Once again, I am quite behind on my blog entries, but my trip after Paris was the following weekend to Lisbon, Portugal. We flew out on Friday morning, so once again I slept at the airport. I think I'm learning a few tricks to the act:
1) Since they don't let you through security until around 4:00 am and there are no chairs or carpetted floors in the entrance area, bring something to sleep on because the linoleum floor gets mighty cold.
2) Eye masks are key. They help you just relax and sleep!
That's about it. Honestly, I don't think sleeping in airports is the end of the world, but I'm sure I'll change my mind once I'm not a college student trying to pinch every penny I have!
Once we arrived in Lisbon and had checked into our hostel, we went exploring. We walked through Lisbon on our way to Castelo de San Jorge. While on the way, we saw some really cute shops, well 1 really great shop: a purse store! The store was filled with boxes and boxes of purses for 15-25 euros, all made of leather! I'm pretty sure they were all made in China and just brought here since the store owner didn't speak a lick of English or Portugese, but either way, Anna and I decided we needed to come back the next day!
After that, we went to Castelo de San Jorge, which was beautiful. The castle was really more of a fort now. There wasn't an interior that we saw, just plenty of places to stand guard and watch for intruders. Still, since Lisbon gets rain ALL THE TIME, the trees and plants were gorgeous. All green!
Then for lunch we went to Lautasco, per Nora's request. Let me tell you, it was excellent! I got this Portugese dish that is a bread/seafood dish. It looked a little like mush, but tasted so good. Portugal is also known for its green wine, so of course we had to try a bottle. It is said that green wine is the most misunderstood wine in all of Europe, and I understand why. I didn't like it one bit, but a bunch of my friends did and reordered it during the weekend.
As you know, I went to Paris last weekend and saw Notre Dame. If you have ever seen that cathedral, you know its one of a kind and beautiful. Well, unfortunately for Portugal, I saw the mini version of Notre Dame 1 week after seeing the real deal. Igleja de Santa Maria is a church that seriously looks like a small town version of Notra Dame. So if you are ever going to see them both, do Santa Maria first, because otherwise you don't really appreciate it.
On Saturday, our group split up. Half of the group went to Bellum, while Anna, Mel, and I stayed to go shopping. Anna and I are coming back to Lisbon with our families and we figured we could go to Bellum then, but in the mean time we had a shopping fix to settle. Luckily, our plans were inside all day because Lisbon held up to its stereotype and rained all morning. We stayed in the stores and bought some really cute purses and other items. The man that works at the hostel poked a little fun at us saying how much American girls love to shop. Oh well, I can handle that stereotype!
That night we went out with a group of people from the hostel. Let me tell you, if you have never met Brazilian people, you're missing out. They're so much fun and so nice! Obviously there were a bunch of Brazilians in our hostel and just in Portugal in general because they speak the same language. Easy place to travel and study abroad. We all hung out in the hostel and cooked dinner together and played a Polish drinking game and then we went out to the erasmus corner (erasmus is the term for European study abroad students). Its an area with plenty of bars and music for young people, and most of them speak English!
I think the moment that I realized just how much nicer Lisbon is than any other place I've traveled was when we were trying to find our way back to the hostel. My friends and I decided not to join everyone else that was going clubbing, so we just headed back to the hostel. Only problem was, we didn't really know where it was. So we started walking and asking people to point us in the right direction. Every single person that we asked was happy to stop and look at our map and give us advice. One man even started telling us which streets to avoid for safety reasons and offered to drive us back. Of course, we were thinking stranger danger and didn't take him up on the offer, but it was a sweet thought. I didn't find Paris to be rude or anything, like people say, but I could see thinking that Paris is a bit snooty after visiting a place like this. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly, it really was wonderful!
The last day there, we traveled to Sintra and Cascais. They are 2 cities outside of Lisbon. Sintra has a beautiful castle that is the kind of thing you think of when you hear the term "castle". They even have rooms on exhibit so you can see where the Queen and King lived. Very cool! Then in Cascais, there is a beach which we walked along and relaxed. Unfortunately in February, it is most certainly not warm enough to wade in, which one of my friends learned the hard way! But walking along the beach and looking at the stars was a great way to end the trip. Looks like I'm headed back to Madrid, and won't be traveling next weekend! Its the first weekend I'll be in Madrid the entire time, look out!
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