Well the room that seemed "reasonably clean" last night didn't seem so this morning. Woke up very early due to the heat, and having a room on the road. Sat up and looked at my feet on the floor, and noticed these weird black lines on the floor, blinked a few times and realized that the entire floor was covered in ants. There was no place to stand, the only things in the room not covered with ants were the bed (and on closer inspection there were more than a couple sharing it with me), and my pack (there again, a few, but nothing like the floor it was resting on. Went and got the manager, and he moved me into the room next door. If I hadn't paid two nights, and I thought there was any chance to find another room I'd be moving out. Especially when I went to take a shower and the tub was full of spiders, well it had to be close to a dozen of them. I hope I can sleep tonight...
Taking advantage of my relatively early rise I headed off to Expo '98. Spent the entire day there. Pretty much what I expected, pretty much what I remembered from Expo '86 in Vancouver. There were a lot of people, but not as many as I had feared. It wasn't the most exciting day, but I don't regret going. One day was more than enough though (and I doubt I saw more than 20 percent of it). I skipped any pavilion that had a line so I didn't see any of the biggies. The best pavilion I saw was probably the Slovak Republic's. Other notable pavilions were: Algeria, Morocco, and Sri Lanka.
A partial list of the other pavilions I saw (all those I can remember now): United Arab Emirates, Peru, Egypt, Poland, Italy, India, Tunisia, Algeria, Bulgaria, Estonia, China, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Republic of Korea, Arab League, Lithuania, Kenya, Island Countries of the South Pacific, Caribbean Community, Latin Union, Community of the Portuguese Speaking Countries, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, United Nations, International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, International Olympic Committee, the Territory Pavilion (regions of Portugal), and the Swatch Pavilion.
Other Expo notables. I must have seen well over a thousand computer monitors today (every pavilion had many), and the vast majority were running Windows 95/98 or NT - and I only saw one bluescreen (a interactive display in the Territory pavilion). My "favorite" souvenir: An Expo '98 imprinted Microsoft Intelli-Mouse, only 5,200 Escudos (~US$30).
Spent a few hours after dark walking around the lively Bairro Alto, a district of Lisbon on a hill right above the center. Suddenly realized that my feet were sick of walking anymore, I headed back to my Pension relatively early.
