until it decided to go downstairs before us, and exploded all the way down 2 flights of stairs with the bag exploding and rubbish strewn everywhere. It was actually quite hilarious.

Our packs all packed up and ready to go (just before rubbish-gate)

Exploding rubbish bags put us a shade behind schedule, as we were planning to head over to London Bridge to go visit the site of our first place where we stayed in London all those years ago. So we briskly walked up to Hammersmith tube station (stopping only for a photo of our Street name...) and made our way over there.

When we first got here we would often eat a Bagel from a place called Bagel Street which used to be located near More London but sadly has closed down these days. However, quite fortuitously, we found a Bagel shop in the London Bridge train station (and obligatory coffee), and took it over to sit on the seats at More London looking out over Tower Bridge as this is one of our favourite London spots.

After this, time was running a bit short, but we had time to walk over to our friend's old house that we first stayed with on Tooley Street and got a photo out the front. All those years ago we got a photo of all our backpacks out the front of her house, and thought we'd do it on our way out of London also.

Hammersmith Tube Station (for the final time)

It was actually a very strange feeling to be leaving. London has been our lives for nearly 8 years, and we have so many amazing experiences, have met some truly fantastic people who will remain our friends for life, and visited some astonishing places. We were both kind of sad, and excited about our coming adventure at the same time. This coupled with an overwhelming numbness - leaving very much doesn't seem real, even though here I am sitting in Lisbon writing this blog from Rossio Hostel.

Nikki leaving our front door for the last time

As we were running a bit behind time, we decided it would be quite fitting to jump in a black taxi for a final time to get to Liverpool Street for our train to the Airport, and as the plane's wheels lifted off, it was slightly odd to realise it was actually going to be a long time before our feet would set foot on that ground again. Something that has been so familiar to us having flown out of London many times over the years strangely felt very unfamiliar.

However, we have finally bid ol' blighty farewell, and were welcomed into Lisbon with what seemed to be a cyclone. Our taxi driver told us that the winds were gusting up to 200kph, and our landing was definitely one of the more interesting ones we've had. So, here we sit in our "Hostel" room - and I use that term very loosely (it's beautiful) - with a sense of excitement of the adventure to come and looking forward to a few days of R&R in Lisbon to recharge the batteries after what was a hectic build up to it.

We've walked past this sign so many times it would be impossible to count up - this was our final time.

Damo's last tube ride (for now)

Lunch and coffee at More London

A replica of one of the first photos we took in London - this was the first place we lived in over here (See original below - unfortunately we didn't have the original for reference at the time...)

The original we took nearly 8 years ago!