Lisbon, Portugal

Last Friday morning, bright and early, we met (after being slightly lost and late, along with 50% of the group) to depart for Lisbon, Portugal. It took around 6 hours to get there and it was an incredibly long and uncomfortable bus ride. Because of the laws here, bus drivers get to stop every couple hours or so, so as soon as we would get comfortable they’d make everyone get off the bus for a 45 minute stop. Very frustrating when all of us just wanted to get there! We arrived in the afternoon and some people went to walk around the city – I took a wonderful and much needed nap. 

Later than afternoon we had a little tour of the city which included a visit to Castelo de São Jorge, a Moorish style castle which overlooks basically the entire city. It’s been changed and renovated many times since it was built around the 2^nd century and is now one of the main attractions in Lisbon. Portugal is extremely beautiful (I like Lisbon a lot better than Aveiro, which is where I went in Portugal the first time) and the sights from the top of the castle were incredible. Our directors took us for a walk around the city after the castle, and then we dispersed for the evening by the river underneath the giant clock tower. 

We departed in the evening to try and find a place for dinner, which turned out to be quite difficult. I asked a porter at the hotel where he would recommend (somewhere close, inexpensive and with good food) and he directed us to the “Arkoth Café.” So we followed his direction and walked for FOREVER until finally we asked someone how much closer it was. Turns out he was sending us to the Hard Rock Café! (Which was neither inexpensive NOR close.) We ended up finding a little place alongside the street and all 15 of us piled into this tiny glass hut with a huge pumpkin adorning the entryway. The food was pretty good and the servers were nice. We had to speak in English while we were there – a lot of them speak English. And Portuguese is, in my opinion, NOTHING like Spanish. Also, apparently if you speak Spanish in Portugal, they will hate you. It took all of us a little bit of adjusting.

After dinner we went out to Bairro Alto, which means “Higher District” in Portuguese and is in the center of Lisbon – it’s the “heart of Lisbon’s youth and culture.” The streets were PACKED with people!!! Every street you look down seems absolutely impassable. There are tons of bars and clubs along the streets, but being social and drinking in the streets is much more common than people actually going into the bars. We sampled a couple of the bars but ended up just walking around for a long time, going to an 80’s club (which was surprisingly fun), and left around 3am (things start to close down around 2am).

[Side Note: While we were there we had a lot of people try to sell us drugs (which we were warned about ahead of time, though they were more persistent and frequent than expected). Apparently violent crime isn’t uncommon in Lisbon and drug trafficking, graffiti and vandalism is a problem in the city. Found that out after I got back. I didn’t feel unsafe in the city, but I’m definitely glad I wasn’t out alone at night.]

Saturday morning they had a Cathedral tour scheduled, but a lot of us were tired from the night before so we decided to skip it and sleep in. I woke up around 2pm – before almost everyone else – and began what ended up as one of the BEST days of my life! We slowly assembled and then finally found a little café for lunch (after unsuccessfully attempting to eat at multiple other places and not getting service. A lot of the Portuguese people were actually very unkind and unwilling to help us. You could tell it was an American thing). The food wasn’t that great but the conversation was so it turned out to be pretty fun :)

The streets on Saturday were lined with tons of tables, with vendors selling everything you could think of – art, jewelry, clothing, antiques, trinkets, etc. After lunch we spent a couple hours meandering through the mass of people from table to table. The weather was beautiful and I got some great souvenirs :) We stayed until the section started to close and then decided to walk down to the river to watch the sunset. Randomly, on the way to the river, we encountered the Spanish National Rugby Team!! One of them asked us where McDonald's was and while we were talking suddenly more and more of them kept coming, until we were completely surrounded by probably the most attractive Spanish men I’ve found since I've been here. They invited us to join them, but unfortunately McDonald's wasn’t the most appealing option, so we continued our walk to the river. It was very peaceful and we sat on the rocks in the sand and watched the sun go down over the largest suspension bridge in the world (which has a very similar color as and is often compared to the Golden Gate Bridge).

On our way back, we stopped into a Fashion Week expedition and walked around for a while, which was interesting and fun. We also re-encountered the Rugby team sitting in the main plaza outside McDonald's! We talked to them for a while but had to run to meet the rest of the group to go to dinner at 9. For dinner we chose this little place called “Os Tibetanos” which was right by our hotel. We found out when we got there that it was vegetarian, and we couldn’t read anything on the menu, so we just chose a bunch of food and tried a little of everyone’s…and it turned out to be the most delicious meal ever!!

After dinner we went out again for the night, with a smaller group this time, and found a little bar where some guy with crazy hair was playing guitar. After a couple drinks, one of the girls in our group got up and asked the guitar player if he knew “The Girl from Ipanima” – then she took the microphone and sang it!! And it was beautiful! We were all floored. It was so much fun! After she finished one of the guys in our group and I wanted to dance so we started dancing – and then EVERYONE started dancing (in this tiny little bar)! It was a great time. We stayed out pretty late and I ended up getting back around 6am.

The next morning the bus left at 11 (after a pretty unappealing breakfast) and we had another long ride back. We stopped at the same place for our 45 minute break, and I didn’t have any money left so I laid outside in the grass and enjoyed the peace and the warmth of the sun. It was kind of dry, there wasn’t much around and the trees were crazy looking – I said I felt like I was in the Lion King and then everyone started singing songs from the Lion King. Great way to end a great weekend :)

It’s surprisingly comforting to be back in a country where I can read the signs and actually communicate with people. Portuguese isn’t very appealing to me, so its music to my ears to be hearing Spanish again. Oh, by the way, YESTERDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY! It was so exciting to celebrate it with my friends in Spain. My Madre here made me a huge and delicious lunch and this incredible apple pie type thing to celebrate – it was so special. The girls and I went to dinner on the river to celebrate and then we sat on a ledge and drank wine and ate my birthday pastries. A bunch of other people from the group came by to hang out and wish me happy birthday too. I couldn’t have asked for anything better!

...and TOMORROW we head to Paris!! :)