We flew from Madrid on easyJet Thursday afternoon, which was a fine experience, my first with the many European budget airlines. We didn't check any luggage, which I've heard can be somewhat risky. The flight between Madrid and Lisbon was ridiculously short, about an hour.
We took the bus to our hostel. Public transportation is expensive in Lisbon! It cost 1.40 euros for the bus. Maybe we've gotten spoiled in Madrid, where the most expensive ticket is 1 euro and I get a monthly pass for 28 euros. We missed our stop because it took us too long to retrieve our bags and fight our way through the crowds. Luckily, Lisbon is pretty tiny. Armed only with the 2005 edition of Lonely Planet Portugal, which I snagged from the Georgetown office, we were at Lisboa Central Hostel in no time.
The hostel was really nice. We got our own room with two twin beds, which was even nicer, since we didn't have to worry about stashing stuff in lockers or anything. We went around the neighborhood and had rice pudding and vinho tinto. We found a nice, reasonably priced restaurant called Brus"k"etta. We each had our own decent sized pizza and shared an entire bottle of vinho tinto and mineral water for only 22 euros or something. We had a really cute Brazilian waiter and talked to him in a mixture of English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
I went to Portugal with only the vague perception that Portuguese and Spanish were pretty similar. Reading the two languages, they are almost the same. Trying to understand spoken Portuguese is quite another matter. I'm trying to decide whether or not to take Portuguese next year at Georgetown. The upside is that it should be relatively easy and I would get an "intensive" level at a regular pace, but the downside is that Portuguese isn't that useful. My main alternative is probably to take two semesters of intensive French.
After dinner we made our way to Bairro Alto, which is supposed to be the main nightlife district of Lisbon. We didn't see any bars that particularly struck our fancy but found a store that sold surprisingly drinkable bottles of vinho tinto for 3 euros and sat on a bench outside of a bar and enjoyed it. The bouncer kept looking at us but never said anything. While we were sitting there we were offered hashish. That hasn't even happened to me in Madrid yet! Then we headed back to the hostel to get a relatively early start the next day.
For me, that start came earlier than it needed to. Portugal is an hour behind Spain. I knew this and changed my watch, but I didn't change the time on my phone so I set my alarm for an hour earlier than I meant to. This gave me time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast. I wish I knew the name of the hostel owner who was really nice and made us pancakes. There was a group of four German girls studying in Andalucia with their (male) Spanish roommate. They asked me if I was German. It's nice not to have people immediately think I am American! I'm jealous of their setup, since they are all living together and have the built-in group of people to travel with.
We took the Metro to Baixa, one of the older districts of Lisbon. We easily could have walked it. The Metro reminded me of the one in Prague because they are of similar size and had similar sounds. One weird thing is that in Lisbon different companies run the Metro system and the bus/tram system. From the Metro, we tried to make our way to Castelo Sao Jorge, which was tricky because that part of town, Alfama, really doesn't have straight streets. We thought we were at the castle because we saw a bunch of buses but as it turns out it was just a random church. We asked some women for directions and were surprisingly very able to understand them as they told us that the longer route was more pretty. There was a lookout point from where we saw the river. That is the one thing Madrid doesn't have. Chicago has that little thing I like to call Lake Michigan and DC has the Potomac.
Finally we made it to the Castelo. There was a student discount. I didn't have my university carnet on me and tried to present my carnet joven, but the cashier said that wouldn't work. I ended up presenting my in case of emergency card that said "university" on it and showing that I am indeed who it says I am with my carnet joven. The funny thing is that my university carnet is not official at all, essentially just a hand-written index card (which is why it wasn't in my wallet...it doesn't fit) stamped with my photo on it. The Castelo was an old Muslim fortress high on a hill and afforded incredible views of the city and the river. Lisbon has a very "San Francisco of Europe" feel because it has a bridge that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge and there are also trams. The weather was also amazing, in the 60s and 70s and sunny. The woman who owns the hostel was complaining about how much she hates the weather in November and December. She should never move.
From there we made our way to the Praca (except with one of those funny c's that is pronounced kind of like a z) du Comercio, the main plaza of Lisbon. It was actually surprisingly not that cute. We ate lunch at a cute cafe nearby then picked up a tram to Belem, which means Bethlehem in Portuguese.
We were following the same itinerary suggested by Lonely Planet and probably every other guidebook because we kept running into people we had seen elsewhere on the trip. In Belem, we saw the Monasterio dos Jeronimos, which was impressive and where Vasco da Gama is buried. We opted not to pay to see the cloisters, which ultimately may have been a mistake. We walked out to the Torre de Belem...only to find that it was closed because the workers were on strike. So Europe. We just hung out on a bench for a while because it was pretty legit hot out. As we walked back into the center of Belem, I, in typical Colleen fashion, walked too close to a telephone pole and a hook slit my jacket sleeve open. The hook actually did a lot of damage, but at least I didn't get hurt. I was sad though because that is the jacket that I wear everywhere when it is warm. I think I will be wannabe Eurotrash and buy a patch of the Spanish flag or something and sew it over the rip.
The only thing after the wasted walk and the destroyed jacket that restored my adoration of Belem was pasteis de Belem (pashteesh) which are these delicious little custard tarts served warm which cinnamon and sugar and were the pick-me-up I needed. We went back to the hostel for a nap. The woman who owns the hostel wanted to make soup but didn't want to wake Allison up because our room was right next to the kitchen. She was very sad when we left for dinner without sampling her soup.
We ended up going back to Brus"K"etta again. It was tasty, affordable, and of course there was the cute waiter, so we figured why not. He didn´t really talk to us as much on Friday, but at the end he asked us if we wanted to go dancing (pantomiming was involved). He gave us a card with the name of a bar, his name, and his phone number. His name is Emerson....which I think is pretty hilarious. Anyway we called him on Allison´s phone (hers works internationally but mine doesn´t, what gives) and the hostel phone (also again on Saturday night!) and he didn´t answer so we never saw Emerson again. Probably the love of my life right there. I guess we were never meant to be.
Saturday Allison found us this amazing tour that went in a van to various sites around Lisbon (part of which were in the infamous Lonely Planet itinerary). Tour groups, like common areas at hostels, are a great way to meet people, especially characters. Our group consisted of: our Portuguese guide Luis (Looeeeesh) who spoke pretty good English but heavily abuses the word "already," as in "we are already in Queluz, etc."; two elderly German gentlemen; a middle-aged Australian named Andrew who showed up for the tour wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops; and a Serbian couple: the guy had a strange ear deformity that I couldn´t help staring at and kept making weird jokes about peasants and hashish and the girl told us that her name was "Dragon."
Our first stop outside of Lisbon was Queluz, where we stopped to look at a palace. The stop took longer than it should have and probably was skippable based on the next site.
Our next stop was Sintra. The gem of Sintra is the Palacio Nacional de Pena, which is a gorgeous pastel summer palace situated atop a wooded hill with views of the Atlantic ocean. Basically it is a Disney dream castle in real life. We wandered around through the gardens (the Germans had to take the trolley up to the top of the hill) which look like wild forests but are actually carefully planned Romantic gardens intended to mimic nature. There is a terrace that goes all the way around the palace from which you can see everything. The interior of the palace was alright, and the guards were extremely stern. I know pretty much nothing about Portuguese history, but apparently the palace was inhabited until 1910 when the monarchy was overthrown.
Once our group re-collected itself, we had "free time" for lunch in Sintra. Allison and I looked for a place with Andrew and decided on a place with a fixed menu. At one point Allison said, "gracias" to the waiter by accident. He snapped and said "Gracias is Spanish!!!!!!! Obrigada is Portuguese." It seemed a little strange that he got so angry since he is working in a very touristy town. Luis later explained that while he would never get angry, because of historical antagonisms the Portuguese resent being lumped with the Spanish, so it would have been better to say thank you in any language other than Spanish. Andrew ordered sardines. I´ve never had sardines and frankly have no desire to. It took him something like 45 minutes to get the small quantity of meat extricated from the bones. He commented when we were rushing to get to the van that he didn´t know where the time went...it went to trying to eat his lunch. I´m kind of bummed we didn´t have more time in Sintra because it seemed like a very cute town with a lot of shops and such.
From Sintra we set out for Cabo da Roca, which is the westernmost point of continental Europe. It was very windy but very beautiful. There is one place in Ireland that is one degree further to the west, but who's counting?
Next we went to the beach which was pretty ridiculous because it was too cold. I thought Andrew would be all over the beach but he actually stayed in the van. He even put on his spare t-shirt.
Our last stop was Cascais, a posh little beach town. Once back in Lisbon we had Indian food for dinner. It was delish. In Madrid, there are always vendors, often Africans, trying to sell you junk such as jewelry, illicit DVDs, carved figurines, or glowsticks, and they will often approach you while you are sitting outside. What was weird is that for the longest time there was a vendor in the restaurant, and the employees didn't seem too fazed about it. He left us alone after Allison shook her head when he asked whether we spoke Portuguese, French, and English. But he was crouching next to another group for like 20 minutes. I think they ended up buying a tiger or something to try to get him to leave.
Back in the hostel, we re-connected with Robash, who we had met Thursday and thought was just your average gay Indian Canadian. As it turns out, he is not ordinary. At all.
Sunday we took the bus to the airport and almost missed our stop again except that a Portuguese guy shouted "aeroport!!!" at us and got the driver to stop which was good.
Back in Madrid, it seems just about my entire host family is ill. I am a bit congested myself but am hoping beyond hope that I can stay relatively healthy until after next Wednesday, when I have a midterm for my art history class.
I'm getting pretty fed up with the Spanish educational system to be perfectly honest. I'm the kind of person who doesn't skip class...the only one I've missed so far was the Prado tutorial because I had to go to the airport to get to Prague. My professors do not have such a good track record. One of my professors misses every Tuesday. Which was fine until my 8 p.m. professor stopped coming...or at least even relatively within the realm of being on time. Today we gave him half an hour and as we were walking out the door he was coming in from the parking lot. And then he tried to keep us after 9:30 but someone actually knocked on the door and told us we had to get out of the building.
Also, someone changed the Somosaguas bus stops without informing/asking me, which is kind of not ok.
Thursday is Thanksgiving and will be my first away from my family. Early early early on Friday I leave for Vienna. I'm in town for exactly 48 hours, which is definitely not enough time to see everything there!!!!
For some reason the pictures on Blogger load backwards...
Cabo da Roca:
Palacio de Pena in Sintra:
Praca da Comercio:
At Castelo Sao Jorge:
I miss water:
