Well, here I sit in the Lisbon International Airport, having survived a sleepless nightime transatlantic flight. No matter how I twisted or turned, the fact remained - I was too tall to fit. A nice bed on a cruise ship will feel so nice, but we still have five more hours to go.

Every vehicle zipping around the airport is so different in design. For the most part they are shorter, and look like they have tiny engines under the hood. A Dodge Ram or a Ford F-150 pickup would look like weight lifter here. And the quantity of special purpose trucks at the airport is astounding. I’ve never seen busses with liftting bodies to allow hadicap visitors to enter the plane.

Every one drives fast around the planes. I’d say it’s at least twice as fast as the fastest someone dares in the US. Plus they never stop at intersections marked “Stop”, they just zip into to the traffic, weave through airplanes, and generaly just race around. Needless to say the view out the airport windows is much more entertaining here.

So far this trip, I’ve managed to remeber every piece of metal in my pockets, and I’ve made it through security with out a hitch everytime. When I step through the detectors, and nothing squals I feel like I’ve just won a little victory.

Lisbon was beautiful from the air, all the houses and buildings are painted the same color, and in the rosy dawn the city had a surreal appearence.