Robbed
We were in disarray. The clothes we had worn to Lisbon the day before were
soaking wet. The night had only evenly distributed the wetness and imbued
the thickest garments with a mildewy smell. All the clothes I'd brought
for warmth were wet: my jacket, my sweater, my scarf. We were not happy.
We decided to leave Lisbon. And once again, yes, we got lost. It did
not seem that we would ever be able to escape NW Lisbon, despite the
best efforts of the blue arrows. The traffic jam extended almost to Sintra,
where we picked up the road to Hafra, wanting to see the gigantic Palacio
National.
That place turned out to be interesting, but with the nasty gray and
misting weather, and with our still-damp clothes, we were chilly and
grumpy. We headed for Ericeira. There we were somewhat cheered by the
sight of beaches, fishing boats, and little medieval streets like those
we had learned to cope with in the Algarve and the Alentejo. We embedded
the car and walked. We began to feel a little better. We had a pretty
nice lunch. (I had a weird shrimp and fish bread pudding with cilantro).
But we were robbed.
I'd left the camera under the seat, because I could not carry it (as
I had before) in my jacket pocket. My jacket was still too wet to wear.
Also, like a fool I left my purse cunningly hidden (or so I thought)
under a map. Someone jimmied the lock, took the camera and some relatively
small number of US dollars, and most considerately did not take my passport,
driver's license, ticket home, or Visa. Or any checks.
The wonder for which I am grateful is that the thief did not take my
purse somewhere else to rifle it in peace. He left everything but cash,
and looked for only cash. He got the camera and the dollars, but that
was all. We got off easy, but I was very sorry about the camera. It was
a nice one. I had four rolls of film left. Subsequently, lots of good
sights went unrecorded by us.
We reported the theft to a nice policeman, who was pained to hear about
it. This transaction took place in French, for some reason. As I was
still a bit excited, my French was better than usual.
We set off for the southern coast of the Estremadura: Estoril and Cascais.
At Cascais we snapped up a room in a B&B called La Palma, which was
wonderful, perhaps the nicest hotel we stayed in during the whole trip.
We were on the top floor, with a bath and a big bay window.
As we walked through Cascais to the car, I caught sight of a headline:
democrats had won two key governor's races. I bought the international
Tribune and found that Ann Richards had beaten Clayton Williams. This
surely meant that Dan Morales was my new boss.
We couldn't find a decent inexpensive eating place in Cascais. It was
all very touristy. We settled for a snack in a pub run by some sort of
oddball expatriate Englishman.
