8.00am. Jane's alarm goes off.
8.05am - 8.35am. Hit snooze button several dozen times.
8.36am. Jane gets up and makes breakfast for everyone. Shakes Sirena awake who is out cold.
10.15am. Jane ready to hit the road and explore Lisbon. Racheal announces she will skip shower and be ready in five minutes.
10.35am. Racheal in shower.
11.05am. Finally leave cabin.
11.07am. See our bus leave without us.
11.20am. Still waiting for bus into town.
11.45am. Made it into Lisbon. Sirena announces she is now hungry. Jane reminds her that is because she didn't eat any breakfast. Jane explains she really needs to get to the Amex office to get some cash out as refuse to pay 7% commission to change TC's at regular places.
12.15pm. Jane still penniless. Amble up main shopping street of Lisbon waiting outside every single store while Racheal and Sirena simultaneously perform a bizarre shopping comedy entitled 'let's randomly visit every shop at different times with no clear purpose and all get lost'. Jane finally understands what it's like for a guy on a female shopping trip he didn't want to be on.
12.30pm. Wait 15 minutes for Racheal to take photo of small-begger-boy-with-accordian-and-adorable-singing-puppy-with-bucket-in-mouth.
12.45pm. Janes loses it. Needs help. Must speak with sane person immediately. Locate policeman and ask in best Portuguese "Por favor. Donde este telephonis?". Policeman takes Jane by both shoulders and spins her around. Jane is staring at a row of telephone booths. Ouch.
12.49pm. Got through to Kaoru on a Monday night at home! Rejoice. Sirena and I share a short call to her before getting cut off by stupid expensive portuguese phone cards! But not before giving her our cabin number so she can call us back tonight from work :-)
12.55pm. Jane finally manages to convince girls she really really does sort her money situation out as ATM card not working and no other options. She even offers to meet them later. They wanted to stay together so head via bus to Amex office which was fairly easily located owing to nice locals pointing us in right direction.
1.30pm. Finally Jane is cashed up! All of us starving by now and Jane needs to pee.
1.40pm. Get bus back into main square in town. Get on another bus but go too far out of town and for some stupid reason don't get off at the restauranty area like we should have done. Very reminscent of Prague Tram Disaster.
2.00pm. Stand at bus stop to study map and analyse how far back we have to walk. Nice man approaches and tells us there is a great restaurant 'not too far' that he can recommend with 'reasonable prices'. We fall for it hook, line and sinker.
2.25pm. Stoopid stoopid stoopid! Even a cable car couldn't have climbed the hill we've just been up! We walk around in circles for miles, Sirena rapidly losing the plot and Jane now really really needing to pee! Eventually we locate this ridiculous restaurant with a teeny tiny sign above the door and it's not even open. Not only that, but judging from the price list on the wall is out of the question anyway. Arrrrrgh!!
2.30pm. Walk all the way back down the hill into town. Head straight for air-conditioned mall and it's cheap resaurants inside.
2.45pm. Jane's vegetable soup and delicious portuguese pastry thing inhaled at break-neck speed. Sirena and Racheal go for cod that tasted like it died a nasty drowning in the Black Sea....totally inedible, even for a salt-lover like me.
3.00pm. Upon buying coffee, Jane's discovers missing 17 Euro from wallet which should have been change from lunch. Attempt to brainstorm where it could be. Come up with the possibility that she forgot to get her change? Go back to shop and attempt to mime this scenario to the shop assistants, none of whom speak English. Eventually they tell her to come back at 5.00 after the till has been cashed up. Jane very annoyed at herself.
3.30pm. Find slowest internet connection on earth in dodgy cafe along main square and bang out two e-mails in 1 hour. Jane and Sirena also attempt to book hotel in Athens but have no luck as connection keeps timing out.
5.00pm. Return to lunch spot and am returned only 5 Euro with no apology.
5.55pm. Racheal now at half her usual pace and attempts more shopping. Wait 40 minutes outside Zara for her. Jane not impressed. They leave her to go in search of better Internet. Locate bizarre pre-paid system in shopping mall/video shop/live entertainment area. Managed to book crappy overpriced hotel in central Athens with only 1 second to spare before PC kicked us out. Phew.
7.10pm. Locate Racheal, still shopping in La La Land.
7.30pm. Racheal finally buys 2 Euro earrings she had been dithering over for past two hours.
7.35pm. All supermarkets by now closed so we have to find a restaurant. Head down to the marina by cable car.
10.35pm. After dinner of average steak and chips and fish and rice, attempt to catch night bus back to the camp ground.
11.35pm. Still waiting at bus stop.
11.55pm. Waiting, waiting.
11.56pm. Signs on the bus stops all wrong. Cable car pulls up and takes us to the correct bus stop where we get the correct (and last) night bus from.
2.30am. Something goes right for Jane for the first time today! Kaoru calls from Tokyo and they chat for ages. She also gets to speak to Andrea, Alex and Carolyn. Very happy bunny!!
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