Lisboa, Portugal and more

Starting where I left off, last Thursday night, Maria (my host sister) and her friends Cristina, Ana, and Javi went out with the American students. We went to a bar for a couple hours and talked in Spanish and English. Cristina is a student at the university who wants to teach English, so she practiced her English with me and I practiced my Spanish with her. Around 12:30am, I left to go home and get my bag to get to the train station.

Our train to Lisboa was about 10 minutes late arriving...no surprise because everything starts about 10 minutes or more late here. The train ride was 6 hours long, and we gained an hour going to Portugal since we crossed time zones. We spread out and each took two seats so we could sleep. They didn't even check our passports to get into Portugal, which is surprising. We didn't even get them stamped! Oh well.

Day 1 (Friday)

When we got off the train, the tourism office at the train station was closed, so we ate some bocadillos (sandwiches) and fruit that our mom's had packed for us and then started to walk toward where we thought our hostal was. Luckily, my sister printed me a small map of part of the city, so we had some idea where we were. We reached the neighborhood of the city called Baxia, we knew we were very close to our hostel. We found brochures for a tour bus company that took us on 3 different routes through the city, and it was a pretty good deal so we bought tickets. We took one route, which took us past a castle and lots of statues. We rode on double-decker open top buses, which was lots of fun! When we returned to the main plaza, we checked into the hostel and left our luggage (backpacks) there. Our hostel was very close to the main square, which was very nice! It was semi-clean and very secure-there were security cameras all the way up to our room and the person at the hostel desk had to buzz us in the door anytime we came in or left. We took a second tour route which was in a tram and then decided to get supper. We were all craving Italian food since we haven't had it for a while, so we found a decently priced restaurant and ate there. We tried not to spend a lot of money on food this trip, so whenever we ate, we ate every bite. After supper, we went back to the hostel and went to bed at 8pm :) We were so tired from not sleeping much on the train!

Day 2 (Saturday)

We woke up at 10am...14 hours of sleep total!! We got ready and went to take our third tour bus route. We got off the bus at El Corte Ingles, which is a 10 floor (6 above ground and 4 below ground) department store that has literally every brand of anything you would ever need. One floor is a huge supermarket and one is a restaurant. Since it was about lunch time when we arrived, we decided to have lunch at the cafe on the top floor. It was cool to look out at the ocean while we ate. This time we ordered American food...hamburgers, club sandwiches, and fries. We also got some white sangria to share, which was delicious! We all ordered this AMAZING chocolate cake for dessert too. After we were done we were all super full but it was such good food! While we were at the restaurant, there was a waiter who kept staring at us as he walked by and we kept laughing about it so finally Lizzy asked hime to take a picture with us. We've made it a goal to take a picture with at least one guy from each country so I guess he's our man from Portugal! After lunch, we looked around a couple other floors then headed to the supermarket. We found oranges on sale for 35 euro cents/kg so I bought 3. I ate them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day, which was great because it cost me like 50 US cents all together, saving LOTS of money. From El Corte Ingles, we got back on the bus and got off near the Belem Pasteleria aka Belem Pastry Shop. The Belem Pastry is very famous and we had to stand in line for a bit to get one. It is like a small pie crust filled with sweet filling and you put cinnamon and powdered sugar on top. It was good and something you can only get in Lisbon I think. Next, we walked to the elevator that takes you up like 4 stories so you can see the whole city. It was dark, so it was cool to see all the lights. Then, we spent a couple hours at the hostel, changed and decided to go out. We walked through Bairro Alto-another neighborhood-but we didn't see much going on, so we decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe we had seen on our tour route earlier that day. It was a good decision! Just sitting there and listening to the music made us feel like we were back in the US and I think that cured all of our homesickness a bit. We stayed there til about 1:30am and then went back to the hostel.

Day 3 (Sunday)

Woke up at 9am today. Got ready and packed everything up so we could check out of our hostel before church. We went to La Iglesia de Sao Roque-the Church of St. Rock I think. Never knew that saint existed! The church was only about a 15 minute walk from our hostel. When we arrived, there was a small choir rehearsing-3 singers and 1 guitarist. They were singing "Every Breath You Take" by Sting in Portuguese. They were really good and led the music during Mass. The Mass was totally in Portuguese, which is pretty similar to Spanish, but it was still really hard to know what they were saying. All I got from the readings this weekend was that we are the salt of the Earth and the light of the world. Once again, we were the only young people at Mass. After Mass, we went to the church's museum next door, which was free. We ate ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch in the cafe next door, which were delicious! Then, we walked back to the neighborhood of our hostel and looked around a couple more shops and I bought a magnet. I want to get a magnet from each city I visit. We were hoping to find a beach to go to, but it wasn't quite that warm, so we found an area along the ocean that had steps down and we walked down and touched the Atlantic Ocean. It was pretty cold. There is a statue called Cristo Rei in Lisbon, which means Christ the King. It is really tall and can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. We were told you had to take a ferry to get there, so we decided to try it out. We bought tickets and took the ferry to the other side, only to realize that we were probably farther from it than when we were in Lisbon. So, we just got back on the ferry and rode it back to Lisbon. Never made it to see the statue, but oh well. When we got back, we decided to watch the sunset by the ocean. There were lots of pickpockets and suspicious people walking around because it was a touristy area, but we were careful. The sunset was beautiful...don't think I'd ever seen the sun set over the ocean before. After the sunset, we needed to get some food so decided to be true Americans and go to McDonald's. I really do not like fast food and especially McDonald's but this restaurant was actually pretty nice. I had my supper orange and ordered a Kit-Kat McFlurry. It was pretty cheap. We hung out at McDonald's for like 1.5 hours and then walked to the train station. We found a grocery store at the train station and bought a bottle of green wine, which is something that Lisbon is known for. We haven't tried it yet, but will have to see. Also got some Oreos...not enough chocolate here! Our train left the station at 10:30pm and we got back to Caceres at 5:15am. It was a pretty quiet walk home because we were all so tired. When I got home, I found a note from my mom that welcomed me home and said that I didn't have class today because Toni, our program director, wanted to make sure we got our rest...that would NEVER happen in the US.

Today!

Sorry this is so long, but there is so much to say! So today, I got up at 9:45am-4 hours of sleep. Went to the meeting point and walked to the parte antigua-old part of the city-for a tour and to meet some students from the Erasmus program. The Erasmus program is like a student exchage program between European countries. Most of the universities in Europe are free if students pass an exam to get into them. The program gives the students scholarships to go study in other countries. We met a really nice girl named Iveta who is from the Czech Republic. We also met some students from Maryland and North Carolina who are here for the semester. After the tour, they took us to a restaurant to mingle and have tapas-appetizers. I tried pallela for the first time. It is a very typical Spanish dish that has rice and fish and was pretty good. For drinks, they had wine, sangria, fanta orange, coke, and beer. It was so strange to have alcohol served at a school function! This afternoon, I took a nap. Tomorrow, I have my first speech...4 minutes in Spanish! Should be pretty easy :) I'm going to spend tonight with my family and probably watch tv like we do every night. I'll try to put up some pictures soon!