Portugalicious

Dear Friends and Family,

Reports of my holiday adventures :) and a ton of photos to check out. Our first day we arrived in Lisbon, Portugal it was raining and was forecast to rain all week (boo). We got up and had a lovely breakfast of eggs and toast (much needed after being kept awake by the downpouring rain all night) and headed out to Rossio Square to meet the walking tour we planned to take. There are 7 main hills in Lisbon and many different neighborhoods. We pretty much saw all of them, from the Baixa to the Alfama (high town to the oldest, Moorish part of town). All the sidewalks are paved with tiles of limestone and basalt in different patterns that are really cool. In Rossio Square, there is a big pattern of a ship with ravens, which comes from the flag of Lisbon. Shipping and fishing is big there because it is right between the Atlantic and the River Tejo (Tagus). Other things we saw include the National Opera, Museu Archeologico, and the Basilica de Estrela (burned in a fire and never repainted). The Statues in the photos are of Gil Vincente (like Portguese Shakespeare), St Vincent, the official saint of Portugal, and Saint Antony, second saint of Lisbon... St Antony supposedly helps you find lost things, helps you find your true love, and heals babies. Basically, he's a good guy to have around.

There is also a cool legend about Prince Sebastian who went on a journey during the Crusades and disappeared. They are still waiting for him to turn up, and it's a great story because for years after he disappeared, people turned up pretending they were Sebastian, so during a lot of the trip, we looked for him.

Another cool thing about Portugal is it looks DIFFERENT. I LOVE England and Scotland, but nowhere that I've been so far really has different flora and fauna. It looks like it could be in America. Portugal has palms, olive trees, and is one of the biggest manufacturers of CORK in the world, so cork trees everywhere. The cobbled streets and bright buildings were completely distinct. There are also orange trees all over the place from the time when plumbing wasn't such a fad like it is now... it helped the... smell.

Stacy and I wandered through Castelo de Sao Jorge and were interviewed by a Norwegian travel journalist... either that or she got a good laugh. Either way, it's a good story.

After a 4 hour bus ride we arrived in Lagos, on the southern coast. We wandered around a bit and found an old outdoor auditorio and pretended we were making plays. We found a great restaurant for dinner and had the best seafood of my life. The salmon melted in my mouth. It was fantastic and the waiter gave us free flan. Stacy feasted on giant Portuguese wereshrimp, which are of course only in season one week of the year, in February (jk). Actually, she was a bit mad cause her shrimp still had their heads on at the table... GROSS.

Lagos is also known for it's infamous weever fish, which have poisonous spikes and hide in the sand in the shallows. If you step on one and it isn't treated quickly, you can be locally parallyzed, which we took to mean, you can never move from the spot in which you were spiked. Too bad, you'll just have to be in Lagos forever! One thing that wasn't so darling about Lagos was the water system... I'll leave it to that.

The days were sunny and about 75 degrees. Stacy and I did some shopping and beach lounging (like good old Americans are known for), while Heather and Anna went to Faro. I did some freelance rock climbing, barefoot and without equipment and probably could have fallen to my death, but I didn't. The nice cold Atlantic would have broken my fall. It was gorgeous. I also found some caves that can only be entered at low tide. It was so much fun exploring. The only life out was some sea anemones, sea urchins, and sea slugs, which got rolled up onto shore at high tide. The rocks were covered in some sponge and soft coral, and there were some little fish in the water, but no star fish (drat).

We found a delightful German bakery and had croissants and nutella (amazing) and hung out somemore on the beach. There were a ton of cute shops, especially ceramics and hand made jewelry. We also found some great purse stores... Lagos, Queen of Accessories! Then we got ready for dinner, headed to the bakery to get Heather some rum cakes for her b-day and got some cake to take down to the pier to watch the sun set... unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the land... so it set on the land instead of the water. Someday I'll get to see the sun set on the water!

Post dinner (and using table cutlery to make a map of the Eastern US for Anna) (we forgot New Hampshire!) we went and had some of the terrible Mateus (Portuguese Rose wine) that Heather and Anna picked up for 2.50 Euros... it was awful and it's aftertaste was of rank cheese... or maybe cheetos... NOT classy. Then we went to the Three Monkeys Bar, where we got 1/2 off cocktails (behold the power of the Long Island Ice Tea), free shots, and played pool. I beat Heather, Jimmy the Bar tender from Belgium beat me, but obviously went easy on me (how good can you be at pool after a double Long Island?) and then I let Heather win so Jimmy could play her. Then we went across the street to DC where I promptly ordered 2 bottles of water and then went to bed. Amazingly, no hangover (haven't had one yet).

Next day we went back to Lisbon after wandering around a bit and had a nice dinner. We had movie night at the hostel and watched Zoolander of all movies, but it provided a nice hang out atmosphere, so we met some nice guys (2 guys from Cali, 1 guy from Canada, 2 married folks from Australia, guy from NH, and a dude from NC). 3 of them accompanied us the next day,Friday, when we took the train to Sintra, an amazing place with two (count 'em, not one, but two) palaces, AND the ruins of a medieval Moorish Castle!!! It's an incredibly complicated, labrythine streeted place, and we got lost a million times (I think the maps were wrong), and darling little Portuguese grannies would pop their heads out of doors and try to tell us the right way to go (in Portuguese of course, so it was interesting). Eventually we found our way and it was amazing. There were a ton of stray cats around, but they looked clean and not at all manky, so we pet some of them. Sintra is magical, but not for those who easily get shortwinded.

After our train ride back to Lisbon, we got our luggage and hired a taxi to take us to the airport (after waiting 30 mins for the airport bus that never showed). Several hours later, it was back to the cold and slightly dreary weather of London in February. The rat race begins again on Monday. But alas, I can't complain. In three weeks, Im heading to Galway, Ireland for St. Patricks day weekend. Huzzah! Enjoy the pictures, and tell everyone I miss them and Love them dearly. I will see as many of you as possible in April.

Cheers!

Jenny XOXO

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