Second note to self: When I retire wealthy and accomplished, I am going to live here:
Sintra, Portugal.
See that bright blue house on the very right side? Yeah..that will probably be mine. Of course at this point I will inevitably speak Portuguese perfectly and my life will be blissful.
Considering I have quite a time before all this is possible, I am going to tell you all about....PORTUGAL. Have you grasped yet that my main point of this point is Portugal? I sure hope so.
So, long before I left for Spain, I knew that I would have 5 days in March with no classes and time designated to travel anywhere I wanted. (under approval of BYU of course.) A lot of the girls wanted to go to Rome or other cities in Italy, but I had already had the fortunate opportunity of visiting there. So, I had heard a lot of cool things about Lisbon and decided it was close and thought to myself, "when else in my life would I ever go to Portugal?" Well let me assure you mis amigos, that after going to Lisbon, I am DEFINITELY going back someday. You can take that as a strong indication that I highly enjoyed it.
Only six of us decided to go to Lisbon, while the other girls of the program all went to Rome. Aly, Janeen, Chloe, Chelsey, and Elizabeth all happily made our way to the airport on wednesday morning to catch a short 45 minute flight to Lisbon. We stayed in this awesome hostel which was very centrally located in old downtown Lisbon and the people were sooo nice. We shared a 6 bunk room with two other girls from Brazil and Belgium, who were both extremely sweet. Janeen and Elizabeth booked their room so late that they may or may not have had to share it with two german guys. SHH!! don't tell anyone!
If there is one thing I have learned about people since I have been in Europe, it is that everyone is bilingual and so many people can speak like 8 languages. I have made a goal here on out that my children WILL grow up learning a language besides English. I have been so impressed with all these young Europeans who know so many languages..it was so prevalent in Lisbon and in my hostel. I was exceedingly jealous. I don't care how many people out there think its not important for me to learn a language because I know the "universal language" but I think thats crap. I have never been more motivated with my spanish than now.
Now that my ranting is over, I'll talk about our adventure. The first night we walked up to the castle on top of the city called São Jorge, which sits perfectly above the stucco walls and red roofs of the very mediterranean city of Lisboa. The views up there were incredible. Lisboa reminds me so much of San Francisco because of all the narrow steep streets and the trolleys. I will forever remember those old rickety yellow trolleys, pack full of people, just mosying around Lisbon. Lisbon is situated on the delta of the Tagus river which then turns into the Atlantic Ocean. The buildings aren't nearly as nice or fancy as Madrid, but they have this aged element which gives them such a charm. I loved the colors..the coral pinks, turquoise blues, and pasty yellows. The sun illuminated the red topped houses and gave the city such a relaxed and humble feel. The cobble stoned streets are artwork in and of themselves, and I love the narrow alleyways we walked through. I felt like I was getting such a taste for daily life in Lisbon, as I got lost in those twisted streets. The weather was perfect and the sun was shining the entire time. Lisbon has such a genuine realness to it, and I loved the atmosphere. I sincerely wish I could describe it better.
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| The view from my window. |
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| Our room. |
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| Bahaha. |
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| Yellow Trolleys! |
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| Welcome to Lisboa |
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| PEACOCK. It looked ready to attack. |
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| I will have a blue door in my house. |
The next day we decided to go out to Caiscais, an old fisherman's village which is now where all the richest people in Lisbon have summer beach houses. We meandered around, enjoyed the coast, blue waves, and crashing tides. We visited this point called Boca de Infernero, more or less the mouth of hell. There was a large whole in the rocks and when the tide came in and crashed against it, the sound echoed so loud and powerful. We enjoyed the sun at the beach and made it back in time to the hostel to enjoy our dinner and "free shots." Ha, you can only imagine the reactions we got when we told the hostel workers we didn't drink. The whole night one guy was begging to put vodka in my coke. Trust me when I say we were the laughing stock of the hostel...basically we were the weirdos. Did we love it? yes.
After Aly and I were determined to go back to Caiscais because the day before, we saw that they rented bikes for free and we wanted to take part of that for sure! On the way out to the train, an interesting experience happened. We had already bought the card needed for the train, but we just had to recharge it with a new ticket to Caiscais. I was so bugged because mine was NOT working, and it took forever and we missed two trains. Finally I just decided to buy a new card for 50 cents and be done with it. I know its only 50 cents, but hey money is a little tight ok! haha. The second we walked onto the platform, a young girl approached us looking very scared and asked us if we spoke English because she needed help. She was trying to get out to the ocean as well, and didn't know what train to catch. We told her we were going the same way and that she could stay with us. We ended up talking to her the whole way and even invited her to spend the day with us! which she did! Her name was Galina, she was from Russia and she was absolutely adorable. She had a break from school and decided to go to Portugal for a couple days by herself.
On our bike ride out to Guincho, one of the most secluded and beautiful beaches in Lisbon, we ran into another guy who was headed the same direction. He was taking pictures of the coast because the waves were SO big and the tide was so high. He offered to show us all the best spots because he goes there all the time. Then there were four.. a Russian, two Americans, and a young Portuguese boy named Nounou, all on a journey down one of the most beautiful coasts I have ever seen. Lets just say we had some fun with our new tour guide :)
That next day was Sintra, the day I disovered my future retirement home. Nounou met us at the train station and took us up to one of the palaces where a rich man lived in the summer, built from the money he made from his coffee plantations in Brazil. He built all these underground tunnels and grottos and waterfalls and lakes in the midst of this beautiful greenery. Nounou told us this palace is way less unknown, but definitely the best. I am pretty sure he was right, because my mind was absolutely blown away by the vast beauty.
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| MY FUTURE HOME! |
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| our new friend! |
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| inside the initiation well! |
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| unreal. |
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| goodbye lisbon! we love you! |
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| doughnut face=happy anna! To sum of my weekend: Beautiful port city, sun, waves, laughter, bikes, aly giving me a pump on a bike when we only had two, sunsets, new friends, adventures, portuguese is SO cool, fish, hostel while being mormon=hilarious, yellow trolleys, steep streets, narrow alleyways and close knit houses, steps, incredibly helpful people, independence, exhilaration. OBRIGADO portugal. |
hahahah. I guess I have secretly always wanted a black eye...
anna, sarah and i decided that out of the three of us, you WOULD get a black eye and go to the hospital in a foreign country. and i LOVE your portugal pictures, it sounds like a fairy tale. please take me there someday!
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