Alarme, Alerte, Alarm, Alarma

So says the sign over my bathtub at the Residencial Jardim in Viana do Castelo, Portugal.  Try saying it aloud a few times.  Chances are, you'll find yourself composing a piece on the anxieties of travel, ending every stanza with that refrain.

The tiny 4-euro umbrella I bought in Mertola came in handy again when I arrived last night.  Everyone stood at the doorway of the train station, wondering if the heavy rain would let up.  I was pretty sure it wouldn't.  Anyway I had not only my umbrella but my new corduroy flat cap I'd had shipped to Vigo from the shop in Lisbon.  (I may have mentioned in an earlier entry that my head size broke the bank, so to speak, of the 154-year-old hat shop, and they had to make one specially for me.) But alarme, alrte, alarm, alarma was I wearing the hat correctly?  I'd worn out the reflection in the train car window checking.

I've got a cold, so it was straight to bed last night.  I heard an annoying hum--alarme! (etc.).  After first checking that it wasn't coming from my own body, I eventually identified it as the heater in the next room.  I slept unevenly, in dreams extending the plot of the Saramgo novel, The Cave, I'd begun reading on the train.

Bright and sunny this morning.