Living It Up in Lisbon: Day 5 (The End)

Sunday 10th October, 2021

This is the final installment and the final day of a trip to Lisbon in October 2021 for a big birthday and five days of pre-pandemic style socialising.

I woke up eager to make the most of our last day. Our flight home wasn’t until nine pm so we still had nearly a full day of adventures. I promised myself to eat properly and to get a few actual meals in as I could count the total number of solid meals I’d consumed on the trip on one hand without even using my thumb. I woke up with the idea that we should walk to the castle that overlooks town and get breakfast with a view. It had worked for us on a number of occasions in The Algarve, so logically it should be a piece of cake to do in Lisbon. Finding my way around a bit more fluently on the previous days had given me a bit more confidence in my understanding of how the area pieced together as well. Now when I got to a corner I usually knew which way to go next before I even got there.

I gathered my troops and headed off in the direction of the castle with a lot of hope and not even a glance at a map. It didn’t take log for everyone to get a pain in their face with my plan, or lack thereof. The fact that my plan didn’t have a lot of specifics meant that everything was going to have to fall into place perfectly for me to not be the bad guy. It turned out that I didn’t understand the area as well as I thought I did and there were a few corners that now looked quite familiar, but that I still couldn’t quite fit into the map in my head.

We got to the back of the Castle quickly, but it was hard to see how to get into it from there. Once again, everyone had to follow me down long empty lanes that didn’t look like the quickest way to anywhere. We even ended up passing a oddly dystopian dog park, surrounded by bleak wire fencing among the ruins at the castle walls. This seemed like an ominous sign and now my ability to find my way around was coming under serious scrutiny. I think my family still believed that I could always find my way home, but they had noticed that it might not always be the quickest way. So by the time we found the entrance to the Castle, tempers were starting to fray. Once we saw the queue to get into the castle and the lack of obvious breakfast restaurants about, I had lost the battle. I soldiered on, but after we’d retreated down the hill, only to find a restaurant with a decent view, but service so slow that we had to leave before even getting menus, I knew I’d lost the war. (I have now looked around the area on Google maps from home and see that we were only a hundred yards and two more corners from exactly what I was looking for)

The distance between me and them is both both literal and metaphorical

My confidence in finding a restaurant was shot at this point and we decided that once again we’d have to go back to the Copenhagen Coffee Lab and hope that this time they had something to offer other than eggs. I was so frustrated that I didn’t even recognise the street it was on when we got to it and dragged the family up and down around a very long block to approach it from our usual direction. When we got there, they were once again out of Avocados. In four days of breakfasts at two different branches, I never managed to get a single slice of avocado.

We had a lovely, if very familiar breakfast of eggs and pastries and then headed out to find the rest of the crew and try to get a bit of a plan together for our final hours. Everyone else was at a fabulous looking café on a beautiful narrow lane that did proper brunches outside. It all looked great, but the service looked slow, even by Portuguese standards. My anxiety was kicking back in a bit by the claustrophobia of the narrow lane, crammed with people and tables. We headed back to the Patio and did all of our packing so we could stay out a little longer before collecting our stuff and getting a taxi to the airport. That done, it was back down the hill.

The patio table looking much more civilised than it had the night before

Even though we’d been back at the patio for ages, when we passed the café again to let everyone know where we were going, we noticed that most of our friends had yet to get their food and there were a few people who still had menus.

Down we went one last time, down through what were now quite familiar lanes and squares. Back out onto the river and along the paths we’d been using for days. The plan was to get scooters for the kids and drinks with a view for the adults. It was a busy Sunday at midday so scooters were very thin on the ground and we didn’t see a single one until we got to the first ferry terminal. The selection of scooters there was awful. A combination of the older style scooters with bad back brakes that wouldn’t skid and newer ones that needed to be recharged. Beau was annoyed that his scooter wasn’t as fast as everyone else’s and refused to get on the only available scooter for ages. The kids were on edge as they didn’t want the holiday to end, but they could feel the end approaching like a storm.

Eventually the kids were sorted and the adults found tables right on the water with a view of the river unobstructed by children. The sun was out and we were able to get a spot in the shade and table service. We were right on the water and the view was perfect. We knew it was one of those expensive places that you’d never go if you lived there, but for a city centre view of the river and a couple of strong cocktails it was pretty perfect. The large square just outside of the bar was perfect for the kids to ride the scooters around as well, so we things we’re looking good.

The sun was warm and the company was great and it was nice to be back to what had become our base of operations over the course of the trip. For the past few days, every journey had gone through this spot at some point, but we had never stopped at it for more than a couple of minutes to sort out scooters. So as a place for one last drink, it was fitting.

One last look at the glorious waterfront and a bit of reflection on my own.

It still didn’t feel quite perfect though. We weren’t ready for it all to be over. We had been enjoying ourselves so much and wanted a few more days of it all. It was like an elephant in the room. None of us could really relax and enjoy the moment because we knew that as soon as the moment was over, it would be back to the Patio and then home.

There was a lot of toing and froing about how we were going to get back to The Patio. The kids were drunk on scooters at this point. They point blank refused to get off of theirs when it was time to head up the hill and onto the cobbled and un-scooterable lanes. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t want to climb those stairs again either, not even for a ‘one last time’. At the last minute, Beau seemed to get overcome with a hangover from his scooter drunk, so he decided to walk with the adults.

I probably should have asked him if he was sure he wanted to give up his scooter and tried to talk him out of it and I probably should have gone back to the terminal and tried to find another scooter and then taken all of the kids up the hill together, but suddenly there was a spare scooter in front of me and a bunch of parents urging me to take the kids up to the Patio and out of their hair.

So I hailed those on scooters and then set off in the general direction of The Patio. This time I could experiment with roads and didn’t have to worry about wrong turns because we were on scooters and wrong turns would just be extra fun. I found us a wide road that snaked up the far side of the hill. It was long and smooth and the corners were soft. There wasn’t a car in sight, so we flew up the middle of it full throttle, just a gang of kids on scooters with my big sunglassed head at the front. It was a glorious journey and we ended up back at The Patio in no time.

Johnny and Sarah and their kids had an earlier flight, so they were into a taxi pretty quickly. We had time kill and once again empty stomachs so we headed back out for some dinner. We quickly found our way back to the place we’d left in the morning, the one with a view and slow service. We sat outside on a big s-curve where the road went around a long corner that had views of the heart of the Alfama. Coincidentally, it was also the exact spot where I had thought we were hopelessly lost and on the wrong hill a few nights before. A spot which I was now very familiar with. The service was grand and so was the food. We had gotten very used to being in a bit of a large and somewhat unruly group, so it felt strange to be just the four of us at he table.

From there we just wandered around the Alfama for a little while. This was now a familiar and comfortable neighborhood. We bought some pottery and caught a bit of jazz in a quiet residential square. It was fairly idyllic and felt like of a bit of last minute cultural duty free shopping.

Then it was the wait for it all to come to an end. The last hour before it all stopped and we would be forced back to Covid Ireland. We were all out of sorts. There wasn’t enough time to do anything, but too much time to do nothing.

I was antsy. There was a scooter with my name and a bit of credit on it down in front of the church and as soon as the kids went into the apartment to watch a bit of TV, I was down the hill and out on it. One last scoot around the area. One last trip to the park, one last view. I’d snuck a beer out of the fridge, so I could have one last beer somewhere great.

The beer was indeed stupendous and was a perfect foil to the austerity of the wait up in the Patio. I found a little alcove in the park with a perfect view of the giant church in front of it and the vast expanse of the estuary behind it. I sat back and relaxed, free of that stress of family and travel that had been dogging me for the last few hours.

I was enjoying the last few sips of my beer, when out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Roxy. As she flew past me I could hear the maniacal cackle she gets when she loses the run of herself. That was the sound of trouble. I stood up just in time to see her exit the park at speed with Beau sitting on the foot board of the scooter, his knees jutting out both sides like some sort of unstable wings. The two of them looked unsteady on the one scooter as they made their way through the gate and straight out onto the street with the throttle down.

I was immediately onto my scooter and in hot pursuit. The park enjoys such magnificent views because it sits up on a rise with a long steep descent just below its thick walls. I followed Roxy out onto this hill and put the throttle down myself to try to catch up with her. She had it on full and was laughing loudly as she flew down the steep descent. There is a much bigger road at the bottom and she didn’t take her thumb off the throttle for a second. She had to make a wide turn onto it owing to Beau’s leg wings making the whole vehicle hard to steer.

I was out of my mind with worry. Watching Roxy and Beau hurtle into the road from a distance, unable to gain on her no matter how hard I tried was horrifying. A car had to slow down to let her onto the road where she made a wide turn and then came straight back up the hill. She flew past me in the opposite direction, drunk with laughter and madness. I followed, but no matter what I did I couldn’t make any progress. I tried to ignore her for a moment when there were no cars on the road so that she might relent a little, but she just ended up racing down a one-way street the wrong way , another car having to stop to let her pass. I was spitting. I was furious. This just spurred her on.

Eventually we got back to the bottom of the hill below the Patio and I got close enough to talk to them. Well Beau at least. He’d been unceremoniously kicked off the scooter so that Roxy could evade me better. I gave Beau my scooter in the hope that at least if they were going to scoot, they wouldn’t be so unsteady and would stay close. It was the last few moments of the holiday after all and I thought if I could keep them safe I wouldn’t have to be the bad guy. I begged them stay within sight and to not go back down the hill. I thought they’d agreed to stay on the lane, but as soon as I finished talking, Roxy was off again. I watched as she raced back to the top of the hill and disappeared. I frantically ran half way down the road and then saw them both come out from behind a couple of cars where they had been hiding to make me think they’d gone back down the hill. They were both doubled over with laughter.

I was distraught. I still couldn’t regain control and things were getting increasingly dangerous. They had gone off the deep end and no manner of logic was going to bring them back. Beau was a bit calmer and was making his way carefully up the lane when a car pulled onto the road behind him. Beau moved on to the bollard-lined footpath to let the car pass and continued to push the throttle lightly. He got to a bit of the footpath that was broken up and uneven and I watched as he started to edge closer to the road. It was like watching a disaster unfold in slow motion. The more unsteady he got, the closer the car got and the closer Beau got to the road. At the very last second, Beau tapped the throttle heavily and lurched towards the road just as the car went to pass him.

I screamed so loudly that everything on the road stopped. Everything. Every pedestrian, every cyclist, the car, Beau, I think the birds may have even stopped singing for a moment. Thankfully, that was the difference. If I hadn’t roared, Beau would have been knocked down and we all knew it.

I was crazy with fear. Everyone on the road was looking at me as I shouted at Beau to get off the scooter and put it on the path. I may have used the Lord’s name in vain. Possibly more than once. Roxy, still off her rocker with over stimulation mocked me for losing my shit and reluctantly got off the scooter and headed back up the hill in a huff.

It was time to leave anyways and we were quickly whisked off in a taxi. It was a quiet journey through the never-ending rows of suburban high rise apartments on the outskirts of the city. It was all fairly bleak and the first clouds of the week blowing in made it feel a bit forlorn and ominous. I was still so wracked by that sense of dread and fear from the scooter episode that I could barely speak.

The airport turned into a giant pain in the ass as well. I was back to full Covid anxiety, exacerbated by a group of drunk Irish men singing loudly with no masks on,in the queue for the plane. A queue which we had to get into before being told that the plane would be delayed by at least another hour and which we would have to stand in until after midnight. They ended up sitting directly behind me, maskless for the flight home. Breaking into song throughout the journey and repeating the same stupid jokes every few minutes.

I would be lying if I said that those last few hours didn’t affect me deeply. They sent me back into my Covid spiral for a long time after we got home. They undid a lot of the good that the rest of the holiday had done. It would take a solo trip to Oregon to see my parents and to see myself from the outside before I could get back to where I was on that boat in the middle of the river in terms of Covid anxiety. That terror that I felt when I didn’t think I could keep the kids safe as they sped down that hill on those scooters was the same terror I felt when I struggled to keep them safe at the beginning of the pandemic. It’s the same fear and feeling of helplessness that has descended on me time and time again throughout the last two years when I start to obsess about protecting my family.

But what has helped bring me out from under that cloud are these memories of these adventures. The kids needed this trip more than anyone and as a parent, it felt really good to let them have a proper adventure. To let them truly step out of the last eighteen months. To give them the independence that they deserve after having to delay its development at such an important time in their lives. There were bits that were a bit wreckless. There were bits where the parenting could be viewed in a number of different ways. But there are few people that will judge me harder than I will myself and I am truly proud to have been able to give them these opportunities.

To see so much of us in them was amazing. To see all of the kids grab a hold of the craic as firmly as all of us did gave me the confidence that we were doing something right. To see the light in their eyes as they talk about their Lisbon adventure now makes me feel so lucky to have been able to pull it off.

I have come to realise that for those five days we were all Roxy on that hill, every one of us. We all had the throttle down. We all found ourselves a bit unsteady at times. We all laughed deeply at responsibility when it reared it’s ugly head. We all felt the electricity of the wind in our hair and the heat on our skin. For a few days we were all completely in the moment. Not a care in the world. That would be great at any point in any of our lives. And at this point in our collective lives, it was priceless.

I am very lucky to know such a gang of genuinely interesting people and to have so many long relationships with them. The week was full of joy and laughter and celebration. The days and nights were magical and unforgettable.

It has been great to read and edit these adventures over the last month because I am in a much better place now. I can allow myself to look forward to seeing people again. And I can allow the kids to do the same. I can look at these days and I can see them through the innocence of my children’s eyes. I can relive the buzz that they had and I can feel like I am flying down that hill, a bit too fast and a bit unsteady, worried about nothing in the world. Living my absolute best life and knowing that those that are important to me are living their best lives too.