Continuation.

Got on the bus. The bus ride was fine down to lisbon. It´s about a four hour haul, no stops through the heart of portugal. It is a trip I have done a fair share of times but one that I never get tired of. Being on that bus, alone, accompanied only by my Ipod on my way to another great adventure just evokes some kind of feeling in me. A feeling of satisfacton, comfort and freedom. Sounds tacky but doing that on my own makes me feel free, out in the world, going to rondezvous with my friends in a big city. I settle in, listening to the music that fits the mood which seems to change almost as rapidly as the scenery outside the bus window. We go from mountains to plains, over rivers and past lakes until finally the industrial city scape of lisbon breaks over the horizon, rising up, growing ever bigger and more fascinating as our bus nears the metropolis. Of course we get stuck in some minor traffic. After many minutes of anxious ``Are we there yet?´´s the bus pulls a hard right and heads down a beaver slide into the busy bus-port. The scene is that from a star wars film, space ships buzzing around like bees docking and un-docking, loading and unloading of cargo and different species from far off worlds. I climb off the bus in a slight daze, awakening from the calmness that was my ipod and bus seat, and see sebi waiting for me with his cell phone at his ear making some last minute arrangements for the night ahead of us. He says something into the phone and quickly hangs up. With a broad smile on his face and his arms spread even wider he charges. I duck into a football tacklers position and take him around the middle. After that little scene in the crowded bus station, we exchange some quick words of hello, how´s it going and then sebi brings it to my attention that the bus arrived twenty minutes behind schedule and that we needed to put on the afterburners to get everything ready for tonight. After that is was a mad dash. We raced out of the station to the nearest metro, hastily bought tickets and boarded nipping our tails in the closing door. This was our real first chance to have a conversation. We embraced once more and then broke out in laughter, this is it, we are doing it, living the life! We hopped stops, tranfering trains, surfacing to catch the famous lisbon electricals, and finally jumping off at a breakneck pace and sprinting the last 100 yards to sebis front door. Only sebis maid and little brother were home when we arrived. We said quick formal hellos and then went to prepare in sebis room. Sebi insisted that I use his bed so i set my bag down, pulled out some fresh clothes, threw them on, and we were off once more. We left the house and stopped at a nearby bank to take out some money, went back to sebi´s house to drop off his credit card (dangerous to carry it around) and went back to the train station. we got our tickets and arrived on the platform in the nick of time to catch the train. We took the train into the heart of the lisbon night life scene passing pulse-pounding clubs that could be heard inside the train on our way by. Lines of people stood outside in the warm, clear night air waiting to get in some of these clubs. The mood was set. We passed under the big famous bridge in lisbon just before our stop. We got off, standing out a little as we both looked utterly exhausted and hungry as we had just ran this crazy marathon of transport, and were easily spotted by our group of friends that we were planning on meetimg. With shouts and yells of welcome ringing throughout my ears, and those of anyone else on the platform, I was grabbed and hugged by all my exchange student buddies. I was really happy to see them all. We waited around for some more straggling friends and, when the whole gang was assembled, we set of to find our restaraunt. The place was a little farther off than anyone had expected and after a long walk we were all very excited to see the big bright orange, that was the sign and name of the place, shining out in the dark street. We entered and were greeted by warm smiles and bright orange walls. We were seated and given a sheet of paper and a pen. Now, how this place works is really cool, it is basically just designed for teens. They have about 4 basic dishes, you tally how many of each dish you want and thats that. The main draw of this place is the drinks. You pay a small fee, get a basic meal, and all the free drinks you can handle. Soon the restaruant was packed, each long table packed with roudy teenagers. The drinks come before anything else and before you know it everyone is laughing and having a good time, tottally oblivious to the fact that the meal hasn´t even started. Sooner or later the waitress comes bearing our ready-made plates and we laugh and eat some more. After many pictures, spills and stories told, we feel it´s time to let the night lead on. A night to remember. It came to a nice end with me and sebi making our way home to rest and prepare for the day to come.