Lisbon, Lisboa, Lishboa... Portugal

Click to View Photos From my Portugal Trip!!

Portugal was amazing.

We went on this trip with ISA so obviously there was basically all the educational/learning experiences involved as they can pack in for a weekend.

We left Friday morning at 8 which means i was up at 630 getting ready to go. Lucky me. Madelon and I slept the entire way there, all 6 1/2 hours of it. Which was good because when we got there, we had a free couple hours to get settled in to the hotel we stayed at and go find some lunch. Luckily most of us had our moms pack bocadillos (which i have explained before are like a sandwich on french bread) and so we just ate that in the hotel until we left for our first couple excursions of the weekend.

The first of all, a little background on Portugal. Much of Portugal's capital city, Lisbon, was destroyed in a 1755 earthquake. Much of the city had to be rebuilt from the ground up and Lisbon lost many historic things. There was one church that stayed completely intact though (which we did get to tour). Their language and much of their architecture is influenced by the Muslims. There are about 7 (i believe) or so places in the world with the official language as Portuguese. ( Brazil and Portugal are two primary Portuguese speaking nations,Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Guiné-Bissau and São Tomé e Príncipe; Portuguese speakers are also found in Macau, East Timor and Goa.... got that list online so i don't know how correct it is.. hahah!) To me i was very surprised because i only thought it was Portugal, and Brazil. There are even places in the US today where many Portuguese people had came to from the past.  There are around 240 million speakers, which makes Portuguese the sixth most spoken language in the world!

all the more reason for me to start my quest on learning Portuguese. :) It sounds so pretty and yet if they speak slow enough, and someone speaks Spanish slow enough, you can have a conversation. WHICH, in fact, i did to with our cab driver one night when we were going to dinner. He spoke in Portuguese and we spoke in Spanish and had a really easy time communicating. Funny the way it is.

Now, onto the excursions...

Friday after we got there and had lunch, and got checked into the hotel, We went to visit this Castle. I apologize for not knowing the name of it or the history about it but I assume it used to be a castle during the times of the conquest and reconquest. The view we had of Lisbon was beautiful from the top and sorry for not being sorry  but we deff. got ourselves kicked out because all of us were climbing on the castle walls and on the ledges to take some daring (swweeett) photographs! haha ISA directors were not mad at all just kinda was like oh well and we continued on with our tour of Portugal.

After this we walked through a bario (neighborhood) and over by the Tagus river. It was a lovely stroll down and then got back on the bus to go to the Hotel. It was a short 'excursion' day but that was definitely O.K. with me. At the hotel we got to relax for a while and then Madelon, Kelly, Blair, Narolyn, Jen and I planned on going out for supper. We went and got a beer (which was worlds) better then the Cruzcampo here.. haha... and decided we really just wanted American food. Blair had mentioned she saw a Hard Rock Cafe (I know,cliche but what can you do) and since things were so insanely (like 14 EURO for a cheeseburger =20US$) expensive, we all split with each other. It was definitely worth it. That night we just kind of all hung out and some of the group went out and some of us stayed in.

The next morning, they had chocolate cake for breakfast (yeah. they CLEARLY have priorities here.) annnd i guess they had eggs and toast, sandwich meats, cheese, fruit, yogurt, sausages (ew) and deserts and cereals. Sidenote: the eggs i have had at hotels here, are actual eggs. meaning they taste like bob's and they could completely knock down any eggs put up against it here in the US. seriously. yum.
Furthermore, Madelon and i take breakfast buffets like this as an opportunity to pack a free lunch. And i mean we take that opportunity. We each made ourselves 3 little bun sandwiches and ate a lot of breakfast so we wouldn't be that hungry at lunch. (this is a usual thing as you can tell since day one in Madrid. hahah)

Anyway, Sat. we went on a panoramic tour of Lisbon and also went a visited the this really cool place (aka Kelly's home.. inside joke i suppose). it was nice because we were free to explore as we wanted and didnt have to sit and listen to a guide, hence the Kelly's home reference, meaning we made up our own story, and it was good. hahahah ohh boy. great day.

We had basically the whole day for free time so we conquered the Lisbon Metro (seriously everyone, im getting SO PRO at this) and went to one of the Largest Malls in Europe. It was fun but then we found this GIANT store that was like a Target/Sam's club and obviously got lost in there for a while. Madelon and myself got lost for Jen and Narolyn so we just decided to go back to the hotel. We hung out and just had a really really fun night at the hotel. We had planned on going out but I got tired afterwards so I didn't but the other girls did. Then Sunday we basically got up and came back home to Sevilla.

It was a really nice time in Portugal and I am so glad I get to go back in 2 weeks to Lagos with Discover Sevilla. :) So pumped. This week I am starting to work on final projects and papers. i can't believe it is almost April, I know i have said that before but it is so surreal for me. This weekend I am going to Palma Mallorca which is in the Balteric Islands in the Mediterranean. SO EXCITED TO TAN!!!

haha. well. i hope things are going well for all of you. Don't forget to look at the link at the top for my photos! anyone can click on it weather or not you have a facebook.

TQM/Hasta.