Sleeping a night in Lisbon airport.
I’ve slept in some strange places in my time, probably the most dangerous was the 42nd Street bus Station New York in the 1970s! This evening, all my TAP airlines connections failed so I’ve ended up stranded for the night with an early flight to Hamburg in the morning. I have to get there to contribute to a panel as part of the Reeperbahn festival.
Having examined the three main floors of the airport, I’ve found what I think is a safe place on a balcony opposite the main toilets. I’m beautifully jammed in between some bars and a fake marble wall, so people can only approach me from the front. I’ve made all the security precautions so no one could possibly steal any of my possessions without waking me up!
There are some very noisy singing drunken street people in the Burger King.
The floors of the airport are littered with bodies of people attempting to rest in and out of sleeping bags. There are a variety of people muttering and shouting and begging for money and cigarettes.
From my vantage point I can see and hear a number of people stories. I’ve decided to doze comfortably rather than go for a continuous four hour sleep.
Earlier there was a woman in her 50s running in and out of the ladies toilet shouting different numbers, “1-7-4-8-10-8-3-4...”
I realised I could actually see her in the hand washing area. She would turn on the tap which would run for about 15 seconds, then she would let out a stream of these number invectives at the mirror. When the water stopped she hit the tap again and repeated this procedure for anything up to 15 minutes. She then hobbled back to the only 24 hour café. Her face was covered in red sores and she had a chronic chesty cough. What a life.
For most of the night there’s been a group of three men, probably Portuguese, who look like a group of friends waiting for an early morning flight. They’re directly in my line of vision. Amazingly they’ve stood chatting in the same place for at least four hours! There was a lot of backslapping and handshaking and general joie de vivre. They were all very spruced up and there was a strong smell of aftershave even at a distance of 30 metres.
I look across through the glass wall of the café on my left and observe two or three of the characters who had been there the whole time I have been reclining opposite.
A man of about my age with swept-back grey hair is hunched over a tin of beer. He’s at a table propped up on his forearms never going to sleep. I keep expecting him to get up and go for a cigarette outside the main building.
Not many people have come to use the toilet facilities during the night, but virtually all the ones that do look over in my direction. I think I look quite cosy!