Goodbye Bus

Hello Kitty!

A few years ago I read that Gerber had to remove the picture of the baby from their product because people from certain countries thought it contained actual babies. At the time I thought, how dumb can people be?!

After putting leg invigorating gel in my hair for the past several weeks I have had to re think my original assessment of what "dumb" means and how closely it relates to literacy.

Being illiterate means you rely heavily on pictures and symbols and after a month of travelling in countries where I don't speak the language I really understand how dependent you become on those pictures.

Why the czechs would put a picture of a woman with long flowing hair on leg invigorating gel is a good question but at least the mystery of my bad hair days is solved.

And in Lisbon, a ramshackle of a city, full of hardworking, serious people, no one pays much attention to hair and fashion, so it was a good place to look dishelvelled.

Lisbon has a lot of monuments paying tribute to their glory days which sadly took place about 500 years ago, but still there is some charm to the place, certainly in their amazing custard tarts, the pleasant people, and their Gulkenbian museum, which was quite exceptional.

And as the city where we bid farewell to the BUS,  I think I will always think fondly of Lisbon.


I don't think I'll be taking another Trafalgar bus tour for a long while.  Mainly because the time on the bus was just too much.  And I didn't like the controlled environment.  I know Trafalgar relates controlled to safe, and I appreciate this, I really do, but the side effect of this safety is a homogenized view of everything.   


Tomorrow we leave for Amsterdam for the last week of our trip.  After 5 planes,  3 trains and 15 days on the bus, a week of staying put, on our own,  has great appeal.

In the Praca do Comericio Plaza, Lisbon

Lisbon family out for a Sunday walk

Yes, that's me in the Age of Discovery monument

Lisbon