mAd does Portugal: part 2 ~electric boogaloo!

well, still no pictures. can’t say i’m surprised though.

the day after my excursion through downtown Lisbon, i had to be up early for the conference. I met some cool people there, but the two i hung out with, mostly, were an english guy working in Switzerland and a Cameroonian guy working in Cleveland. All three of us talked soccer for the majority of the conference, but i dont think the guy from Cameroon was my biggest fan, because after i mentioned my thoughts on Argentina’s team and that i liked their chances, he got REALLY mad at me. very weird.

that afternoon Portugal was playing Mexico, so a few of us sneaked away from the conference to go watch the game. We found ourselves at the World Expo ’98 grounds, which is basically a 500m strip of bars with big screen everywhere. Great time! People were partying all night after the win. Getting up the next day was difficult, to say the least.

the weirdest thing happened that morning though. when i returned after the conference to change, before heading out to the game, an umbrella was left in my room (mind you the weather had been beautiful). i thought maybe it was just how they roll in Lisbon hotels, but noone else from the conference had one in their room. trully bizarre.

remember i said Portuguese taxi drivers are ridiculous? well a couple days later, while taking a taxi around town, my driver hit someone in a round-a-bout. i mean it was nothing major, but the taxi driver was insisting to the poor guy he hit, that it wasn’t his fault. before long a half dozen other taxu drivers show up and start vouching for the taxi driver! saying it was clearly the other guys fault and stuff. i was talking to some portuguese people i met there and apparently all the taxi drivers in the city pull this shit all the time. it’s like a mafia family!

anyway, i can’t remember anything else that happened. Lisbon was really cool. i highly recommend it!

mAd