Coimbra+Conimbriga

---

Just getting to Coimbra was a bit of an ordeal. Arriving at the Lisbon airport, I had to wait for 40 minutes for all the bags to come out before realizing mine wasn't going to come out. They had a take a number system for lost bags at the Lisbon airport, this must be a common occurrence! Grabbed a cab through the pouring rain to the Oriente train station, the cabbie was quite chatty and singing most of the way. Got to the train station to find the lower level flooded, and no trains running, no explanation. I went to the other side of the station where the bus vendors were and managed to get a bus ticket to Coimbra, leaving in an hour. Called my friend marco to find out, turns out he was on a train that had hit a tree, causing all the other trains to be delayed. They had been sitting there for a few hours already. The bus ride was uneventful, about 2.5 hrs. Good timing on arrival, marco and clarissa had just arrived on their train. We caught a cab to the hotel then went out for dinner with the other openbsd folks, who were starting to straggle in now that the trains were running

Ah.. what a difference a few hours makes. My bags finally showed up yesterday afternoon intact after 4 days. On my Melilla trip I was flying Malaga-Melilla-Madrid-Lisbon, I checked my bags through all the way. Apparently Melilla is a place you go to, not connect, and my bags never made it on the Madrid flight. It took 4 days to make it to Coimbra as it was a weekend.

I also managed to get some code checked in yesterday so my stress level has gone down considerably. I even got to play tourist a bit today and went with Clarissa around town a bit. Coimbra has the oldest university in Portugal, from the late 1200's. There has been settlements here since before Roman times, and there is a remnant of an aqueduct here. We also went out to Conimibriga, an old Roman town that had some pretty impressive mosaics very similar to those we saw in Cyprus. The weather today was cooperative and didn't rain at all. I still haven't really had any time to look around to shop however. They do have some great painted tilework for sale here. Tomorrow I'm headed to Lisbon to look around and then I'm flying back to the US first thing Thursday morning. I'll be home for a whole 9-10 days before going off to India.

I'll have to say the food here has been outstanding, and haven't yet had a bad glass of wine. Tonight we went to one of the Brazilian steakhouses where they carve the still-mooing meat off of huge skewers, and it keeps coming. Yum. I'm still in a meat-induced haze.

---

Photos

Conimbriga mosaic
Conimbriga Roman town about 16km outside of Coimbra