This weekend hails the end of my second week here out in Madrid, and as you’d expect I’ve been using my time to explore and see what I can see. We begin things last Sunday, where me and Heidi headed into the city and have some coffee. Heidi had plenty of reading to do for her masters course so I took a book along with me to just draw and watch the world go by. Here’s the beginnings of a little typographic doodle I managed to rustle up…
In further procrastination, I had heard that world famous architect Norman Foster had an exhibition on in the city centre, so we headed to the Fundación Telefonica and took a look at Futuros Comunes, an exhibition dedicated to exploring the infamous buildings designed by Foster + Partners. The coolest exhibit for me was a scale model of what the new Apple campus, Apple Park, will look like.
Unfortunately Heidi had to head off, and so I didn’t get a chance to take as much time as I would have liked to look around, but I’ll be sure to return and bring more photos and updates from the exhibition soon.
Later that evening I found myself down at the Matadero, visiting the design centre who were running a poster series themed around the phrase “Madrid: La Cuidad Ligera” or “Madrid: The Light City”. This was open to interpretation so there were posters with all kinds of concepts, however my favourite one just read: “mi cuidad es ligera cuando saltamos todos al mismo tiempo”, translating to “my city is light when we all jump at the same time”. Genius.
I was thankful for this helpful reminder of just how to use my legs.
Sundays soon turn into Mondays, but that didn’t bother me so much however as I was looking forward to getting stuck back into the design projects at work. There my desk is starting to become overrun with post-it notes, I think I should work out a better system for keeping track of all the new vocabulary – it’s starting to feel like college Spanish lessons all over again!
At the studio a busy couple of days soon ensued, and so on Tuesday night I did a spot of therapeutic cooking after work, creating a huge batch of the cinnamon-flavoured Spanish treat torrijas for everyone to enjoy in the office the next day.
With last Thursday being a national holiday as the Spanish celebrate the “Day of being Spanish” on the 12th October, we went out for some celebratory drinks on Wednesday night after work. We all headed a few streets down from the office where one of the restaurants has an outdoor terrace with a beach bar area, and so we all clinked glasses and chatted for hours over the sand.
I feel like everyone just uses any excuse to sit outside and drink gin.
Having stayed out on Wednesday night to the early hours of the morning singing karaoke and meeting tonnes of new people, my Thursday off was spent dozing around in bed and doing some housework in my flat, however things perked up on Friday as it was time for an aperitivo at work on the terrace as we bid goodbye to a couple of the team.
A few beers and hugs later it was the weekend once more, and I spent Friday night in the city watching the sun set over the lake at Retiro – a gorgeous sight.
This weekend has been a little less busy than last weekend, however I did manage to head out yesterday with my friend to try the burgers at a place I have been meaning to visit since I first came to the city – Goiko Grill. I ordered one with fried breaded Monterrey Jack cheese, mushrooms, bacon, smoked bacon mayonnaise and lettuce. The portion size was huge and the burger was to die for – I’ll definitely be back again soon!
Today is another calmer day as I’ve just whipped up some pisto, a Spanish dish of vegetables flavoured with paprika in a tomato sauce, and I’ve to get some washing done and try to dry my shoes. That doesn’t mean that it’s not an exciting day though, as I’ve now got two exciting events coming up very soon in my diary!
First up is that my friend Amber is coming to visit me in less than three weeks to spend a very long weekend relaxing in the city! It’ll be lovely to have her again after she visited last time, and I can’t wait to have a good catch up and do what we usually did back in England – sit around with a glass of wine and put the world to rights until the bar closes.
The next little trip I’ll be going on is back up to the north of Spain to see Kevin once again in the beautiful city of Oviedo! Me and Kevin met whilst he was studying Erasmus at Leeds University, and last time I went to Oviedo just a few months ago I had an absolute blast. It’s only a Friday evening until a Sunday evening, but I know that with Kevin’s plans we’ll squeeze so much in to the two full days that it’ll feel like a two week summer holiday all over again!
Anyway, I can hear my pisto sizzling away in the kitchen and it’ll soon be time to head up on to the roof of my block to hang my washing out to dry, so I must dash off. If you need me, I’ll probably be sat on the roof next to my washing, looking over the city and sipping on a can of Mahou from the corner shop. ¡Salud!
As you can probably imagine this week has been a hectic week to top all hectic weeks, as on Monday morning I headed off on the metro to be reunited with the guys at Erretres and begin my first week working as an adult in a full time job – scary stuff!
Coming back to the office was just like coming back home, and after a shower of hugs I presented a gift which I had brought – scones with jam and butter for the entire team. They went down pretty well, although I was upset I couldn’t bring along clotted cream instead.
Anyway, we were soon whisked into our weekly planning meeting and I was soon assigned my first project, which had a quick turnaround – we had to get part of it ready for Friday! Between designing for that however, there were some other things to do as part of the initiation ceremonies, including moving my head for the announcement video on Instagram – here’s Álvaro doing his…
As usual I can’t really discuss any of the work which is going on behind the big closed metal doors, but I’m having a blast in getting stuck into some big design projects and working with a bunch of cracks (what the Spanish have taken to mean fun people). I’m even enjoying the challenge of balancing the books as an adult, meaning I’ve been making the rounds to Mercadona (a bit like a Spanish Tesco/Aldi combo) to get my 36¢ tins of tomatoes…
Outside of work I have obviously been making the most of the sun before it begins to cool down as October wanes on, including wandering around the centre which is just a few minutes walk from work. I love being able to walk out of the office and be passing the royal palace and gardens in a matter of minutes – and then onwards for coffee and a sunbathe in the park!
As you can imagine the shock of moving from casual hours to full time has meant that I’ve been pretty tired every weekday, but today is Saturday and so I had plans ready to make the most of my free day – tomorrow I shan’t be working either of course but most of Spain is shut on Sunday so it’s a bit of a write off. Last night I couldn’t be bothered to cook, so the owner of my flat showed me a nice local spot to grab some food at, and I enjoyed a lovely seafood cannelloni – something I’d never heard of before!
Today was another jam packed day though, as me and my flatmate Heidi had arranged to go out and do plenty of things out and about in the city. We started off at Parque del Retiro, Madrid’s huge public park, where there was an exposition of dogs and cats which were looking to be adopted. We went along to see all of them and I was happy to notice that most had stickers over their little signs announcing that they had found a new home – and also happy that there were so many dogs! I just love dogs.
Once we’d had out fill of our feline and canine friends, we headed to the lake in the park to stop and have some lunch, and we had a lovely long chat whilst I managed to spill all the sweetcorn from my sandwich all over my new white jeans. Genius idea to wear those…
I found it really pretty how the seasons are quite visibly changing here, with some of the trees still lush green and others turning a vivid orange as autumn creeps up on us. It’s also definitely cooling down slowly but surely, I woke up with cold toes this morning! Maybe I’ll need to actually start putting a blanket over myself… Que locura.
One we’d managed to find our way out of the park we made a quick visit to Dealz (basically Poundland) and bought some chocolate teacakes to try tomorrow – Heidi grabbed a bar of Cadbury’s Caramel and we certainly enjoyed that as we continued on with our explorations, explorations which eventually took us back to the centre and around the royal palace.
It was then time for me to finally visit one of my favourite spots in the city, a tiny little Mexican bar which I think serves the best tacos in the entire city – I’d mentioned it to Heidi and we decided we had to pay it a visit. The food was as delicious as ever, and I washed it down rather nicely with a fresh green apple margarita. I didn’t know different flavours other than citrus existed!
After this Heidi had an appointment to make and I was getting tired, but our progress was stunted by the passing of a very extra baroque-inspired procession. I didn’t manage to shove my way very far forward but I did capture a quick photo of the extravagant outfits of the dressage section…
I want one of those hats.
Having just got back to my flat about half an hour ago, and at only 10:45pm local time, I’m already pretty knackered after having been on my legs all day and so I think I’ll probably put myself to bed pretty soon. The day tomorrow will be a pretty relaxed one, as I’ve just to do my washing and a few other admin tasks, and then I’ll probably take myself up to the local park and do some sketching and reading before watching the sun set over the east of the city. It sounds kind of idyllic but I’ll have to report back as to whether it’s as good as it sounds…
I sit in my bed writing this post exactly 18 months after a blog post called “Moving To Madrid” – and so I’ve had to tag “Again” on so that WordPress doesn’t shout at me for having two blog posts with the same name! Last time I’d just moved here to start work with Erretres as an intern, but this time I sit in bed awaiting to start my full time job with them tomorrow morning.
As you probably know by now from my last blog post, I have accepted a job to work here permanently and so just yesterday I left from England to start my next chapter here in the big city. The moving process kicked off well before then however, as I had to scoot around Leeds and Burnley to say goodbye to everyone I could get hold of!
As you can see above, I started with a couple of days in Leeds, where I visited everyone I could including a bunch of friends who are either designers or have somehow been sucked into our design world. Convening at Belgrave, I had a lovely evening catching up and seeing everyone off whilst sipping lemonade (no cider due to a bad head) in one of our favourite old haunts.
After hugging and waving everyone off it was time to head back to Burnley for my last day at Burnley Youth Theatre, where I’ve worked on and off for almost six years. What I didn’t expect was a big surprise buffet, complete with a theatrical hand-clicking opening and a background of Spanish music!
After helping ourselves to heaps of chorizo, jamón, olives and even some nice warm churros, the team gathered and it was time to make a quick speech – something I am hopelessly bad at, but I gave it a go. More hugging ensued, and sooner or later it was Wednesday morning and still without having packed a thing I was roused early to go to visit my sister Ellie in Sheffield, where I’d agreed to make her university room a bit more homely by installing the lights I used to use in my university room – better than them being stuck in a loft!
On Thursday I was back in Burnley again, where I headed out for coffee with a friend from high school, then went to get my hair cut, then out to lunch with Amber. Unfortunately amidst the excitement of a leaving present she’d bought me (a hilarious mechanical walking beefeater) we forgot to take a photo, but thankfully we took one whilst we were catching up in the pub the week before.
That Thursday night I still neglected to do any actual packing, however I did manage to pull out a few piles of clothes and toiletries and group them together ready for packing. The next day was Friday and that heralded my last day in England, but my mother insisted that I spend half of it with her picking my sister up from Sheffield once again. I know the road to Sheffield like the back of my hand now, I swear!
Anyway, we eventually picked Ellie up and returned back to Burnley for our last supper together as a family, but on my return I abstained from packing once again and instead had a nap to try and stave off a gradually worsening cold. Once I woke up it was panic stations as I rushed to get everything organised and packed into a mere 30kg total baggage allowance – it may sound fine but it’s not much for everything one needs for the foreseeable future!
Once I woke up it was panic stations as I rushed to get everything organised and packed.
Needing to be up at 2:30am to make it to the airport in time to catch my flight departing at 6:30am, it’s no surprise to discover that I didn’t sleep at all once I’d climbed in bed at about midnight. Fuzzy headed I said goodbye to my room, my sister and then my parents once I got out of the car at the airport, and then made it through bag drop and security in a tired daze. I don’t remember much of the flight, I popped on a new pair of headphones I bought in the airport (one last treat before the budgeting begins) and I think I drifted in and out of sleep for the whole 2 hours.
Sooner or later I found myself whipping out my trusty Madrid travel card which gets me super discounted travel throughout the city, and eventually wound up at the door to my new flat. Being shown my room by my lovely host, I soon met my flatmate and was invited out for a meal of tapas and sherry with one of her friends – an offer I couldn’t really turn down!
After a lovely evening of chatting, dining and of course drinking, we headed back to our flat relatively early as I was (and still am) full of a cold and we both wanted to get rested. We did, however, take a quick detour to Plaza Mayor, where there was an installation consisting of a huge circle of grass which brought a breath of new lease of life to the square – everyone was sat down and enjoying the ambience!
Today it is Sunday (I say this more to remind myself than you guys, it has been a busy week), and I had a relatively calm day visiting Lush and IKEA to buy a few essentials (yes, their rosewater scented solid shampoo is an essential). As I mentioned at the start of the post I am sat in bed having watched the sun go down from my window, a photo of which I attach below.
At 9am tomorrow I will be headed to the Erretres office to begin in earnest, and make no mistake that I will be back on my blog to tell you about all the shenanigans of my first week as soon as I can next weekend! Until then however I must bid everyone dulces sueños as I should really try to get some kip in!
I have to admit that I’ve been hiding a little secret from the general public for a couple of weeks now, as I wanted to ensure that everything was concrete and sorted before publicly breaking the news. If this post seems like it has a familiar tone then you may remember my last blog post which contained exciting news which was posted in February 2016. At that time I had managed to secure myself a work placement with Erretres in Madrid for six months, and I was over the moon!
As some of you probably know by now I had a great time whilst I was out there, from my initial move out to moving studios to eventually having to come back home for my final year of university. After this and a fun and stress filled final year I graduated this summer and suddenly I was thrust into the big bad adult world of trying to find a job and balance the books.
My family have been a great help in allowing me back home and I once again began working at Burnley Youth Theatre where I have been involved in various capacities since 2012 – they really helped me find my passion for design and get me on track for further experience all through university. After working with an array of fabulous people and companies such as Sky, Elmwood and indeed Erretres, I was faced with the dilemma of deciding where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do.
I always knew that after my time at Erretres I somehow wanted to move back to Madrid, a city which I fell in love with during my first visit back in October 2015, but I did also love working as part of the great team at the studio. To this end I got back in touch with creative director Pablo and began discussions about possibly returning, and so it’s at this point I can reveal that I have accepted a job offer to return to Madrid and join the Erretres team!
The past week or two have been absolutely crazy, especially with a trip to Lisbon thrown in, but I have been managing to slowly get my arrears together in order to move to Spain. It’s all still a blur, even though as this post goes live I will be sat on a plane flying to Madrid, and I cannot describe how excited and mildly terrified I am. I land today, Saturday 30th September, and my first day back at the studio will be Monday 2nd October. No rest for the wicked!
It’s all still a blur, even though as this post goes live I will be sat on a plane flying to Madrid, and I cannot describe how excited and mildly terrified I am.
This all means that I will be now permanently based in the Spanish capital for the foreseeable future, and my trips back to the UK will probably be somewhat sporadic and infrequent due to the cost of flying at peak times such as public holidays. Have no fear however, as I will be updating my blog just as often as ever to bring you all the goings on from my upcoming big city life – which from now on will all also be posted in Spanish too as my fluency (hopefully) improves!
As ever I extend an open invitation for anybody I know who’d like to come visit or is passing through the city – most weekends I’ll be free and more than happy to show people around. Just let me know in advance!
Until then I’d like to thank everyone who’s helped me achieve what I’ve always wanted to do; be in the city I love working amongst some hilarious people for an amazing design studio. I shall, to that, raise a sangría – cheers! Or maybe that should be a hearty ¡salud!…
This week just gone was time for another trip to Lisbon after my last visit in February, but this time I was accompanied by my sister Ellie! Exploring the city from Wednesday 13th to Monday 18th, we spent a good few days wandering the city’s gorgeous winding streets and even hopped on a train to visit another town near the coast. Buckle up, there’s plenty of photos on the way!
We landed early on Wednesday afternoon and so headed out to get exploring straight away after we’d dumped our stuff in our hostel room. We covered an impressive amount of the city’s centre on this first day of explorations, wandering down to the waterfront and then up into the city’s western quarter.
Once we started getting a bit peckish we headed for a place that me and Izzy had visited back in February and had an amazing meal, Taberna da Rua das Flores. When we rocked up however, the wait had already reached an hour and a half! It’s definitely a place worth waiting for, so we decided to head elsewhere and vowed to return earlier the next day.
We wound up having a lovely meal at a place called Fábulas, where we found out that our waiter had starred in an advert for the local beer Super Bock, and Ellie tucked into a vegetable strudel which sounded strange but was quite delicious.
The next day we had breakfast at a little café near our hostel which became our morning haunt for our daily breakfast, before heading out to the oldest part of the city in the east, in an area called Alfama. This is the only area of the city which survived the huge earthquake of 1755 that destroyed most of Lisbon, and its age is definitely given away by its charm and its windy, narrow and very steep streets.
We really enjoyed traipsing up and down the various flights of steps and severe inclines of the area, as unforgiving as they may have been – we were saved from burnout by a decent breeze which was blowing in off the Atlantic! We even had a moment to compose ourself and bag a decent selfie before our hair was ruined said salty breeze.
As you can see above, I basically dragged Ellie into being a model to stand in front of some of the lovely backdrops which presented themselves to us as we traversed around. When I wasn’t instructing her to stand in front of brightly coloured doorways, however, we took plenty of time to soak in the views and enjoy the ambience – until the wind made us too cold, that is…
We also spotted some peculiar things in Alfama, including a gravity-defying pigeon and a “you tried” attempt at covering up an embarrassing bald spot on where the tiles had fallen off a building…
After a pit stop for some bruschetta and a quick coffee, we finally began to descend the hill and wandered past a few of the area’s churches and plenty more jovial street art along the way.
Lisbon is a city of beautiful colours and interesting shapes.
After returning back to sea level and an unsuccessful attempt at finding Ellie some vegetarian lunch on the TimeOut market by the waterfront, we eventually gave up and boarded a train to the far west of the city and the area known as Belém. There we stopped to snack on some pastries, had a quick bathe in the sun and had a good look around some of the buildings and monuments in their pretty surroundings.
I even managed to snap this photo of a rainbow’s fleeting appearance as the sun hit the spray which appeared every now and then when the fountain in the centre shot out a high jet of water. I was very proud of the shot, which even features a sliver of Lisbon’s famous bridge, but I think Ellie was getting bored of just sitting waiting for me to look at rainbows and so we soon headed back to the city centre.
Once back in the city we headed straight back to Taberna da Rua das Flores and managed to get a quaint little table for two after a mere half hour wait. We used said wait to go and get ourself one of Lisbon’s infamous custard tarts, so it wasn’t that bad, and then the food itself was definitely worth waiting for.
After our tapas dinner for two, we headed back to our hostel to get refreshed and then walked down the road to a rooftop bar that Ellie’s friend had recommended, and we were not disappointed. Sipping on a mojito and a martini overlooking the gorgeous hills of the city, we chatted away in the lovely evening atmosphere before heading back to the hostel to get a decent night’s sleep before the next day’s adventure – a day trip to Sintra.
Sintra is about 40 minutes on the train outside of Lisbon, and we discovered that it’s well worth the visit – just be sure to top up your travel card before you head to the train station in order to avoid the huge morning queues for the ticket kiosks! On arrival we immediately decided to stop for some lunch and to get our bearings, and so we made a plan of action over a cheese and ham toastie and a much needed 2L bottle of water – it may have been breezy but the sun still got us!
According to the farmer, a saint once appeared in this very cave.
We began by first heading up a hill through a lovely park, where we stumbled upon the above shine. After sticking our heads in led us no closer to working out what it was there for, a gardener approached us who spoke Spanish, and so he explained to me that it was the spot where one of the local saints had apparently appeared.
After getting slightly lost trying to work our way out of said park, we eventually found the small centre of Sintra, and walked up to one of the many castles and palaces. We decided not to go in this big white one, and instead sat on a bench just outside, taking in the views and munching through a bag of warm fresh popcorn which Ellie had bought from a lovely street vendor.
Before heading to Sintra, I remembered that I’d seen a multicoloured palace whist researching which I thought we should try and visit, however we couldn’t seem to see it anywhere on the surrounding hills. After a quick Google search we discovered that the place that we wanted to visit was called Palácio da Pena, and so headed to the tourist office to ask how we could use public transport to get up there – this was a trip on a budget!
After having to miss the first bus as it was full, we eventually made it up the hillside and were dropped off at the gates to the grounds of the palace. We then had to part with more money than we expected, but once we’d found the palace itself we soon realised that it had all been worth it – the architecture was magnificent and the views were truly something else.
Whilst I was taking picture after picture of the palace’s colourful walls and beautiful blue tiles, Ellie wandered off and found a little door which I would have probably missed. She came back to tell me about it leading to a little path called the “Wall Walk”, so we both headed through it to check it out.
It turned out to be one of the most impressive yet terrifying moments of the entire trip! We found ourself walking around the perimeter of the entire palace, which offered amazing views from atop its hilltop location. The only thing was that the wind at that altitude was pretty relentless, and we were both soon very cold and very terrified of being blown over one of the perilously low walls of the wall walk…
Once we’d had a few minutes taking in the views of the moorish castle and the landscapes beyond, we soon hurried along the wall walk and back to the other, sun-bathed side of the castle, where we basked in the warmth for a good moment, before eventually descending back to grab the bus back into the centre of Sintra.
Once we’d got the train back to Lisbon, we headed back into the Barrio Alto area of the city, which is the perfect spot for an evening meal or a few drinks in one of hundreds of tiny little bars. Tired as we were, we decided just to eat, and found a restaurant with some pretty amazing views over the water and the infamous red suspension bridge. There we tucked into a lovely selection of tapas, but soon found ourselves back at the hostel and in bed as Sintra had well and truly knackered us out.
The next day we were back in the centre of Lisbon once again, and yet again found ourselves faced with a ridiculous amount of steps. I assured Ellie that it would be worth it though, as we were to ascent to the viewpoint named Senhora do Monte, which offers unparalleled views over the many hills of the city.
The wander to our next destination at the other side of the city had us once again on our feet for a decent amount of time, but we were sure to break it up by stopping for some lemonade and having the quick break – even if it was just for me to take yet more photos.
Once we were lower in the city, it was time to head back up the hill on the other side, so we decided to be kind to ourselves and grab the metro up there. Once we hopped off we were soon greeted by an impressive sight, looking straight down a large grassy avenue down towards the front of the city. For the second time in a day we felt on top of the world!
After this we headed downhill slightly to pay a visit to another place which Ellie had found by doing a bit of Instagram stalking, some botanical gardens called Estufa Fría. Not expecting much more than ;a few plants in a glorified greenhouse, I was pretty blown away by the scale and magnificence of the place. One minute we were wandering through a cool selection of fauna, and the next minute we were in a big heated greenhouse chasing each other round a selection of cacti. For Ellie, a biology student, this place was heaven!
Once we’d had our fill of greenery for the day, and wolfed down a nice cool ice cream in the building heat outside the gardens, we headed back to the city and had another lovely meal at Fábulas. That evening, and seeing as it was a Saturday night, we heeded back out the Barrio Alto district and had a late night drinking caipirinhas, beers and even a cheeky glass of wine in the lovely nighttime ambiance of the city.
The Sunday morning we were once again back on our feet bright and early, heading back into Alfama as we’d enjoyed our wander around it so much a few days prior. From there we eventually headed down to the waterfront and hopped on a bus up to somewhere I fancied visiting, the tile museum.
The tile museum wasn’t exactly Ellie’s favourite place that we visited, but I enjoyed browsing the various patterns and colours and finding out about the technical process behind making the various types of patterned tile that can be found across the city. One room which was quite impressive was the golden chapel, which took us by surprise as it wasn’t what we’d expected to find amongst rooms full of tiles.
This golden chapel wasn’t what we’d expected to find amongst rooms full of tiles.
Eventually I got a bit too thirsty and Ellie’s craving for pizza got a bit too strong, and we wound up having a comforting pizza lunch at a local greasy spoon. We headed back into the city once we’d loaded up on calories and tried some pretty grim Russian chocolate, and I had a plan of how to get us back up into Barrio Alto to have some dinner at the restaurant with the lovely views over the water – one of the city’s infamous yellow trams!
This tram wasn’t a tram per se, but an elevador, named as such as it takes passengers up and down one of the steep hills rather than just along the flatter streets. We hopped on, got squished like sardines, and were soon rattling our way up the slope to a spot I wanted to visit for lunch.
The trams might be quite touristy, but they are a charming mechanical marvel.
That evening and all too soon it was our last night in the city. To celebrate we headed back to the rooftop bar a little earlier than the previous time, meaning we had time to grab a caipirinha and then watch the sun set over the city.
The next morning we’d to pack our things and then left our bags at the hostel, as we weren’t flying until quite late and had plenty more to pack into our final day! The first thing on our list was a visit to the oceanarium, so we made our way to the north of the city on the metro and when there found ourselves wandering towards the place under some menacing looking skies.
Cloudy skies
A quite garish bench
With our tickets already paid for online, we were quickly jumping all the queues and inside the oceanarium’s exhibition. The first one was a gorgeous look at underwater plant life by Japanese artist and “aquascaper” Takashi Amano, but this was merely a prelude to the rich array of ocean life which we found in the main building, a strange looking concrete structure seemingly floating over the water of the docks.
Ellie had a whale of a time nosing around the ocean life (sorry for the pun), and then after a quick lunch in a nearby shopping centre we headed back to the city centre. Ellie had a very important purchase to make at H&M, I completely forgot to buy some custard tarts to bring home (damnit), and I paid a quick visit to the city’s photography museum. There was a lovely exhibition on with photos from various stages of Lisbon’s history, but all too soon it was time to grab some dinner before picking up our bags and heading back to the airport.
After landing at Liverpool Airport and then driving along the motorway in the early hours, I managed to get us back home in one piece and we eventually managed to hit the pillow at about 3:30am. What a slog!
As tiring as this all may have been however, we both had a lovely time visiting the city together and I am definitely looking forward to visiting Lisbon again sometime in the near future. I was also happy to have taken Ellie on her first city break, and am happy to report that she enjoyed it so much she’s considering doing more in the future. As a brother then, it would appear, my work here is done!
