Lisbon

Two weekends ago, two friends and I did a very college-student-in-Europe-for-a-semester thing: we hopped on a bus at 11:00 on a Thursday night, attempted to sleep there for nine hours, and emerged from the bus station in Lisbon, Portugal as the sun was rising.  It wasn’t too bad (though we did plan a nap into our afternoon), plus we got super cheap transportation, three FULL days in Portugal, and two fewer nights of hostel to pay for. 

We had to wait for the metro to open, after which we took our things to the hostel, which had an incredible location on the busy walking street in the tourist area of Lisbon and just one block from its big famous square and… the ocean!  The hostel was really great – some friends of ours had stayed there a few weeks before and highly recommended it, and it is definitely worth its top spot on the hostel rankings for the entire continent of Europe.  The guy greeted us warmly despite the early hour, showed us around the hostel, and gave us a suggestion of where to go for breakfast (when it opened, of course).  We still had over an hour before pretty much anyone in Lisbon was even awake, but it was great to see the city completely without people.  In Madrid, early mornings and I are not well acquainted.  After checking three times, to the angry glares of the owner of the supposedly famous pastelería (Portugal is famous for its pastries, and every city has its own specialty), we were finally welcomed into a place that did indeed deserve to be the meeting spot of famous Portuguese intellectuals in the past. 

That morning, we hopped on an old-fashioned tram, for which apparently Lisbon is famous (turns out I knew absolutely nothing about Lisbon before going there), and went to Belém, where there is a massive monastery and a tower from which there’s an awesome view.  Somehow we unknowingly accompanied a Portuguese school group into the monastery and didn’t have to pay, which was great, but then we felt obligated to follow the group around for a while so we didn’t seem suspicious.      

La Torre

After the tower and endless comments of how great it was to see the ocean, we stopped by apparently the MOST FAMOUS bakery in Portugal (they were quite adamant about it), and the Lisbon custard pastries were indeed special.  A run in the warm sun through the narrow windy (and hilly, to my contentment) streets of Lisbon’s old neighborhoods and a nap led me to the evening, when the hostel employees made us a typical Portuguese dinner, which it turns out involve a lot of socializing, an open flame in the living room, and an endless supply of sausage and wine.  The people staying in our hostel we so interesting and fun, and dinner was a wonderful way to meet them all.  Then we met up with some of Thomas’s friends through an organization whose goal is basically to create worldly people by building international relationships between kids (he spent summers in Brazil and Germany and knows people all over the world).  In Lisbon, everyone just drinks in the streets because it’s warm enough, and it was quite a sight.

Zack, Claire, Thomas, me, and Ben wandering
around Lisbon (Zack and Thomas are in the
Middlebury program with me and we met
Claire and Ben there)

Saturday we went to a street flea market where they literally sell everything (the guy at the hostel was actually not kidding), and then just made our way around the various viewpoints and sights of Lisbon.  In the afternoon, we went to a free wine tasting.  Portugal is very into its wines, and it was great to learn about them all – they’re all so different, and there they don’t classify them by the grapes, but rather by the region in which they were grown.  They have such a unique system and such unique wines (port for one).  We had such a great time hanging around the hostel that we returned, picking up roasted chicken for dinner at the most highly recommended place by everyone in the hostel (there was a group of Australian guys who had eaten it “no less than six times”). 

The last day, Zach and I took a tour through the hostel around the peninsula on which Lisbon lies.  We went to Sintra, which was the summer spot for the king, and so is not only a posh area, but also has some pretty great castles and gardens.  The first was actually on top of a mountain, and we chose to forgo the inside of the castle for the opportunity to climb through the forest to the highest point to see the view.  Apparently no one else wanted to do this, as we were the only ones, and it was quite worth it – plus being in actual nature was a nice reprieve from my current big city life.  Then we went and had a great lunch, followed by Sintra’s famous local pastry, and moved on to another palace/garden, but this was special.  I think the guy that built this one would have been my friend, because his gardens were SO COOL.  It was built on a hill, and there were caves connecting various parts of the gardens.  Then we drove through the mountains and along the coast to the westernmost point in Europe, a very windy (there’s nothing to protect it) and stunning array of cliffs over the ocean.  Someday I would love to hike the trails that I saw running along this coast. 

We then hopped back into the van, stopping to see a Portugal beach, which would surely be superb on a slightly warmer day.  Nonetheless, Gudrun, my new German friend, and I did the typical run through the sand to test the water barefoot thing.  The kite surfers and wind surfers were having a hay day.  The last spot was Cascais, which is the famous ritzy summer getaway for Portugal.  We had the best ice cream in the world (“well, definitely top 100,” said our driver) as we watched the sun set over the port.  It was a good day, and definitely one to make us pass out on the bus that we had to catch at 9:30 that night back to Madrid. 

At 9:30 the next morning, I was in class learning about the EU and wishing that I had listened to my hostel friends’ requests to stay one more night.