2023 Mediterranean Diet Tour

 

Taking off from PSC with my one tiny suitcase and backpack. Purple stands out in baggage claim (I try to avoid checking baggage anyway).

 

 

Lisbon

First lesson of foreign travel, don’t automatically assume you have to stand in a line just because it is there. Ask questions. This was passport control going into Portugal. When I got to the front, there was staff there and I asked what the empty area to the left was. She said it was for electronic passports, like Americans have. I could have skipped the 1.5 hour line…

 

Attending the Business Speakers Toastmasters club meeting in Lisbon. Even though this meeting was in Portugese, which I do not speak, I took the role of Um Ahh Counter.  They meet weekly from 8 pm – 10 pm and the last Wednesday is in English! They are hard core. This was my first in-person TM meeting as my own, the Women of Influence Toastmasters Club, is 100% online.

 

My first place in Lisbon was located at the top of these steps. I brought my Keens, close-toed shoes, which have worked out great on all these cobbled streets which are actually smooth and slippery, even when dry. Stairs like these, and there’s been a lot, is why I brought my extra little suitcase, which still weighed almost 20 lbs.

 

So picturesque. Imagine it 100 years ago without all the tourists.

 

Flavors of Portugal – fresh home-grown lemons and fresh-baked bread, grilled shrimp in piri piri sauce, grilled fresh-caught fish, lemon and sugar crepe, and a wonderful Sangria that I was told the secret was chocolate liquor! Yum

 

Tavira