Portugal - Lisbon

The last morning in Lisbon was a bit hard, as I stayed up watching TV quite late. The plane would leave very late in the evening, so not long before noon we visited the nearby Lisbon Oceanarium.

I loved it! There's a central big aquarium, where you can see rays and sharks among other fish. The other animals and plants are on different levels above around the main central aquarium. There was a big room for penguins and some other birds. It was very nice, and there was even ice around. Next door were a couple of sea otters. I fell in love! They were so cute, I could have watched them all day. I did take some nice video of them. They're so bendy.

There were many smaller and bigger displays. I really enjoyed looking at jellyfish, as they are very beautiful. My favourites were the White-spotted jellyfish. I saw two bump into each other, and they sprang apart like bumper cars. There were also some amphibians, though they were hard to take pictures of, because they were often hiding or the lighting wasn't sufficient enough.

We had lunch at the cafeteria. They have a pretty good one, with set prices. It was quite busy with many families eating there.

I also liked that in the main area they had sculptures out of plastic bottles. I'm very much into recycling, and I wish that everyone, everywhere did it. Also, as they said in Captain Planet: "Remember the three Rs. Reduce Reuse Recycle!"

There was also a very nice temporary exhibit, which at first I wasn't sure if I wanted to check out, but I'm so glad I did. “Forests Underwater by Takashi Amano” is a great display of Japanese aquarium design. You can see some of it in the second half of my video. It's so beautiful and relaxing, I felt like I was being hugged. I've heard not long before that empty spaces are important in Japanese designs, and this showed that so well. I just wish there weren't kids running about so much, because the atmosphere really wasn't for screaming kids.

Afterwards, we went with the areal lifts to the other end of the harbour. It was quite fun, in spite of me being afraid of heights. 

We slowly went back to the hotel to get the car. From there, we went on to the airport, and did all the usual things. The waiting room for Wizzair is awful. Overcrowded, still a bit under construction, few toilets. It took some time to find a chair. Of course, the plane was also late. The plane that was going to take us to Hungary arrived around the time when it was supposed to take off. The representatives didn't even tell anyone what was going on. People stood in line for hours to check in, when the plane wasn't even there. Then once it was there, they opened the gates, and everyone went outside, where a storm was brewing. Cold winds blew, sporadic rain. We just stood outside, while people were still getting off. It felt like forever. We were so happy when we could finally sit down, almost at the time when the plane was supposed to arrive to Budapest.

What they should have done was once they knew the plane was so late, they made an announcement, and had everyone sit down to wait. Then when people could actually walk up the plane, then open the gates.

To make matters worse, it was pouring in Budapest. Since we had to walk outside from the plane to the terminal, everyone was soaked.

Overall, I liked Portugal. Nice place, good food. The weather was terrible, and it was July. The week before and after? Summer heat. Next time when I travel anywhere in the summer, I'm taking winter clothes.