Invasion of Lisbon 2010
An special CTA was called by The Littlest Hobos earlier this year, and on November 5th it begun. Eight Hobos would gear up, fit their ships accordingly and make their way to staging area in Lisbon, Portugal, where there were more Hobos already waiting and giving us warp-ins.
Friday, November 5th 2010
I decided to leave the cargo expanders behind and just travel lightly. Me and Ze’p boarded our ships and begun our journey from Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, Finland on the morning of the 5th. First Jump-Bridge took us to Amsterdam where we had roughly four hours to refuel before making the final jump to Lisbon. We arrived to our destination around 14.45 local time and were immediately tackled by Negatox and Kura who had arrived from England only a little before us.
We all got in Negatox HAC and headed for the fleet assembly area in Parque das Nações (Park of Nations). The assembly area was in former area of the Expo -98 and had a beautiful view to the Tagus River and to the longest bridge in Europe, Ponte Vasco Da Gama. Journey there was nice and smooth, except for the small navigational errors by Negatox – a trend he had through out of the operation and was constantly reminded by me.
On arrival, most of the fleet was already there with the exception of Uncarian who arrived a bit after us with his hosts. And as usual, those closest by were the ones that came late, as we waited for Davik and Incoming land on the grid. We didn’t mind waiting tho as we were getting to know the other pilots and focused on to destroy several Super Bocks (local beer brand). The initial feeling on seeing the others was mixed. On the other hand I was looking forward to getting to know everyone, and on the other hand I wanted to run for the hills. Most of the latter feeling was caused by Supay with his extremely awesome beard that could’ve challenged any of the old pirates of the Caribbean. After couple hours (and several “imperials”) the fleet had assembled and we were ready to assault the first POS where we would also meet the last of the fleet.
The composition of the Fleet:
ReaperTox (Portugal), our FC
Negatox (Portugal), Reapers Brother, the coolest little man that can't navigate
Awyn (Portugal), The pilot in desperate need of a new ship
Davik (Portugal), The Artist
Incoming (Portugal), The Silent
PMB (Portugal), The BBQ Master
Supay (England), The Yarrrrrr!
Amith (England), The Real Astronaut
Kura (England), The Rock God of Accordion players
Jimmysav (England), The (Tree)Hugger
Lilan (Denmark), Our CEO and the Danish Marine that can't swim
Uncarian (Norway), The Duracel Bunny - doesn't sleep... ever...
Ze'p (Finland), The Finn that speaks little, but facts.
Jennahia (Finland), The Finn that speaks a lot, but rubbish.
Support Fleet
Ana (Portugal), Awyns talkative co-pilot
Filipa (Portugal), ReaperToxs nice co-pilot
Like Fish in a barrel
We finally started moving and aligned to nearby POS. This was a nice SeaFood Restaurant with a Rodizio (“All you can eat”). And by all – they mean ALL. I’m not an extremely big fan of fish, but I do enjoy it once in a while. What I was about to get was beyond my wildest dreams. First of all, the food was FRESH! I bet if we would go in to the kitched we could see them still flapping in the pan. No frozen ingredients here. Secondly – there was a lot of it. I was first served with a small Bass-like fish, and as I barely had eaten it, another one was served, and another, and another… And each were different. Unfortunately I don’t remember the names of all the fishtypes, but the variety was huge. From Bass to Salmon, from Swordfish to Cuttlefish. And while we were served fish after another there was also a HUGE plate of other seafood, crab, shrimps, muscles, percepes (goose barnacle), snails. All very delicious and extremely fresh. I jetissoned my normal prejudice out to the cold space and boldly tried everything – even the snails and cuttlefish with ink. As my jeans were getting smaller and belly was getting bigger I had to forfeit the battle on the eight plate of fish – out of 15!!
At the Fish-Rodizio
All this great food topped with extremely nice company on the first night promised an epic weekend worth tales to our grandchildren. It was getting late and I was getting tired. So we decided to each dock up on our respective stations and get some downtime. Me and Ze’p climbed onboard of Awyns cruiser of Minmatar origin it appeared. On our journey back I was dozing off when Awyn suddenly turned around and told we had a problem. The ship was falling a part. Few minutes later we came to a stop in the middle of the great Ponte Vasco Da Gama (Cam belt had broken and dissapeared earlier and now the battery was dead). The next hour and a half we were sitting inside the the wreck talking with Awyn and his gf (Ana) and Davik while waiting for the salvage ship and a shuttle that would take me and Ze’p to our station. Even tho I was very tired, I didn’t mind this little thing as it gave me that much more time to get to know these awesome people.
Finally – after 23 hours of straight flight, me and Ze’p docked to our NPC station and quickly logged off for much needed downtime.
Saturday, November 6th 2010
After a (too) short downtime we logged back in and after a quick shower headed back out. This time we used the local underground to get downtown where we would form up with the rest of the fleet. Our great FC had all planned out and after a quick breakfast in nearby cafe we headed for a roam around the high-sec. We were lead through Lisbon and shown the local sights while at the same time given a short history lesson. The city is very nice, and to my surprise was extremely tidy – something I didn’t expect, specially in city of this size. It was one of the cleanest cities I’ve seen, including my own, which is three time smaller and should be one of the cleanest cities in europe.
Lisbon also has a large history which you could see from the buildings, and monuments. As a history fanatic, I really enjoyed this tour, even tho by the end of the day my feet would loudly disagree. After a tour around downtown, we hopped in a tram and headed to the riverside where we had a nice lunch and then continued the tour in the beautiful city in a nice weather (throughout the trip the temperature was around 20-25C and clear skies, with the exception on sunday when it drizzled for about 30minutes, after which the weather was nice for the rest of the day).
As our FC had planned more to show to us, we couldn’t resist ourselves, when we probed out Häagen-Dazs plex and immediately swarmed in and looted everything we could get our hands on. Pleasent and delicious as it was, it unfortunately took us so much time, that we soon after that had to turn around as we had other planned events about to start. So, we had to leave some of the sights and explorations for another meet – no doubt all of us will be more than happy to re-visit Lisbon later.
So we hopped in a train and made our way back to down town where we met with those few locals that didn’t manage to join the roam and headed for Cerverjaria Trindade, an old monastery and brewery that now was a very highly thought restaurant. Again we blobbed a nice table and the next few hours went by with delicious stakes, several beers and a ton of laughing. If anyone reading ever go to Lisbon – this is the place to go eat, if you like a nice steak.
The evening didn’t end as our hosts took us in the low-sec of Lisbon for drinks and good times. Coming from Finland, where drinks are restricted to certain sizes and are quite expencive, and where we mostly stay indoors, I was positively surprised by the culture of the Portugese night out. Which literally was out doors. You would go in to a bar, get a drink and the join your friends outside in the narrow streets – the atmosphere was phenomenal. Truly an experience to share. And what about the drinks. Beer for one euro, a half litre (yes, you read it right – ½L) Caipirinha for 5.50€ (to give you a comparison, in Finland you can barely get a 0.4L beer for that price). You could get as large as 1L Caipirinhas and for as cheap as 7.50€.
And what’s best, even tho the drinks are so cheap and in so large servings, I didn’t see one drunken person shouting, fighting or urinating against a tree. Either our hosts managed to distract us, or Portugese know how to drink properly.
All in all, the night was memorable and one of the best nights I’ve experienced, with good friends, nice atmosphere and extremely beautiful Portugese women – who, btw, are older than they appear. 
When it was time to call it a night, my feet were agreeing while the rest of my body didn’t want the night to end – ever. ReaperTox grabbed a shuttle for me and Ze’p and we headed back to our station as the rest of the fleet disbanded as well. At this point I started to regret to having booked me a hotel as the rest of the fleet were staying in different houses of our hosts. But what’s done is done and so we had to head back to our hotel. One more thing I liked a lot was the fact, that the taxi-ride was very cheap. 2.50€ for initial price and 6.10€ for total price from a trip, that in Finland would’ve cost about 30€.
As I was hitting my pillow for wrecking ZZZZ-damage, I was thinking, what a great place Lisbon was…
Sunday, November 7th 2010
Downtime lasted a bit longer on sunday after which me and Ze’p quickly headed out for a small breakfast and then were picked up by Negatox in his cruiser. Then we headed to meet up with others in a train-station near PMB’s house (and only made a wrong turn once 
). After the fleet was assembled we went to local “Jita 4-4″ where we docked up and had a lunch while our hosts were raiding the storage. While we waited for the raiders to return we shared interesting stories about re-decorating the interior and exterior of a local shuttle and the plumbing of local houses – Lilan and Jimmy being the experts on these topics with their most resent and thorough experiences. After the raiders returned and the loot safely in our cargo we went to PMB’s house for BBQ
PMB’s house was a faction version with all faction modules like swimming-pool, golf, pool-table, darts (electric), and table top games – all of which were in use except the swimming-pool, as the water was too warm for me . While PMB and Reaper were BBQing the food (and lots of it), the rest of us were enjoying a bit more chilled night in excellent company playing poker, pool and stuff, and of course – drinking.
After eating a whole cow (per person), the night unfortunately begun to reach its end. After a united photo-session the fleet started to disband and with heavy hearts I had to make my way back to the station and get ready for early wakeup to catch my Jump-Bridges back home.
I docked up safely in home base on monday evening extremely tired, but very, very, VERY happy. The CTA was an extremely great success and will be remembered with warmth for the rest of my days. It is clear, that I will make another trip to Lisbon some day, as the city itself is very beautiful. And no matter what happens, I know I have some really cool friends around the world – all of which are most welcome to visit Finland as well. It will be hard to match the great hosting by our Portugese friends, but I will do my very best if any of these hobos that were in Lisbon ever decide to see the cold north.
I can’t thank enough our hosts, who were very kind and awesome – as hosts as well as friends.
- JF -
P.S. Pictures from the trip can be found in here: Photos
