The bag

 

 

City: Lisbon, Portugal

Date: 11 November 2023 

The Place: Restaurant Santa Marta

For our last night in Portugal after a grueling week of an eight hour drive from Argles to Geneva, a three-day writer's conference, a flight to Lisbon, another conference, we were looking forward to a quiet dinner with local food.

Sheila, the manager of our hotel recommended Santa Marta. We decided to take a taxi rather than walk or take what we discovered was a great metro system, but we were tired.

We were early, but we were greeted in Portuguese by the owner. It was a uni language staff, although the owner had a minimal amount of English, no French, no German, but the menu was in Portuguese and English.  

We ordered. I was excited they had grouper. Rick ordered chicken.

Suddenly he jumped up and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. He looked around and under the table. "I left my man bag in the taxi."

Fortunately, Rick had his phone in his pocket. He called Sheila, at the hotel, who said she would try and track down the taxi. 

My phone and meds were in the bag along with with a few things of his. 

Luckily our passports were not. 

Our ID cards were not. 

His wallet was not.

We picked at our food. Neither of us excel at waiting.

I remembered. He had put my phone in the bag. "My phone, call my phone," I said. 

Rick did..

The driver answered. 

Unfortunately, he didn't have any English, but the restaurant owner had just enough English to translate. He arranged for the driver to pick us up at the restaurant and return the bag and then drive us back to the hotel.

Neither of us felt hungry enough to finish. We paid the bill and walked to the corner where the taxi said he'd be in 20 minutes. He showed up. 

The bag was intact.

This will be a dueling blog. http://lovinglifeineurope.blogspot.com.