Día Uno en Lisboa

(A view from the Castelo de Sao Jorge in Lisboa, Portugal)

I'm back and it's good to be home! Lisbon was great, but there is much to be done as internship applications need to be started, classes must be registered for, and homework must be, at least, considered.

But Lisbon! My friend, Kevin, and I slept in the airport on Thursday night, which is not fun and not particularly recommended. It would have been fine if we had chairs or something, but there was only floor. Cold tiled floor. I woke up several times shivering and/or with various parts of me completely asleep. At one point, I woke up and my whole right side wasn't functioning. But after a solid hour of sleep or so, we got in line to run our stuff through security. The security is much easier than in the US, and we were through in about 10 minutes. We then met up with another BC student, Dan, who we hadn't known was coming. Apparently instead of spending the night on the airport floor, he took a night bus, which would have been really convenient had we known about it. But either way, we got on the plane to Portugal and within an hour, landed in Lisboa. There were no signs for the bus we needed to take to our hostel, so we wandered in search of the airport's bus stop. We were about to cross the highway when we saw a stop behind us, so we doubled back, and managed to catch the next bus. After a 45 minute bus-ride through Lisboa, we were dropped off at a plaza and walked down Rua Augusta to our hostel, The Traveller's House.

This hostel was great. They had a living room, a movie watching room full of DVDs, an internet room with four computers guests could use for free, a dining room, and a kitchen. Breakfast was included, and you could get an endless supply of freshly made scrambled eggs, toast, cereal, coffees and juices. The bedrooms and bathrooms were really nice and clean and it is in a nice section of Lisboa. There were bookcases of both travel books and novels and the employees were the greatest. They will plan your trip for you, make your reservations, suggest the best/cheapest places, and provide you with various maps and sets of directions. All for 15 euros a night. Not bad at all.

So we dropped off our stuff and met up with the rest of the group that had arrived the night before, (there were 11 of us all together). Our first itinerary item was a walk to the Castelo de Sao Jorge (Saint George's Castle, in Portuguese) a big castle on an even bigger hill. We walked almost a full loop around the Castle before we found the entrance, passing through a quaint little neighborhood complete with three wandering peacocks. We then looked at all the scenic overviews of the city (the hill you climb is quite large) and explored the inside of the castle. You could even walk around and between the turrets, which I thought was pretty nifty. There were lots of children and cats at the Castle (the children because of a school trip, the cats because they are everywhere in Europe).

We then headed back down the hill to the Sé Catedral, and walked to Rua dos Bacalhoeiros for lunch. I ordered a sausage and egg item (the menu was in Portuguese, so I didn't understand much else) but it was really good. It was a fried egg on top of some sort of meat patty. It tasted more like a veggie-burger than meat, and had a similar texture, but I liked it a lot. But beware, the "free" appetizers they give you in Lisbon (like bread, cheese, or any fried item) will cost you, and probably a lot. Our group of 12 racked up an extra 26 euros in appetizers which they give you without your asking. There is a similar strategy in Spain, but none of us had ever been charged that much for bread.

After reluctantly forking over the money for the bill, we all caught a tram that took us to the neighborhood of Belém, which is right on the Tagus River. We first looked at the Padráo dos Descobrimentos, a monument built to honor Portugal's explorers and the area from which they set sail. We then walked down the street to the Torré de Belém, an old tower out on the water that used to serve as a prison. You can climb to the top of both of these places were you will find some pretty nice views of the city and the river. You can also see the Cristo-Rei, a huge statue of Jesus that overlooks Lisboa. After the threatening rain forced us off of the towers, we crossed the highway to the Monasterio de los Jerónimos, a huge church and monastery built in the 16th century. This is my favorite church since being abroad, and we were lucky, because the organist was practicing while we were there. It was very elegant and stately, as was the rest of the claustro, and after the monastery closed, we looked through the attached Anthropology Museum. The museum was very small and only took a half and hour, but the displays were nice. My favorite was the Egyptian display, which, although smelly (those mummies don't really have a nice odor to them), was pretty interesting, and a change from the rest of museums we've seen.

We then headed back into Belém and stopped quickly at a pastry shop to try the famous Pasteis de Belém (egg, cinnamon, and sugar pastries). Deterred by the line at the first place, we went to one across the street, and those pastries are good! Portuguese people are also very nice, and the man who owned the shop was very friendly.

We were told to speak English while in Portugal, as the Portuguese aren't exactly fans of the Spaniards. They always feel less popular and unfairly compared to Spaniards, and there is a undercurrent of competition between the two countries. But while most Portuguese people speak English perfectly well, if you need to speak Spanish, they will probably understand you. I also found that I understand Spanish better when it is spoken by a Portuguese person. Unlike the Spaniards, the Portuguese are very good at enunciating, which makes a world of difference when someone is speaking to you. I also found that I understand a good deal of Portuguese itself. It sounds like a mix of Spanish, French, and German, but at times, I felt like I understood more of Portuguese than I do of Spanish. There's a conundrum for you.

So after pastries, we all got back on the tram and regrouped at the hostel. We booked a Fado (Portuguese folk music) dinner/show for the next night with Miguel's (one of the owners of the hostel) help, and then headed to Rua das Portas de Santo Antáo for dinner. We thought we had a restaurant all picked out, but it turned out to be quite expensive, so we found another, cheaper restaurant on the same street. For some reason, I had terribly annoying shin splints and my back was throbbing like crazy, but I popped some Motrin and felt much better. I had kabobs for dinner, which weren't very good at all, but it was nice to sit outside and people-watch through dinner. The street was busy at night and we had to ward off the street vendors that would come right up to the table and push whatever they were selling right in your face (and whatever they were selling usually made some kind of annoying noise, which when pushed so close to your face was quite loud).

After dinner we walked back to the hostel, stopping at another pastry place right next door. This place was amazing. The pastries were huge and delicious, and most things costed less than a euro. I got some sort of sugar item coated in more sugar, which was simply fantastic and paid only 0.80 euro cents for it. We then pretty much passed out in the hostel. I ended up being able to sleep in the same room as the rest of the BC kids, as two of them slept in the same bed, and there was, therefore, one bed open. I was exhausted after having slept only a total of 4 hours in two days (1 of which was on an airport floor), so I fell asleep right away, with a whole lot of sugar inside of me.