Lisbon is a pretty great city. It makes me think of southern Italy without the utter hopelessness, stifling sexism, and filth. Before moving into to a hotel so swanky that the bathrooms in the double rooms have glass walls so you can watch your partner do their business (only the swanky are that pervy, I find), I was staying in a great non-swanky hotel in the Barrio Alto, where people offer you drugs and what feels like the whole city drinks and laughs and chats all night. Lovely. Good to get in that sort of quality time with a couple of my co-workers too, although I forebore to buy drugs in front of them. Must keep some mystique.

But this place is great - cheap, friendly, fun, and really really beautiful in a sun-baked way - and really full of the feeling that everything has been rough but is going to get better and better. Not like the south of Italy. This place feels both more cynical and more optimistic, somehow. Also very different are the women. Much, much more independent than in the south of Italy. Chicken-and-egg question - is that because the men are so much less insufferable? They smile and look up and down instead of catcalling and getting in your fucking way, as in Italy. God, Italian men. But that's a rant for another time. The important thing is it's been war menough for the construction workers here to not wear tps and that's awesome.