I left my heart in Lisbon

If you ask me what my favorite place to visit in Europe has been so far, you’ll probably hear me say Lisbon.  Maybe that’s because it was better than I expected, or I was just really happy to be in a warm sunny location.  Walking off the plane, I was accosted by heat – warm, lovely heat.  And how much better was that when I left rain in Holland?!

I’d planned to be there from Wednesday – early Sunday morning -  yay for a long weekend in the sun!  And I’d planned ahead and booked a hostel with a pool!

Some of the food and drink I experienced.

None of my travels would be complete without getting on the wrong bus/train, heading in the wrong direction, or generally getting lost in some fashion.  And this trip was no exception, the bus ride from the airport… left me at the wrong spot, which means I had a much longer walk to my hostel (only to see a stop with the same bus number directly outside the hostel :P ).  There are worse things, right?  The river was beautiful, and the hostel had a great view (seriously, Destination Hostels was one of the best all around – great staff, pancakes for breakfast, nice relaxing areas).

I was there early enough to go explore a bit that day.  I headed out to a small restaurant – and had the best gazpacho ever (there are some foods I love more than anything soup is one of them).  I then took advantage of my bus ticket to ride the tram, but not before I did some wine tasting (free + wine tasting = Happy Me).

The tram ride was a fun, if not the long, way to see the city.  It was about an hour and a half, and by then I was feeling a little sleepy – I can see why people take siestas!  So I went back to take a dip in the pool, shower, and nap… which as we all know after the age of 27, taking a nap after 8pm is risky.  Whatever, I probably needed the sleep.

I celebrated the 4^th of July the best I could – by going to the beach at Cascais in my red, white, and blue bikini J.  The town was cute, with lots of little beach areas and it was not terribly overcrowded.  I sunned, walked around, had a good fish lunch, some sangria, and then headed back to the hostel – to relax in the pool, and well, I don’t remember what I did for dinner, but I did make it to a cute little cocktail bar that was in an a place that used to be a brothel!.  Unfortunately, my schedule was slightly off from that of the Portuguese, and the bar was empty at 9…so I called it an early night again.

Friday, I decided to brave the bike tour.  Yes, I move to Holland and don’t ride a bike until I get to Portugal.  Hi, I’m Natalie, have you met me? I do things strangely.  But the tour was fun, and being on the bike made the heat more bearable.

And guess what I did after that?? You got it – went in the pool (are you seeing a trend here?).  I also decided to take advantage of the hostel and go to their bbq – I mean 8€ for dinner/drinks is pretty good.

Well within 5 min after 8 I learned why the bbq was sold out as in walks the Marshmallow Man and his 26 torturers – oh dear, it’s a stag-do from Wales (again, re-affirming why most of continental Europe does not like people from the UK – they travel in loud, drunk packs).  But again, if you know me – HOLLA! 27 dudes and 1 Natalie? Awesomesauce!  They “graciously” adopted me, and so from then on, I had peeps to hang out with for the evening.  Let’s just say, I ended up with a lot of Steve’s.

The boys said they were going to watch the rugby match the next morning at 11am… I can’t believe they made it – by 12 when I was supposed to meet up with a girl to go to Sintra, I was barely moving!  Too old!  Luckily, she wasn’t doing much better.  We must have looked like the walking dead… we rode the train up, rode the bus, got off and realized you had to WALK in the 42’ heat over a mile uphill… oh hells no!  So back on the bus, back on the train, and back our separate ways.  I was there at least, right?

"The Elevator"

By this point, I’m realizing that I’m almost out of cash… and since I got a new debit card after the purse stealing incident, I didn’t know my pin number – so I was stuck with a depleting Dutch account (I learned later that the balance couldn’t go below 80… umm that’s a stupid number!).  I’d paid for a ticket for the pool party that night… and upon realizing I may not have enough for the cab to the airport – begged out (plus, I hadn’t quite recovered).  Can you guess what I did next?? Yup, I went in the pool!  And who shows up?  27 Welshmen.  The fact that they didn’t kicked out was a miracle – between breaking the ladder, pushing in a staff member with his iPhone, throwing bathing suits into the street, wearing man-kinis, and general drunken disorder – the manager of the hostel must have been a saint or crushin’ hard on them.

I made the wise choice to go to bed at 10, rather than have “just one drink” with the dudes… getting up at 4am did not seem all that appealing and I don’t do “staying up all night” very well.

What I loved about Lisbon:

1. The water (though the Atlantic was COLD)
2. The cheaper food and drink
3. The people speak English well (they don’t dub-over their tv)
4. The countryside is all hilly and green
5. The guys weren’t nearly as pushy as I’d feared (or the Dutch have just desensitized me)
6. The it was nice to dry out a bit