I May Never Leave This Hostel

Friday February 25, Day 7

After an amazing nigh sleep we woke up in our amazing hostel… it smelled like there was something baking for breakfast, however we apparently missed the crepes and instead had hard rolls and cereal which is always delicious. The hostel offered a free walking tour on Fridays so we took advantage especially after how much we enjoyed Madrid’s on Wednesday.

The tour led us back to the old part of town (where we were lost the previous day) and went into the castle, which was really cool and had a beautiful panoramic view overlooking the city. The red roof building slopping down the steep streets and the glistening ocean in the distance. After exploring for a couple hours we left for lunch. We went to a delicious traditional restaurant that was down an extremely winding ad narrow street. It was a type of rice with codfish, eggs and some other things, it sounds gross and if I had known in English I probably wouldn’t of tried it but it was absolutely amazing. It was so good… I am going to try and find it in Luxembourg as Luxembourg has a huge population of Portuguese immigrants I have to be able to find it somewhere. 

View of Lisbon Portugal and the sea

Left to Right: Megan, Me, Caroline in Lisbon Portugal

View of Lisbon Portugal form the Castle St. Jorge

Amazing traditional Portugal dish - Rice, Codfish, and some other delicious ingredients

 After lunch we split off from the tour, it wasn’t that great, and started wandering around Alfama, which is the old town and is like a maze. Portugal is really difficult to explain and describe. It is entirely different than any other part of Western Europe that I have been to so far and in many ways more 2^nd world in compression to other cities. There is absolutely no design or organization to the streets as they were added to and built up over the centuries. The streets are narrow and steep sometimes there are stair cases that seem as if they lead nowhere but are actually the way that you are suppose to walk in order to stay on the road that you want to. The city of Lisbon still operates the original Tram cars that date from before WWI so anytime you go anywhere you feel as if you are riding on history. The sidewalks are really interesting as they are blue and white mosaic tiles. Overall Lisbon feels as if you are stepping back in time. 

Traditional Street Tram in Lisbon Portugal in operation since before WWI

 I am sure that this description really isn’t that helpful but it’s the best I can do (I thought about it for a long time). After we explored for a while we decided to go on an adventure to find a tower that Caroline had read about and said that we had to go to see. It was an adventure and a half just getting to this tower we had to find the right tram and then had to find the right bus (I was having bus 82 flashbacks). We eventually made it Belem (where the tower is) the water was beautiful as it was almost sunset however the tower was very anticlimactic… it was maybe a 50 feet tall on a small rock island maybe 10 feet from shore. It didn’t help that we had no idea of the historical significance of the island so it was basically a tower. Oh well we win some and loose some but it was still a great afternoon.

The tower of Belem at sunset, Lisbon Portugal

 On our way back to the bus stop I did the one thing that I had promised myself that I would not do in Europe… I went to a McDonalds. I needed to break a 50 euro bill in order to have coins for the ticket machine for the bus so it was more out of necessity, but I sill can’t believe that I went there.

After we found our way back from Belem we went back to the hostel who employs a chef. For 9 euros we got homemade soup, salad, bread (didn’t charge us extra) lasagna, pasta with a rally incredible sauce, dessert and wine!!! AMAZING!!!!! At dinner the craziest thing happened. A couple other girls sat down next to us. We started talking and we eventually discovered that her random freshmen roommate and now friend at Syracuse is Kelsie Testa who was a friend of mine from High School. Talk about a small world… what are the chances of that happening. We even called Kelsie on Skype it was too great of an opportunity to pass up!

Our amazing dinner at the hostel

 In the end it was an amazing day in Portugal and we had an amazing time!!!!