These trams were everywhere. It reminded me of San Francisco.
We took a 9 hour bus ride to Lisboa, not including the bus ride from Toledo to Madrid (1 hour) and the metro ride (15 min) to get to the bus station. On the way there, we took the overnight bus so we would be able to have two full days in Portugal. So we left Thursday night, and got there at 4:30am in Portugal. The receptionist was nice enough to let us sleep for a couple hours, but we had to be up by 8am because thats when they clean the rooms.
Outside our hostel.
Breakfast was my favorite part of the food we ate there. I was so excited to have a "pancake" breakfast, which ended up meaning crepes but who can complain about that?? It was delicious topped with nutella. They also had cereal, hard boiled eggs, and toast. It was incredible. The breakfast in Spain is very small, and they usually don't have more than a cafe and a small bowl of cereal. To say the least, I was ecstatic to have a breakfast similar to the American breakfasts.
After breakfast, we went and explored the city. The buildings are beautiful, and we were staying in the Alfama neighborhood which is the only neighborhood to survive the earthquake. There must have been a big earthquake years ago; I still need to look up what actually happened. The houses and building were old and beautiful.
After getting lost, and being redirected, we finally found the castle that is famous in Lisboa. It is more like a fort than a castle because everything was outside. We explored and looked at the gorgeous views that overlooks the entire city. There were also peacocks roaming the grounds, which was funny and quite amazing to see one in person. Also, there are TONS of stray cats running around both Spain and Portugal.
Later we got lunch in one of the main plazas, and took a siesta when we returned to the hostel to officially check in. It was very difficult to switch into only speaking English in Portugal. We all had the tendency to speak Spanish with the Portugese, but they really don't know any of it, and Portuguese is quite different.
That Friday night, we went on a pub crawl with the sister hostels of the one we stayed at. We went to 5 different pubs and were led around by a 20 year old named Gilbert. There were people from all over the world doing the pub crawl: Germany, Denmark, Latvia Canada, France, and some more Americans. At every pub we received a drink, which ended up being a shot. I don't know what I drank half the time, but they were pretty good. One pub had shot glasses that were made of pure ice.
It's interesting because everyone wants to "party with the Americans". It's strange to me because I don't think we do anything that cool when we party. Its more our drinking habits that they want to try (which I don't know if that's something to be proud of....). But they thought it was so much fun when we circled up at one of the pubs and danced for 2 hours. Most Europeans don't seem to dance often, which is bizarre to me. How can you not want to dance when there is music playing??
The next day was more low key, I took a bus tour around the city because it is too big to walk around in 2 days. It was really cool and they have lots of cool monuments. The sister of the Golden Gate Bridge also made an appearance. It was strange to me it was there but very cool at the same time. That night we had a BBQ at our hostel with some great food, other Europeans, and some music. It was fun and the food was delicious.
Sunday, we had our dreadful bus back which seemed to take ages! It was terrible.... But we made it home in time for dinner. Yesterday, I wrote my first Spanish paper that ended up being 3 pages long. I was very proud of myself to say the least!
This weekend, I am going to London to visit other DGs (Delta Gammas) that are studying there. I am looking forward to it very much. I will probably update this in about a week again after I return from London. That is, unless something major happens in the next two days.
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