Pictures from Lisbon

We stayed near the coastal subway station called Oriente (near the top right of the map) while the conference was in Belem (near the bottom left of the map). It took about an hour by bus or train - trains were faster, but you had to change a couple of times.


This is one of several public squares in Lisbon.


This is some green guy on a green horse. He looks lost. The horse is asking directions from a carthorse (not shown) going in the opposite direction.

The greenies are watched over by an evil guardian angel who guards all those who might give the greenies trouble.

Here's the front view of the angel. He's holding wreaths over two nudist angels and thinking 'I sure wish these human sculptors had known how to use anti-gravity to hold these wreaths up'.


The angels also wish the trains would stop running all the time. The leftmost one in the picture, the one reclining with his back to the arch and knees folded, is telling the others 'You know, I think these trains should ask for directions as well. They keep going around in circles.'

Looming menacingly over the square is a castle where evil wizards keep all the sunlight to themselves.


Of course, when it's night, it's dark everywhere, bar electric lights. You can see the evil wizard's castle from here. It's really really bright, far brighter than explainable by mere electricity.

[Oh, and if Anton, Sounda, or Nilesh is reading this, remember the word "funicular"...]

Moving to the East of the City again (Oriente), we see a signal tower. It's called Lisboabab, and communicates with the aliens who founded Lisbon a thousand years ago. At least it tries to --- no one knows if the aliens are still alive (outside Lisbon).

Surrounding the communication tower are some quite nice buildings. Humans made them. Regarding the building on the left - the architect thought he was drawing straight lines at the time. He also thought his tolerance to port was higher than it was.

The other building is named after a human who went around in circles. Great circles.


Fifteen minutes walk from Oriente is where we lived. No, not in the car! We lived in the pink building on the left.


The view from the pink building: it's always construction time in Lisbon. There are lots and lots of nice new buildings here.


Here's a nice new building! It's the night club where the SigDIAL banquet was. Very cool joint. Very memorable, if I could only remember what it was called...


The only thing cooler than the cool joint was the food and drink (the service was great too).