Lisbon- "That was Lady Gaga, she's Portuguese and she works for our President"

óla (hello in Portuguese)


I just got back this morning from Lisbon, Portugal. I wasn't even on planning going here, but since my Germany plans didn't work out, a ton of people suggested Lisbon and I am so glad they did. It was seriously one of the most amazing places ever. Out everywhere so far (which I know isn't many), it is definitely my favorite. I think it might stay that way too. I don't know, we will see. I really like Barcelona, Madrid and Segovia, but I absolutely LOVE Lisbon. 


Buttt before I tell you how awesome Lisbon was, I am quickly going to tell you about us going to an exclusive club in Madrid last Wednesday. Our school set it up so we could get in that one night, but basically you usually have to know someone to get in. The Real Madrid team and Shakira party there, so it is a classy place. The dress code was smart, elegant, which really confused us. But they let us and it was really fun. I went with my 3 roommates. We saw a lot of people we knew and unfortunately had to leave early because we wanted to catch the metro back home. But over all it was really fun and I'm so glad I went. I only wish I could go again.

Me and Meg

Gabana

 Gabana

Megan, Stephanie, Me, Megan

Stephanie and me

The Megan's being "smart, elegant"

Now for the wonderful, fantastic, any other cool word to describe how amazing this place is, story of Lisbon (known as Lisboa to Spain and the people of Portugal). Well we took the metro to the airport, which was easy enough. We were worried about not having enough time because Megan had class, but we had plenty of time. On the plane, there were two American guys by us, one next to us and one across from us. They had just met and were talking so we talked to them a little bit too. The guy next to us was really nice, but the guy across from us could only be described as fratty, hence my nickname for him: fratastic. He was pretty much the definition of a tool and spewed frattyness with everything he said. For example, I think a few of these quotes he said will help explain- (When getting off the airplane) "I look too good for this country", "I can now look at girls and just be friends with them and not want to hook up with them. I've never been able to do that before. I've matured so much here" and a toast he made with the guy next to us (fratastic bought him the drink because "he doesn't like to drink alone"- it was 1 pm) "To our daughters marrying rich and our sons having hot wives." I hope those help explain fratastic to you all. You could tell the guy next to us didn't really agree with most of the stuff he said, but was polite and didn't really say anything. Pretty much as soon as we could we separated from them. 


It was really easy getting to our hostel. We took the aerobus, and it took us about a minute to walk from the stop. It was called My Lisbon Home, and it really was like a home. It was nicer than I could have imagined any hostel ever being and the atmosphere was super friendly and yes, homey. Our roommates were pretty cool too. We met this girl named Amber who's an au pair for a family who lives near Barcelona. This is her gap year for school so it was really interesting to hear about how she decided to do that and all the stuff she has done. The other roommate we talked to a lot was Britney, who was from Australia. We talked about different words and accents. She was really nice. The other two girls in our room were from Chile and I don't think they liked us very much but that's okay. 

Cool graffiti 

Our beds

View from our window

After we were all settled, we headed out to explore Lisbon. Me, being the somewhat child-like individual that I am, really wanted to see the oceanario, because I love animals (and I wanted to re-live my 4th grade glory of touching a beluga whale at the shedd aquarium). So we took the metro there (which is seriously super fancy and nice- the design was incredible!). We went and walked around and saw so many cool sea creatures. I was sad they did not have any whales/dolphins but it was still really fun. After that, we took a cable car ride over Lisbon as the sun was setting. It was super beautiful. We headed back to the hostel after that for an awesome dinner. Another great thing about our hostel is that they offer a traditional Portuguese meal for dinner which includes a soup, main course, dessert, water and unlimited sangria for only 8 euro! So we definitely took full advantage of that. The first night we had a watercress soup, which was really good, duck rice (which I was really nervous about) and this homemade ice cream/cookie thing for dessert. The duck rice was rice with duck mixed into it and salami and carrots on top (not a lot- just a few). It was surprisingly really good. Friends be proud- the picky eater is trying so many new things and actually liking them! The ice cream was so great. I asked for the recipe, but forgot to get it before I left. I am hoping to still get it though! We met a lot of cool people at dinner. We met this guy from Belgium, who is a part of this program called Erasmus, which sends European students all over to study and they can all speak a ton of languages. He answered all our Europe questions and we explained to him American customs and such. He was really cool. We also met some girls from Oregon/Washington state area who were nice. The dinner was a really good way of getting to know your other hostel mates. I thoroughly enjoyed it. After dinner we were so tired that we just went and chilled/ talked to Amber and Britney before going to bed. 

In front of Oceanario

Penguins!

Sea Otters :)

Shark

Sea

Cool lookin fish

Megan and me with a shark

Coral reef

Thumbs up

Sea Turtle

Saturday was the most awesome day ever. We woke up and had free breakfast at our hostel, then we headed out to take a tour which ended up being 8 and a half hours long (which was a good thing). It was called "we hate tourism tours" and it was super awesome. It's 8 people in a van with a driver who takes you all over Lisbon showing you underrated cool things that most tourists don't know to go see. Our driver, Rodrigo, was so awesome and hilarious. There actually ended up being 3 vans, (all of the people were from SLU Madrid) and in our van we actually knew 2 of the girls so that was nice and we knew some others as well. It was seriously one of the funnest days in my entire life. To start out, we drove up to this place to get a special pastry which is made out of cheese but tastes nothing like cheese. It was delicious. Then we drove up to a castle which is famous for having a ton of additions that don't really match so it's just kind of hodge-podge of a place. Near by there was a place where you can get this specialty liquor in a chocolate shot glass. It kind of tasted like sweet cough syrup, but I loved the chocolate!

Inside the van

Castle

Pastry

Megan, Me, Emily- yay sw majors!

cool architecture

chocolate shot glass

After we went there, we headed over to this palace-esque place (I'm not sure what it's actually called- all I know is it was made by a billionaire) with a ton of gardens. In these gardens are hidden tunnels and underground caves and a lot of cool things like that. We explored around there, which was really fun! Although some of the tunnels didn't have lights which made it VERY difficult to see. I'll just put a lot of pics because that can it explain it better than I can in words. One cool thing though was in the library, along the floor of the book shelves, they had mirrors that was about a foot below the normal floor, so it looked like if you stepped in it you would fall down in a hole! One girl accidentally stepped on it and freaked out because she thought she was falling. It was cool looking and it made it look like there was an infinite amount a books, which I definitely approve of. 

Palace

Random tower in the gardens

View from tower

I love the arcitecture

Morris castle up the hill

Tunnel

Bottom of a well

usually a waterfall (wasn't on)

Walking across

Fountain

Entrance

Books!

In the tower

Pretty

One little comment- I am absolutely in love with all of the buildings in Europe. I am a huge fan of old-school architecture. I just find all the arches and intricate designs to be so beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I think there are a ton of cool buildings in America, but if I could make a living from running around taking architecture pictures in Europe, I'd die a happy girl (which is why I have so many pictures of random buildings/parts of buildings- I even try to be artsy with some, but I won't include those). Anyway after that we went to this little stand on a road for lunch (sounds sketch- was super delicious). There was also a little market with such cheap/good food fruit! I got a pomegranate for 1 euro and 10 strawberries for 1.25 euro. For lunch they gave us this thing called pao chorizo (which is bread sausage in Portuguese). Its this bread with this sausage/salami type meat cooked in the middle and then you put cheese in and it melts and it was super delicious. After we ate lunch we headed to the western most point of Portugal.

Fruit stand

Lunch

So this part of Portugal was breathtaking. It faces the ocean and has a ton of hills and rocks and mountains and just beautiful landscape. We probably ended up spending close to an hour there because it was so pretty. Megan and I spent a long time talking to these two girls, Emily and Taylor (another social work major and girl in my Spanish class), who are super sweet. It was nice getting to know them a bit better. We all had a joke started by our tour guide saying we could see America from the western most point and we were going to swim home for a little bit. After we were done with the ocean, we went to a beach which was just as beautiful. 

Me in front of hills

Pretty water

Ocean

"I can see America"

Atlantic coast

Me

Me and Taylor

Farrrr down

Pretty

Meg and me

Although I really enjoyed going to the Western most point, I have to say I think the beach was my favorite thing that we did. Not only were there a ton of attractive surfer boys (my new life goal is to move there to marry one- I just need to learn some Portuguese..) but the beach itself was beautiful. The beach we went to is known for having really big waves year round, so a lot of people go here to surf. It looks like a lot of fun so new thing on my bucket list is to learn how to surf. At the beach we pretty much just ran around and took pics. I really enjoyed playing in the waves. If only it was warm enough so we actually could've gone swimming. After that we headed to a little fisherman town close by that had the best gelato I've ever had (although I'm sure Italy will give it a run for it's money). It was really cheap too. 

Beach

Again

Me

Looking at the ocean

Running in the waves

Happy

Meg and me

Surfer dude

I am queen of the beach

Yay

Pensive

Gelato

After that, we hit the last leg of the tour. We saw a huge monument that represented the freedom of Portugal from Spain. While we were looking at that, a Portuguese band (I think they may have been high schoolers) played some traditional songs. They also did these cool dances/tricks with tambourines (hard to explain- you had to be there). That was interesting. We also saw a bridge based off the golden gate bridge and a statue similar to one in Brazil. Those were cool. Finally we saw a cathedral (didn't go in because it was expensive but the outside was pretty) and tried a different pastry that was only available at one shop in that specific location. Our tour guides have connections so they got it quickly, but the line was 45 minutes long! That tells you how they are. It was funny because they handed them to us, and Rodrigo goes hang on don't it eat it! I have a surprise- some crack and cocaine (aka sugar and cinnamon). It was really good. After that we drove back, but the whole time we were in the van we got to know cool little facts and learn a lot about Rodrigo. He's a really cool guy. I'm sure some of you are wondering about the post title. So when we were headed back we passed the President's house, which had two guards with funky hats that had like blonde hair coming out of it. And someone says look at those hats they look like something Lady Gaga would wear and Rodrigo goes" Actually that was Lady Gaga, she's Portuguese and she works for our President." It was hilarious. We were all sad when the tour ended.

Monument

Bridge

Jesus

Portuguese band

Fountain

Cathedral

Pastry complete with crack and cocaine

I love this

 Sunrise this morning

Us and Rodrigo!

That night we ate another dinner made by Momma (the owner of the hostel's mother). It was cilantro soup, lemon chicken with noodles and a chocolate waffer thing with whipped cream and strawberries. So delicious! I ate it all. We met some new people at dinner which was cool. They were all studying in Sevilla. There were 2 guys from Germany, Britney and her other Australian friend, a girl from Canada and a couple people from the South. Everyone was really friendly and I was glad we got to know them. After that Megan and I talked/went to bed again because we had to get up early for our flight. The alarm actually didn't go off in the morning and we ALMOST MISSED OUR PLANE! It was really scary. We woke up at 6:30 (we were planning on leaving for the airport at 5:30). We ran downstairs, grabbed a taxi and sprinted through the airport (this is why I forgot to get the recipe). We got through security fine and were running like chickens with our heads cut off. I heard an announcement about last call for Madrid at gate 25 so we ran there, but turns out that was a different flight. We were at gate 14 so we sprinted over there, but there was still a long line of people so we were fine. I was not happy to have to run everywhere, but glad we got home alright. And those were my wonderful adventures in Portugal. If you can ever go, I would highly recommend it. I seriously want to come back at least one more time in my life. And the best thing is I didn't even do half the stuff I could have, so I will have plenty more to do when I return.

Amo (love in Portuguese),

Ashley