· Lisbon is everything you would expect from a once-wealthy powerful port city. All the monuments somehow incorporate the ocean.

· I was surprised at how diverse the city is. I have never seen so many inter-racial families, both young and old.

· Portuguese is interesting. When you see it written, it looks like Spanish. But when you hear it spoken, it mostly sounds like Russian/east European, sometimes French and occasionally Spanish. But it shouldn’t be! It is a Latin derivative just like Spanish, French, Italian. I can’t get my head around it.

· One thing I’ve learned is that certain places are much more interesting from afar than exploring them directly on site, which can be rather boring — an example are 19th century palaces.