Arrival in Lisbon to explore

On February 16, 2023, I left Atlanta to spend 8 weeks exploring Portugal with my dog. I spent hundreds of hours training her to work as a service dog, so that she could go with me. But that’s a separate story.

I did learn before leaving that EU countries have stricter regulations around service dogs in the cabin. Because I trained her myself instead of working with an approved organization, she could only be in the cabin with me on flights with one end in the US. I had to change my itinerary to make my connection at JFK instead of CDG airport!

Mocha was absolutely amazing on the plane. I expected her to behave well, but I was prepared with plenty of treats in case she was more nervous.

When we boarded, the flight staff were keeping a close eye on us. The regulations around service dogs in the US make it a lot more accessible to get this support, but also a lot easier to scam, to call a cute pet a “service dog.” All it takes is one of those nasty lying liars to make a flight attendant skeptical about every dog they see board a flight.

By the time we arrived, they stopped by to say she was the most well behaved dog they’ve ever seen on a flight. That was a regular pattern each time we crossed the Atlantic in this whole process. I took her training seriously!

We landed in Lisbon bright and early (8am) on Friday, 17 Feb. Because I was traveling with an animal, I had to stop by the airport vet before I could go beyond baggage claim.

They checked her paperwork and checked that her microchip matched, and that she appeared healthy.

And then we were on our way to the taxi stand and my first gaffe!

I had been in contact with the airbnb host, so she knew around when to expect me. That part was all good.

Before I got in or gave him the address, I asked the taxi driver whether he accepts payment by card. Because my brilliant self didn’t have any local cash yet. I thought for sure he said yes. And in hindsight, he may have actually said yes, thinking I meant a local MultiBanco cartão.

We arrived at the destination, and no, no he did not accept my no-foreign-transaction-fee visa credit card 😬

I don’t remember the exact amount or what the conversion rate was then, but he accepted a $20 bill instead of payment in Euros. If I overpaid, well, that’s the tax for not paying the ridiculous conversion rates at the airport.

I don’t remember much from that first day beyond getting into the apartment, taking a shower, and crashing. I don’t sleep well at all on an airplane, so I was running on maybe 2 hours of sleep.

My next big challenge was getting my day started on Saturday.

At this point, it helps to know a few background details. Around the beginning of high school, I developed disordered eating habits. I didn’t manage to consistently eat three meals a day until I was 18 and living in a friend’s basement, where I was free to smoke weed every day to boost my appetite.

After my body was used to that many calories, I realized that I could maintain that habit by making breakfast something of a ritual. Almost every single day for more than 2 decades at this point, I started my day with a solid breakfast that included protein as well as carbs. That almost always meant 2 eggs, but occasionally if I went to a conference and had a room with a refrigerator, I’d make do with some greek yogurt and granola.

I say ritual instead of routine, because breakfast took on something of a magical quality. There’s probably actually a scientific explanation related to neurotransmitters or hormonal balances or something. But a good breakfast means that I will be able to eat a healthy amount that day. Missing breakfast messes up my appetite for the rest of the day, and it can be really easy to fall back into disordered eating patterns. So it feels safer to break mirrors and have a dozen black cats cross my path on Friday the 13th than to not have a good breakfast.

So I woke up on Saturday morning and went looking for breakfast.

I found pastelerias with lovely carb-heavy pastries, but that’s not what I needed. And I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted in Portuguese.

I was starting to feel like what have I done? I’m all by myself in this foreign country and I can’t even figure out how to find a good breakfast, which carries SO much more weight for me than it does for normal people…

And then, a homeless man asked me for money. I told him I don’t speak Portuguese, so he switched to English.

So I asked him if he knew of anywhere nearby that I could get a breakfast with eggs 😂

I told him I’d buy him breakfast, too, if he helped me find a good breakfast 😂

So he led me to a restaurant attached to a hotel just around the block from where I had met him and helped me get service.

The man at the counter also spoke English, and checked with me about whether I really wanted to buy food for this man, but a deal is a deal.

I don’t honestly remember what I did about breakfast the next day. At some point before too long, I learned about savory pastries with meat in them – empada, pão com chouriço, and merenda mista. There was also a grocery store close to where I was staying where I could get greek yogurt or buy eggs to cook for myself.

All I remember was that everything got easier after that first morning!

Olaias

That first stay was in the Olaias neighborhood of Lisboa. I chose that location because it was close to a Metro station and the airport. I only spent three nights there to recover from the flight and start to recover from the jet lag. I didn’t intend to move to Lisbon, so I didn’t plan to spend much time here.

One of the things I found that I loved was that, even in this dense urban area, there’s a huge green space nearby. Google maps is listing at least three different names for different parts of the park, but the area I was in is showing up as Vale do Casal Vistoso Urban Forest.

We also took the Metro to go explore a little bit of central Lisboa and averaged around 15K steps per day that we were there!

Another chore we took care of during those first few days in Lisboa was to find a pet supply store and buy some new food for Mocha.

I brought a little bit of her regular food with me, so that I wouldn’t have to run out immediately to find dog food, and so that she could transition. I’ve been told many times that you’re not supposed to change their diets abruptly, instead you’re supposed to mix the old and new food for a week or two.

Mocha did not support that plan AT ALL 😂

Overall, once I got past those first couple of hurdles, I enjoyed my time here. I don’t remember Olaias as an area I’d want to actually live in – the best thing about the location was the proximity to a Metro stop. But I felt safe walking alone at night, which alone was a huge change from the US.

Up next: Coimbra!