So I’m in Lisbon! Right now I am doing my laundry in a washer that is taking a really long time, also I need to put it on a clothesline which terrifies me even tho it just means leaning out a 3rd floor window (2nd floor but it’s Europe so the 1st floor is on the 2nd floor blah blah ha ha). I only brought four jeans and four shorts because I knew I would need a variety but I used all my jeans and have been wearing two outfits a day because of sweating and temperature changes.

Yesterday I went to the beach with Walter Scott which was super fun, I haven’t been to a beach all summer, not even Hanlan’s. So nice! And walking into the ocean was lovely. I’ve been seeing films and going to openings and being busy and later today is my screening! 6pm Cinema São Jorge. Come see me and other trans folks and our films and we will be having a discussion.

I went looking for a market yesterday for my breakfast needs and thought Yelp would help me, but the grocery was so out of date that when I found it I opened the door to basically a small construction site. So yeah, I ended up getting an overpriced chocolate croissant and a black drip coffee. Not great. BUT last night on the way home I spotted a market that was basically across the street and down the way a little bit. So I did finally get breakfast things today. Yogurt, cereal, milk, coffee, some cokes (I know they are evil I’m sorry I have an addiction). OH and laundry detergent which I’m going to leave behind in the flat.

I’m hoping to go to Capela dos Ossos on Saturday for a quick day trip. It’s out of town about an hour and a half. But I’m waiting until I get paid tomorrow to get bus tickets. It’s basically a chapel made out of bones from medieval cemeteries when they needed the space and had to move the remains. I’m not sure how I would feel if my bones ended up building a chapel. But I am curious to see it and I was similarly curious about the Paris Catacombs, but too terrified to go underground and get through tight spaces. But this is a larger space above ground. And I’ve heard about it for a while and yeah, I want to see it!

People here are very friendly which is nice. I’ve had nice interactions with the Queer Lisboa festival people. Most people I’ve met have been pretty cool. I’m not getting a lot of action on Grindr here though, so maybe hookups won’t happen here. I think I also feel weirder about bringing someone into the Airbnb, while in Amsterdam I brought a couple guys to my hotel room and I guess I felt braver about it because there were people around in case anything went sideways. I’m in a very populated apartment building though and there’s people all over the place. But I AM conscious of my safety so yeah, I might just go to a sauna or cruising bar on the weekend and be in a bit of a safer place to hookup. I already emailed one of the cruising bars to make sure trans men were included and he said they were.

I’m doing well. This website needs some work though, sometimes it’s very slow so I need to check in with my hosting provider. I recently updated the PHP which was very out of date, and that did remove some errors I was getting. But it’s got issues still so it needs to get tuned up a bit more.