A week in Lisbon

As you might have already guessed by looking at the Picasa gallery, I got to spend some time in Lisbon at the end of August. Our Lisbon offices does a lot of work for our Swedish clients, basically all the routine and boring stuff, freeing up our time to work on the non-routine projects and to focus more on consulting. It was decided that we would be able to work more effectively with Lisbon if we got to meet our colleagues face-to-face, and spent some time with them to better understand what they do down there. We had a few hours of meetings every day. We tried to explain what we expected of them. They tried to explain why certain processes took longer than we thought they should take. We tried to find typical Portuguese restaurants for lunch, and we were left alone to explore the city at night.

I'm sorry to say that I can't really write the best review, as I intentionally avoided most of the touristy stuff. It may not look that way from my photos, but my goal was to see everything at a distance, that way everything will still be exciting and new when I can return with my partner in crime to do some real sight-seeing.

My first impressions were that the city was old, run down and dirty. Lisbon is a port city, sitting on the estuary (a good word to test on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?) of the river Tagus. The harbour offers some amazing views, but shipping takes precedence over leisure. Near the touristy areas of town, where a good city planner should want to build miles of interrupted parks and walkways, you will instead find miles of industrial buildings that block your view of the water. The parks and walkways do exists, but you have to walk along a busy road for a few miles just to get to them.

Everything was crumbling. Every other block seemed to have a building that was in ruins, bricked up, or in some other form of total abandonment. It was obvious that everything was old and that the money wasn't there for annual repairs.

My views weren't helped by my runs through town. It was the worst running city I've ever been in. The sidewalks were all paved in two inch by two inch square stones. Beautiful, but rough on the legs. They were fairly level in the touristy areas, but once I got past that part of town, the stones were too wavy for me to handle. The sidewalks were also quite narrow in many places, some areas no wider than two feet wide, with cars zipping by just inches away. By the end of the week I found a route that I was somewhat happy with, but for anybody that is in the height of their marathon training, I highly recommend waiting to visit Lisbon until after the race.

The longer I stayed in town, the more I started to like it. The town became more and more charming with each passing day. Even the most run-down buildings seemed to have a story. You could see how rich and pretty the city must have been at one time. Miranda said my photos make the city look very Spanish, but with a bit more of a Moorish influence than the parts of Spain she had visited. If that's the case, I want to go to Spain. Based on my more-limited travels, I'd have to say that the city was like a cross between San Diego and San Francisco. You take the hills and the tight-quarters of San Francisco. Drop a bit of the San Diego weather and design onto the setting, age the city a couple hundred years, then add palaces and monuments that will never be built in America, and voila! You have a new copy of Lisbon.

My one regret is that I care too much about each individual run to ever run with a camera. That may be my lifetime regret. The most amazing photos of Lisbon are all framed in my head, but unfortunately weren't ever shot. The top tourist sites were all along the river, too far from the center to reach on a walk through town. Taxis were cheap, but I didn't want to pay for a taxi to drive me around just so I could snap a few photos.

My last comment is that the food was just awesome...and so was the wine. I love the Swedish food, all forms of well cooked meat and potatoes, but if I had eaten Portuguese food first, I may never have made it this far north. Most of the food I found in Lisbon had a heavy Brazilian influence, meaning grilled meats and not potatoes, but french fries. There were a lot of fish options too, but I'm not a seafood lover, so I stuck to my steak and fries, and loved every minute of it. And it was cheap too! Maybe it wouldn't be so cheap if my salary were adjusted for the cost of living, but dinner and nice lunches were less than half the price of what I would have to pay in Sweden.

On the other hand, I went to buy a suit in Sweden. Tried one on, it was a bit baggy but no different than my American suits. Tried on the same size in a slim fit and it fit me perfectly, long arms and all. Tried on a few suit coats in Portugal, the shoulders fit, the sleeves were four inches too short and the body was wide enough to fit three, maybe four of me inside. They didn't even have a slim fit option. Point is, maybe the Portuguese diet should be enjoyed in small quantities.

We'll head back to Portugal. I really want to explore the city and learn more about it. I also want to visit their wine country and their beaches, both of which are an easy drive from Lisbon. We still have a lot of cities that we hope to see in the next year and a half, so we might not make it back there any time soon, but returning is high on my list of priorities.

And now for something completely different

This is Scott here. I feel that's an important thing to clear up before I start my story.

I got my hair cut the other day. It was tough to chop off the long hair, especially when it was just starting to look cool, but for work reasons I really needed a clean(er)-cut look.

After the stylist finished cutting my hair she started to style it. Stylists normally ask if I want it styled, and I always say no because I immediately either go home and go for a run, or go home and shower. This time she didn't ask, she just started styling. But instead of just rubbing some product through my hair, she pulled out a straightening iron and went to work. I couldn't help but laugh, and I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know if she knew why I was laughing until I mentioned that this was my first time getting my hair straightened. Then with a completely serious face, she recommended that due to my naturally wavy hair, I might want to invest in a straightening iron. From the way she said it, I would guess that most men in Sweden may already own one before they reach my age.

As anyone who has ever looked at my head can tell, I can't and shouldn't claim to know much about styling, but still...do guys really own straightening irons? Have I been sheltered from the world of mens' hair styling all these years? I expected her to tell me which gel or cream might help keep my hair under control, and maybe give me some tips as to ways to brush or comb my hair to get it to behave, not to tell me to buy a straightening iron. To wrap it up, 27 years in the U.S. did not prepare me for this piece of advice.

It's about time

It's about time for another blog post, and even more importantly, it was about time for me to finally man up and do something that's been on my mind for ages. I put off taking a knee for much longer than I needed to. The excuse that everything had to be "just right" was too easy to fall back on. I put off writing this post for a while because I wanted to tell the story from a more objective point of view. The sappiness was thick enough in the birthday blogs written back in August.

The story officially began on August 2, 2003. I was invited to play softball with my coworkers and as it turned out, I crashed the birthday party of one of their friends. A few seconds after getting hit in the back with a softball, a softball that was chucked in towards the pitcher's mound from center field as I walked back from second to the dugout, I finally got my chance to meet the birthday girl. The birthday girl had thrown the ball that had hit me, so she ran up to me to and, as was only proper given the circumstances, she first introduced herself, then she apologized. Her name was Miranda.

Fast forward to early 2008. There's an extremely long story about my months of preparation leading up to August 2, 2008, but I'll save that for a follow-up post. I'm afraid that the story of how the ring was found and how it made its journey to Sweden might rival the epic story told in The Lord of the Rings.

Enough exaggerating. August 2 turned out like many typical fall days here in Sweden. It was grey, cold and rainy. Apparently fall isn't marked by a date on the calendar, but rather by the first week that the clouds overtake the sun. There were a number of things that made this particular Saturday a little special though. First, it was Miranda's birthday, as previously mentioned. Second, the city of Stockholm was hosting Europride 2008. Third, Miranda's mom and sister were in town.

The day started with the four of us extending our umbrellas and taking a hike down to Bee's Thai, a restaurant that Miranda has been craving since she first set her eyes on it back in April. After we were satisfied with our delicious meals we set back out on foot to pick our spots for the parade. We took a detour by my office, grabbed some hot chocolate and borrowed a few umbrellas. By the time we were back outside the rain had stopped, but I guess that's just another unimportant detail that I'm too lazy to remove.

The parade was fun. I actually had no idea what to expect, but I couldn't help but laugh inwardly at the irony of taking part in Europe's biggest gay pride festival on the same day that I would later propose to Miranda.

Miranda and I left Kendell and Taryn at our favorite Swedish pizza joint while we went home to get ready for our birthday date. I really didn't want to propose on Miranda's birthday, but so many things lined up that made this particular day work that I would have been stupid to try another day. Most importantly, her mom and sister were here in Sweden to share in the excitement. Next on the list of priorities was the fact that Miranda would take a trip back to the U.S. just a few days after the engagement, giving her the chance to tell all of her friends in person. Next, we had met exactly five years earlier, and lastly, it was our first time alone in about a week and a half.

So we got dressed up, took a few pictures, enjoyed some more of Miranda's birthday cake, and took off to try a new restaurant that we had never tried. The restaurant was on the other side of the island, so we took the subway and walked into a small place with a decent sized bar, simple northwoods type decorations, and the perfect amount of taxidermy, including a moose head mounted on the wall and an owl hiding in a gap on the way down the stairs to the men's restroom. They served traditional Swedish dishes, so Miranda tried the Biff Rydberg (my new favorite dish), and I "enjoyed" a bland moose burger with lingon ketchup. I did my best to butter Miranda up during the meal, throwing rapid-fire compliments her way. They were all sincere, but I'll be honest, complimenting is sadly not a habit of mine, so I'm surprised that Miranda didn't think that something bigger was in the works.

We left with big smiles on our faces and stepped onto lamp-lit streets and a mild sprinkle. I put up the umbrella, hugged her close and suggested walking down to the waterfront. The sky was black and from what I can remember, the rain made everything quite pretty. The sidewalks were empty, there were no boats on the lake and everything was as peaceful as could be. I suggested taking the long way home so we could enjoy the night and even though Miranda was wearing heels, she happily agreed. We walked a few hundred meters and stopped on a small footbridge to look at the skyline. To the left you could see the steeples of the old town and the bright lights of the city's main transit hub. Across the black lake you could see the high black cliffs with the lights of some cool old buildings up top. We talked for a while and did our best to take everything in. Finally I suggested moving a little farther up the path, that way we'd be off the path if anybody was walking by. There were a few small docks nearby, so we made our way up and walked out onto the first dock. We were still huddled together under the umbrella. I don't know when my conversation drifted from a sweet statement into a proposal, but somewhere mid-statement and mid-hug Miranda realized what was happening. I pulled back from the hug to look at her, even though I don't know if I could see at this point, and as I slipped a small package from my pocket and placed it in her hand, I said that I have two questions. The first question: "Do you want me to ask the next question in Swedish or in English?" The response: "Swedish." We cautiously worked to untie the knot and unwrap the tissue paper. Once the ring was out I said, "Vill du gifta mig?" (Do you want to marry me?) I honestly don't remember if she said "ja" or not at the time, but I followed my first question up by taking a knee and asking again as I put the ring on her finger, this time in English. This time she definitely said yes, and after about 20 minutes of joyful tears, we finally decided to walk home and share the news.

So there it is, the procrastinator did his job. Five years later and he finally popped the question. Five more weeks later and he finally wrote about it. At the rate we're going we might actually get around to setting a wedding date one of these days!