Having decided that my hair was in desperate need of some
care and attention, I decided to be brave and try to get my
hair done. The word for hairdresser in Portuguese is
Cabeleleiro (and no, I still can't pronounce it properly)
and because of that I decided to do the coward's way and
go to El Cortes Ingles where I thought I could wing it. Well
after prowling ladies underwear twice (very glamorous and
quite a lot of men wandering around!), I approached an
assistant and managed to make myself understood and she
directed me to a very smart hairdressing salon.

Well the interesting thing was that not one of them spoke
English so I found one who spoke French and the rest was down
to sign language and pointing at pictures in magazines (I
knew that word at least but as for tint, cut etc forget it).
There is no appointment system apparently in this country,
you turn up and just wait. I got there around 4.00 and left
at 8.00!

I decided I was sick of being my wonderful three shades of
red as it had gone a very strange colour in the sun so
thought I would go back to blonde. This was indicated to the
staff by pointing at an assistant with what I thought was a
nice shade of blonde streak! You are given the usual gown but
you have a pocket on the arm into which they put what
treatment you are having i.e. cut, colour, manicure, pedicure
etc.

The backwash is very high tech; the chair has a series of
buttons on the inside of the chair arm which allows you to
raise the lower part of the chair so you are practically
lying down. All the women are beautifully turned out as you
would expect and as it was all a bit of an adventure, I
decided to go the whole hog and had a pedicure and manicure
as well. This is quite entertaining as the manicurist follows
you around whilst you are having your hair washed, cut,
coloured etc. All in all it was a great experience and my
hair looked brilliant as well as my nails. Cost-wise it was
on a par with where I used to go in Bath, but it was a high
class department store.

Some other interesting things about the city are the fact
that the metro system is small and very efficient. It is also
amazingly clean and considering the seven months of hell I
had using the District Line, someone from LT should take a
look. You never seem to wait more than five minutes for one
either. The trams are good fun. The No.28 is one that does a
circular trip and is very handy if you are down in town with
a heavy bag – Lisbon is made up of seven hills and I live on
one of them! The fare is 1 Euro! I got stuck in a tram jam
the other week which as amusing as it means that no cars can
get by as trams have right of way. There were four No.28s in
a row. Before I got on it, I heard one of the old dears
waiting at the bus stop saying that she had seen four No. 28s
go the other way and none hers – reminiscent of the London
bus problem.

I never fail to be amazed as how silly some of the tourists
are over their personal safety here. When I was wandering
around Feira da Ladra (Thieves Market held every Saturday and
Tuesday), you spot them with rucksacks or big bags on their
backs and it is so easy for pickpockets to lift wallets and
purses from them in crowds. Women in particular seem to lose
all common sense – they wear totally inappropriate outfits
and cause great amusement when you see them bright red and
staggering around in shoes suitable for premieres rather than
sightseeing. There again men who are follically challenged
really ought to wear hats!

We went to the outskirts of Sintra (Lord Byron thought it was
wonderful – gardens, palaces etc etc) with a friend who has a
car and investigated a garden centre. Now this was
interesting. There were the usual pots etc but the plants
were fascinating. Large bougainvilleas, lemon trees, lime
trees, climbing roses, herbs etc. Some plants were the same
as in the UK and others were new to me. I settled for pots
(60p for terracotta 23″ ones!), some herbs, a climbing
rose, something called a plumbago and an amazing large
lavender. Inside it has the usual candles, pot pourri,
plastic flowers etc – it's run by an Englishman
apparently. After we had finished there, my friend took us to
Sintra to try a tearoom. Everything in the tearoom was for
sale, from the plates to the pictures. It was a very eclectic
mix and had that “I think we should whisper”
atmosphere that you find in posh tearooms like Castle Combe!
Anyway they do a mean cream tea, which consists of three
scones (warm), jam and cream, a piece of cake and a tea of
your choice – excellent! Afterwards, to walk it all off, we
wandered around Sintra.

Sintra was where the Portuguese Royal Family used to escape
to in height of the summer heat. There are some amazing
houses/villas as well as palaces on the top of mountains and
in the main square. One of the palaces, the Pena, you
sometimes see on tourist posters – it looks like something
mad King Ludwig of Bavaria would have built. It's all
different designs and colours and quite spectacular to get
to.

I have got involved with a local theatre group – The Lisbon
Players – via my Portuguese teacher. She invited Derek and I
to go to a workshop on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
It was a very entertaining evening and by the time we left, I
had been asked if I would like to get more involved with
them. I have now been made Stage Manager for the production
as well as Task Force Director to help them raise funds and
gain a higher profile.

They operate out of a lovely old theatre – Estrela Hall –
that originally used to belong to the British Hospital. It
has a certain faded glamour (dust) and does quite a few
productions each year. We start work on the production in the
next two weeks and then I shall be thoroughly occupied most
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday evenings with rehearsals
all the way through to Christmas. Obviously it is unpaid but
it means you meet new people, which is great. Shakespeare is
very popular with the Portuguese and is on their education
programmes so you get a good mix of audience.

Sally can be contacted by e-mail on: Sallypethybridge@aol.com
should you wish to ask her any questions about Lisbon or
Portugal in general.