First day in Lisbon

My plane was a little late getting into Lisbon, so I didn’t see much of Interspeech the first day. Like most of the Microsoft attendees, I’m staying at the Sheraton.

 The hotel is okay, at least what I saw on my quick check-in, but I was annoyed that Internet access is 22 euros a day!  What are they thinking?

I started getting SMS messages from people who need to meet me at the conference center. To get there, the concierge suggested I take bus #49.  It was only 1.2 euros, and took about 20 minutes.  The bus takes the scenic route, down a lot of tiny streets that you wouldn’t ordinarily see. In unfamiliar foreign cities, I usually take a map with me to double-check on where I am, but in this case the map didn’t do much good. I never did figure out which streets were which.

The Portuguese apparently like to eat late. We went to A Trevessa, a wonderful Portuguese restaurant built on the site of an old convent, and overlooking this beautiful courtyard.

I was tired and wanted to get to bed early, but we could only get reservations starting at 8pm, and we were among the earliest people there. It only started to get crowded after 10pm.