Lisboa, Portugal

I know it's been a while since I posted on here. In Lisboa I had a pretty crazy experience so I'm posting what I wrote about for my English class.

Wipe Out
Having ridden every metro line in Lisbon, Portugal, my friends and I finally reached our destination; the Lisbon Oceanarium. The world famous aquarium stands in a modern area of the city dominated by glass and steel high rises. Alli, Carly, Colten and I proceeded to the entrance feeling accomplished to have navigated our way across a foreign city. Walking towards the front of the building we came across a wave maker, upon which Colten said in a matter of fact way, “I’m going to jump across this thing.” Naturally, the girls thought it was a stupid idea and said that they would laugh when he didn’t make it across. I decided that I would record the jump on my camera.
Aided by a good running start and long stride, Colten easily made it to the other side. With the typical egotism imbued in all of us with the “Y” chromosome I took it upon myself to jump across the wave maker and to do it better. Once again, the girls told us that were idiots and probably just going to kill ourselves. At least 6 feet across, I wanted to make sure that I would be able to jump the appropriate distance to cross the water. Thinking that I had made a wise choice I headed over to one of the wooden walkways the divide different sections of the wave maker.
My intent was to jump across the bridge to determine whether or not I could make the distance for the real macaw. Ready for my test run I told everyone, “Move out of the way, I’m about to jump!” I moved back about twenty feet to run and build up speed before making the jump. The series of events that played out next could have only happened to me. Right as I was about the jump, Alli yelled out, “Alex, be careful!” Not 2 seconds later I had slipped on a wet spot, slid halfway into the water and smashed my right knee on the other side. “Alex, you’re a dumbass!” Carly said as I lay on the ground with one leg in the water. Colten doubled over in laughter with Carly and Alli promptly took several pictures of me pretending to writhe in agony.
After having a good laugh I wanted to go sit on one of the many nearby benches before going into to oceanarium. I am quite accustomed to wiping out in public and thought that after a few minutes I would be ready to continue my afternoon in Lisbon. Using my friends as human crutches I finally made it to one of the benches hopping on the left leg the entire way. Murphy’s Law describes my life perfectly. I rolled up my jeans to survey the damage; my knee had swollen to about three times its normal size. All the poking and prodding that ensued caused a sharp pain to shoot up my leg leading me to black out and fall forwards with my head in my lap. When I regained my consciousness two minutes later I had no idea where I was and couldn’t see a thing. Carly lovingly slapped me around a few times to wake me up. As things started coming back into focus (although everything was in sepia tones) I remembered that I was in Lisbon.
By this point I figured that I probably wouldn’t be going to the aquarium. While we were trying to decide what to do a couple of policemen started walking towards us. The police didn’t speak English and I was the only person who spoke Spanish so I did my best to explain my situation and hope they understood me. When one of the officers asked me, “Você tem uma licença?” I started to get nervous thinking that I was going to get a ticket for being a public nuisance. Luckily for me they were getting my information to call the paramedics.
Running on Iberian time, the paramedics arrived about ten minutes after we thought they would, although luckily they spoke English fluently. Explaining how I had injured myself for a second time I was a little bit embarrassed that I perfectly fit the mold of the idiot American tourist. After overzealously applying gauze to a small scrape on my leg the medics looked at my knee briefly and said, “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” That was easier said than done since I was unable to walk or even put a minimal amount of pressure on my right leg. Before leaving the paramedics called a cab to take us back to the hotel. I felt bad for ruining everyone’s afternoon at the aquarium and because I only got to use half of the metro pass that I paid for. My hopping over to the taxi on one foot was quite a sight to behold; getting in also proved to be quite a chore. First I had sit down a slide across the seat before picking up my bum leg and dragging it into the taxi with me. Colten took the front seat while Alli and Carly crammed into the back with me holding my injured leg across their laps.
Since I had effectively killed the day, I said “I’ll pay for this cab ride.” However, my one stroke of luck for the day was that Dr. Inglis paid the driver when we arrived at the hotel. Once again my human crutches helped me out of the taxi and up to my room. Finally I was able to change into shorts to free up my knee (though it took a while) and prop my knee up and get ice on it to reduce the swelling. Looking back on the situation it makes for a good story, though I would rather have gone to the aquarium instead.