Lisbon's version of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Check out these hills. Does it feel like San Francisco yet?
We left at 3 in the afternoon on Thursday and arrived in Lisbon about 6 1/2 hours later. We were welcomed to the city with a beautiful sunset as we drove over the bridge. Once we got to the bus station, it was time to find a taxi to take us to our hostel. You would think with all of the mercedes taxis lined up (I've never seen so many!) that it wouldn't be that difficult finding one, but in fact, it was. We asked several different guys but none of them seemed willing to take us! One claimed he didn't know where it was. Uh, you have a GPS in your car. Then, all of a sudden, the 3 different taxi drivers we asked got out of their cars and it sounded like they were yelling at each other. I'm assuming they're just like Spaniards in the sense that they sound like they're really angry and screaming at each other, when really they're just passionate people and they're just having a normal conversation. Finally one of them was willing to drive us and 15 minutes later we were at our hostel. Now was that so hard??
Now it was time for my first hostel experience! We stayed at the Shiado Hostel which was very cute and it was in a very good location- everything was basically in walking distance. The 4 of us shared a room with 2 bunkbeds and we shared a bathroom with everyone in our hostel. There were a lot of young travellers so it was basically like living in a college dorm. There was a nice living room area and a kitchen where we all ate breakfast. I loved how homey it was! The girl at the front desk was super awkward though.
Our room.
The living room.
That night we explored the town a bit to grab some dinner. We went to a place that the awkward girl at the front desk suggested to us. It was a really cool atmosphere. While you waited for a seat, the cook was right there cooking chicken and fish. Reading the menu was probably the first moment we realized that Portuguese is NOTHING like Spanish. We could barely understand it. We went to Portugal assuming that we would be able to get by with our impeccable spanish knowledge, but we were sadly mistaken. That didn't stop us, however, from spurting out spanish to the locals assuming that they understood us. Apparently the Portuguese are so proud to be separated from Spain that they would rather you speak english than hear you speak spanish. So luckily this menu at dinner had an english section. I ordered the sea bass with vegetables. Never again. I ended up getting the entire fish! Tail, bones, head, eyeballs, and all! Fish already freak me out. The fact that I had to dig through it's cooked scales to get to the meat was a bit too much. After dinner, we explored Lisbon a little bit then we called it a night.
Ewwww!
The next day we started out with a free tour that was advertised in our hostel. I'm glad it was free because there was no way that tour was worth any sort of money. We gave our tourguide a decent tip of 5 euros each at the end though because he was really nice. He hardly took us to any of the main sites, but it was a nice and warm, sunny day so I didn't mind walking around the city.
Lisbon is so pretty.
Some main plaza area in Lisbon that I forget the name and significance of.
Sadly, the tour took longer than we thought it would which cut into our planned time for the beach. And that was a perfect day for the beach, too. It was so sunny that I got pretty burnt during our tour. Then, since I didn't have sunscreen with me, the extremely long hunt to find freaking sunscreen also cut into our beach time. It was nearly impossible trying to find sunscreen! We finally found some in a drugstore type place for almost 15 freaking euros (aka like $23!). I'm mad I bought it because by the time we got to the beach, the sun was already going down and the next day was cloudy and a bit chillier. Ughhhh.
The beach in Cascais!
That night we went to the other restaurant that the awkward girl at the front desk recommended to us. This was my favorite meal in Lisbon. I got grilled salmon with vegetables (potatoes, broccoli, and carrots). We also made some pretty awesome friends. We were seated at a table connected to another group of 4 guys who helped us figure out what was on the menu because this one, unlike the other one, did not have an english section. We greatly appreciated their help. One of the guys was wearing a fanny pack! bahahaha. My favorite part was when Kathryn and Cassie went outside with a couple of them and Brittany and I were at the table talking to the others. We asked them what is it about us that screams American? Because everywhere we go, especially in Spain, people take one glance at us and instantly know we're American. We said that we walk down the streets and can't tell who's American and who isn't. Brittany said she knows she's obvious because there are hardly any black people in Spain haha. Then what one of the guys said to me was "We know you're American because you're white." Then he paused, looked at me, and said, "well......very white." hahaha Europe makes me feel so pale!! I didn't realize my paleness is what gives me away. He said that if he didn't think I was American, he would assume I was Danish or somewhere along those lines.
Us at dinner.
On saturday we were disappointed with how much the temperature dropped. Cassie and I were still in our shorts but little did we know we would freeze our butts off! (well maybe it wasn't that cold). We took a trolley over to the flea market that our tourguide the previous day told us about. It wasn't anything special. He said that if you even have something stolen from you in Lisbon, just go to the flea market and you'll be sure to find it. He was probably right because it seemed like most of the things they were selling were stolen! There's no way one person has THAT many phone chargers for the car lying around.
Flea Market.
After the flea market, we hopped on a train to go to Sintra. I'm not really sure the importance of Sintra, all I know is that everyone who went to Lisbon before me said that I had to go to Sintra. It was about a 40 minute train ride outside of the city. We had a nice lunch of burgers and fries- yum yum. I've obviously been craving some American food lately. After that, we grabbed some dessert and coffee at a cafe. There, I had a pastel de nata- a custardy pastry that I saw everywhere in Lisbon, so I thought I had to give it a try. Then, we started talking about how one of the guys we met at dinner the night before based all his opinions about America on American Pie and this other movie. This other movie, which I can't remember the name of, talks about how 9/11 was planned by our government and it was a conspiracy and whatnot. Well, right when we said that, this guy who was standing in line in the cafe quickly turns around and barges in on our conversation. We weren't even having an in depth conversation about it, but he took it upon himself to intrude and give us his opinion about 9/11. He was pretty much blaming our government for everything going on and how we shouldn't have invaded Iraq. He talked for a long time and we just listened. We weren't trying to get into an argument. At the end, he apologized for making us feel uncomfortable and he left. My spanish conversation teacher told us that people in Spain (and I guess Portgal too) like to argue about controversial topics but at the end of it all, they're still friends and everything is fine. That's what I think happened here. Also, I've noticed that Europeans (or at least the Spanish and Portuguese) are VERY opinionated people and they love telling people their opinion. I just didn't like how it felt like he was stereotyping Americans basically saying that we all share the same views as our government. Get a clue, man.
ANYWAYS. After that eventful moment, we headed up to the castle in Sintra! First, we asked the woman in the little train that was driving around Sintra if we could take it up to the castle. But Cassie and Kathryn asked the lady "habla espanol?" and the woman just looked at us and said "but you're not spanish!" haha so then she spoke to us in English. When we got to the castle, we discovered that it was a 6 euro entrance fee. We strongly debated whether it was worth 6 euros or not. We tried to find a way that we could hop a fence but that didn't work so we ended up paying the 6 euros. The castle was soo pretty! But we didn't end up going inside of it because we would have had to pay more.
Sintra
In front of the castle.
The castle.
That night, Brittany, Cassie, and I went to go find the Belem Tower. Again, I'm not really sure of it's significance (wow, I learned so much on this trip), but I do know that it was really pretty all lit up! If you would like information about it, here is a brief quote that I got fom golisbon.com: "Built in 1515 as a fortress to guard the entrance to Lisbon's harbor, the Belem Tower was the starting point for many of the voyages of discovery, and for the sailors it was the last sight of their homeland." So, after our long photoshoot in front of it, we found an amazing deal on ice cream so we of course had to stop to get some. The lady PILED it on and it was only 1.80 euros!! That's the best deal we've come across for ice cream!
The Belem Tower
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
For our last dinner in Lisbon, we decided to make it ourselves! Our hostel had a really nice kitchen that we were allowed to cook in so we figured, why not? It actually turned out to be super cheap. It came out to a total of 10 euros- we would have spent more than that for our individual plates if we went out! Everyone else did most of the cooking since I'm not exactly the best at it. We had rotissery chicken, vegetables, and rice. Then for dessert we had white chocolate covered strawberries! To end our night, we hungout in the living room area where we watched How Do I Look on the Style channel! Oh how I've missed American television!!! That was the first American TV I've seen in over 3 months. I can't watch American shows over here because the internet recognizes that I'm not in America and when I tried downloading the program that hides my location, it shut off my internet so I can't use it :(.
Our dinner!
Deliciousness.
We said farewell to Lisbon the following morning when we headed off to the bus station for our 7 hour bus ride. I loved Lisbon. I really didn't have any interest in going there when I knew I was coming to Spain. It wasn't until I heard everyone talk about how great Lisbon is that I worked up the interest to go and boy am I glad I listened to them. It was just a very relaxing city and a perfect vacation for the weekend.
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