A day in the life of a trolley.

My 65 year old mom, 24 year old niece and myself, who is somewhere in the middle of the two, were attempting to find the National Coach Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. It was an overcast day with a few drops of rain whenever it pleased. As we road the rickety trolley toward Belem we desperately attempted to read the street signs in Portuguese as we passed them one by one. My niece, who had studied abroad in Brazil, fancied herself the group translator. Once my niece said we were there, we all hurried off the trolley and headed for the museum.

My niece used her best Portuguese to explain that we wanted to buy three tickets to the museum. The transportation workers looked at us like we were crazy and pointed us to another door. After walking back and forth a few times we were finally invited into the museum. The two museum workers were so excited to have guests they fumbled with the change and explained to us that there were three parts of the tour and we shouldn’t leave before the tour was over.

We all began to wander around the museum and as we got deeper into the museum my niece and I looked at each other and then at our tour book and figured out we were in the Transportation Museum. My mother on the other hand was enjoying herself completely. She really is a curator’s dream. My niece and I quickly went over to my mom and tried to explain we needed to leave. Just at that moment another gentleman who had a cigarette hanging from his lip approached us and asked if we were ready for the next part of the tour. We decided it was best to just go with it.

We were led outside to a private trolley just as it started to rain again. As we stepped up onto the trolley it was beautifully decorated with ornate window hangings, seat cushions and red carpeting on the trolley floor. Our new guide put the trolley in motion and away we went around the transportation yard to the next building. We were so excited and taking photos that we completely forgot that we were at the wrong museum. Upon entry to the next building we saw an example of every kind of trolley and bus that had been used in Lisbon until present day. We were completely alone to explore without other any other tourists and enjoyed ourselves beyond expectation.

At the end of our exploration, our tour guide was a man of few words, but I knew he was pleased to have had visitors to show his museum to. Just as we were pleasantly surprised by a museum we didn’t plan on attending.