Hey Cool People,
We decided to go to Portugal for a few days and here is what we did:
Day 104 Sunday, August 30th - Another day, another country. Today we woke up in Madrid, packed our things and got ready to fly to Lisbon, Portugal. We had some time before our flight, so we got breakfast at the dinner from the day before. Jessica was once again really excited to have a "normal" American breakfast. I will admit, it was nice to have food I was familiar with.
When we finished up breakfast, we walked around for a little bit before grabbing our things from the hostel and making our way to the airport. The flight was pretty quick. When we arrived in Lisbon, we grabbed our luggage and headed to the bus to make our way to the hostel. Luckily for us, the bus stopped right in front of our hostel. The hostel was very nice and welcoming. We got to our room and instantly made friends with a couple of Australian girls that were in the room with us.
That night, the hostel was offering a dinner with the staff event, where they would take us to a local restaurant and, for 12 euro, we would be served a 5 course meal and all you can drink beer, wine and sangria. We decided to partake to meet some people in our hostel and ... All you can drink for 12 euro, need I say more? Well, when dinner was finishing us, a few of us decided to go out for a few more drinks. It was pretty fun to explore the drinking streets of Lisbon. The drinks were pretty strong and fairly affordable. The night was really fun and I have a few drunk stories for later.
Day 105 Monday, August 31st - Today was a pretty lazy day. Everyone was a little hungover. I blame the shots. I was upset I missed breakfast, but the nice thing is our hostel leaves the left-overs out for anyone to grab as they please.
The day was pretty much spent in the movie room of the hostel. I have no shame saying I wasted a day in front of the TV. We did take a small break, however, to walk to the supermarket to grab some supplies to make some homemade Mac & Cheese :) Yuummmm!!!! To be honest that was literally our day.
The hostel did offer some homemade cabbage portuguese soup and chorizo. It was pretty cool how they cooked the chorizo; basically they set it on fire. Anyway, after some soup, we all gathered in the movie room again to watch the MTV VMAs .... WTF was Kanye West talking about????
That is it. That is how we spent our first full day in Portugal.
Day 106 Tuesday, September 1st - So, today we actually explored the city. The morning started off with breakfast at the hostel. This was probably one of the better hostel breakfasts we have had. Breakfast was homemade waffles, toasties, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, cucumber slices and juice or coffee. The hostel staff was so friendly, it was like having breakfast at home; they are chit-chatting with you as they cook.
When Jessica flew from Chicago to meet me and Lydia in Europe, she met a girl named Filipa on the plane from Lisbon, so we were going to meet up with her and have her show us around the city. We were not meeting her until the early afternoon, so we hung around the hostel a little bit and ran some errands. We finally met, Filipa who showed us all around Lisbon. We tried some pastries, a local shot, and enjoyed a liter of beer for only 1 euro at an amazing lookout of the river.
That night, Felipa took us to a local seafood restaurant for a proper portuguese dinner. It was pretty incredible.
Day 107 Wednesday, September 2nd - Today, was a big day for Jessica. We got some breakfast at the hostel before making our way to El Diablo Tattoo Shop where Jessica got her first tattoo. It is really cool. I am going to leave it at that because she hasn't posted much about it yet.
That afternoon, we took a train to Sintra, where we met up with Filipa again. Sintra was a beautiful town just outside of Lisbon with a bunch of royal estates. Filipa took us to explore the Pena Palace.
We grabbed some portuguese pastries and ho-cho to warm up a bit after leaving the palace. Sintra has its own micro-climate, so it was a bit cooler than Lisbon. At around 8:00 pm, we grabbed the train back to Lisbon, where we relaxed, packed and got ready for our flight to San Sebastian, Spain the next day.
Flight to Lisbon, Portugal - Walking on clouds
View from the Hostel
Custard Pastry
Ruined Church
Ginjinha - classic Portuguesse shot
Group selfie with Filipa
View of Lisbon
Lorenzo, Jessica's Tattoo Artist
A buger shot recommended to us. It was sooo good!
Sintra - Pena Palace
Sinctra - Pena Palace
Sintra - Pena Palace
Group photo at Pena Palace in Sintra