Lisbon, my love!

I finally got around to putting up my Lisbon photos. :-) So here we will begin...

I had a flight to Lisbon at about 11:15 on Friday morning, and was slated to get in around 12 because Lisbon is an hour behind. Well, the magical TAP Portugal airlines, I learned, is all about silly little delays without letting anyone know. Ha. We finally got onto the plane, and waited on the tarmac for about 30 minutes. Cool. The flight itseld was fine, but we landed on our back wheels first and the whole plane swung to the left, then back to the right. Super!

I got outside and after a nice Spanish man helped me out, I got on the Aerobus and made my way to a plaza called Restauradores where I was to meet Stacey. I was a little later than anticipated, but her plane had been delayed too so it wasn't all that bad. We made the trek to our hostel from there. I had no idea that Lisbon is another city of seven hills. More like 9 million really steep hills. But it was so beautiful that there was little time to complain. When we checked into the hostel, they told us there had been a slight error in our booking, so we were going to pay the same price but we were going to be moved to a double room for free the last night. Best error ever!
Here is the view from outside our room in the hostel. It was really nice and clean, with a huge bathroom and lots of windows. Oasis, check it out. You can see the mountain we had to climb on. :-) It was a little cloudy when we first headed out, but oh well. We ventured forth to get something to eat.
Our hostel was right next to the Miradour de Santa Catarina. So beautiful! The bridge in the distance is called the April 25th Bridge. The little statue in the top left corner is actually a gigantic statue of Christ given to Portugal by Brazil to thank them for not getting involved in World War II.
This was a scary statue on the Miradour. It has a name and history, but I don't remember it off the top of my head.

We went to lunch, and I had a vegetable soup. Then we started to explore. We stumbled upon this:
The Praca do Comercio. So beautiful. The sun had started shining and it was amazing.
This is another view of the Praca do Comercio. We hung out here a bit, and sat down to plan out our sightseeing route for the afternoon. We ventured forth to the Alfama, or the Old Quarter of the city.
On our way there we stopped at the Se Cathedral, which was Lisbon's first church (or was made Lisbon's first church when crusaders said so in the 12th century). It is apparently where Saint Anthony was baptised.
This is the inside of the cathedral. Even though it isn't much to look at from the outside, the inside was actually very beautiful, with lots of muted pink colors.
I love taking pictures of candles in old churches.
Here is a closer up view of the altar area, even if it is a little blurry.
We kept walking and stumbled upon a little look out. It was so beautiful that we just had to stop and take some pictures. It is exactly what I had imagined when I was thinking about Lisbon before I got there. We were quite excited.
Me in front of some bouganvilla.
We walked further up the hill to get to the Castelo de Sao Jorge. This sign was on the side of the building and I just couldn't resist.
This building was completely covered in little blue tiles. It was stunning. Many buildings in Lisbon were either partially or fully covered in tiles.
Here is the outlook area of the Castelo. We took many a picture of the city from up here.
We walked a little further through towards the castle. It was so nice to see green everywhere! Barcelona has gotten some blooms but they are putting restrictions on water use and plants, so not much is getting watered right now.
There were also some wild peacocks who lived there. A woman was trying to do bird calls to it to get it to open its feathers. She gave up pretty quickly.
The Castle! It was so cool. It was built in the 5th century by Visigoths, later owned by the Saracens, then the Moors.
We got to walk up along the walls of the castle. The views were amazing.
It felt like a fairytale---it was just the perfect stereotypical castle.
Down into the courtyard of the Castle.

Afterwards we walked alllll the way back to our hostel, which was easier said than done. We could have taken a tram but we didn't quite know the system yet so we just walked it. We got a little lost but made it in the end. Stacey took a shower and I planned out our next day of sightseeing. Stace as really tired because she had had to get up really early for her flight, so we went down to the hotel bar (Hula Hoops) and had our free welcome drinks, a small glass of ginja, a typical Portuguese cherry liqueur. I liked it, but Stacey wasn't a big fan.

We ended up eating dinner in our hostel. There is a chef who makes dinner every night for 5 euro. We had a huge plate of chicken, pasta, and salad, with some chocolate mousse. It was quite delicious and a lot of food for 5 euro. After dinner we went for a stroll and got some Ben and Jerry's (best find ever). Our hostel was in the Bairro Alto, where most of the fun bars are, so we walked around a little before going back to the hostel and going to bed.

The next morning we woke up and had some complimentary breakfast in the hostel. Yummy toast with nutella and jam and some coffee did the trick. We then set off for the area of the city called Belem. We had a little bit of a struggle finding the right tram, but eventually we made it.

Our first stop was Padrao des Descombrimentos, or the Monument of the Discoveries.
It is a HUGE monument, and right on the banks of the Tagus River. It was really interesting, and had statues of all the famous discoverers and explorers.
Stacey and I with the bridge and the river.
Me imitating the Monument. :-)
This is the other side. Note how small Stacey looks in front of it, and she's 5'11".
We couldn't stop taking pictures of this view too. So beautiful.
The Tower of Belem, our next stop of the day. It is probably one of Portugal's most important landmarks. It was built in the early 16th century. When the Spanish took control of Portugal, they used it as a political prison. Yikes.
Me with the Tower.
This is just a silly picture of me and Stacey--we are kind of poking fun at someone, but they shall remain unnamed for now.
Once inside the Tower, we realized just how beautiful it was. They have cleaned it since it was built, so that is partially why it is sparkling.
Me on the Tower.
This is the view from the King's Room. As Stacey put it, "If you lived here, why would you ever leave to discover new worlds?"
T4 does Lisbon. :-) Justin, we missed you, you should have joined us!

After taking too many pictures and taking in the amazing views, we headed over to the Mosterio dos Jeronimos.
It was built in gratitude of Vasco de Gama's trip to India in 1502. This is the Praca do Imperio, and the monastery is on the right.
Up close and personal. The weather was wonderful and the skies amazing.
Here is the facade for the side entrance to the Cathedral.
Inside the Cathedral. It was massive and very intricate.
Vasco de Gama's tomb! Pretty cool huh?
The cloister. Honestly one of the most beautiful structures I've ever been in. It was perfect.
Me in the cloister.
This is a tile depiction of the parable of feeding the 5000 in the old Refractory.
From the second floor of the cloister, we got to go up on the balcony in cathedral. How cool is that?
It was so perfect looking, just so manicured and awesome. We really enjoyed it there. But then we were struck with hunger.
We walked over to get some of the famous Pasteis de Belem. These treats are little bites of heaven. They have a flaky crust and are filled with custard and then baked. SO GOOD. For .90 euro cents a piece, three made for a great lunch.
A Pasteis de Belem in all its yummy glory.

After our treats we got on the tram and came back to our hostel to switch rooms.
This is the Praca Camoes, the main plaza by our hostel.

After resting for a little bit, we made our way over to the Basilica de Estrela. It was finished in 1796.
The church was built because Dona Maria I promised God that if she was given a son, she would do anything she could to show her gratitude.
This is what she did. It was very intricate and ornate.
This dome let in tons of natural light.
After the Basilica we crossed the street to the Jardin de Estrela. It was SO NICE to be in a park for some reason. Everything was green and lush, and the Portuguese were out enjoying the weather just like me and Stacey.
We strolled around a bit, like the elderly couple in this photo.
We stopped to have a coffee and a popsicle by the pond in the park. Here is Stacey looking at (I think) a big pitbull type dog with watery eyes. Yikes.

We came back after the gardens, took showers, and got ready. We made our way over to a traditional Portuguese restaurant in our neighborhood that came recommended by the hostel. It was called Casa de India. :-P Don't let the name fool you, it was delicious and definitely Portuguese. We both had fried swordfish that came with this amazing rice that had veggies in it. Even though the waiter at one point spilled soup on me (hair, shoulder, fleece, yum), he was really nice about it, bringing me hot water and a napkin and some stain removing wet naps. Oh well. The food was delicious and definitely worth it. After that we went and got some Ben and Jerry's (we couldn't resist), and then made our way into the Bairro Alto bar scene. We ended up in a cute little place.
They had really good mojitos, and for only 3 euro! Here is Stacey with my mojito. It was delicious.

After our drinks we made our way back to our double room Love Nest, got ready for bed, and went to sleep. I can't wait for my bed at home, because this was a double bed and I missed mine!

We woke up in the morning, packed up, and checked out of the hotel. Stacey had a later flight than I did, so she left her bag at the hostel, and we went to get some breakfast.
We had to go to the famous cafe, Cafe A Brasileira do Chiado. Turns out this is where we had eaten lunch on the first day, but decided to sit outside and enjoy the weather. It is famous because the famous Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa made it his favorite place in the 1920s. There was a statue of him outside the cafe as well. I had some more pasteis and a coffee, and Stacey had a chocolate croissant and some orange juice. It was a pleasant way to end the trip, and a wonderful ending to my European travels!

I got back on the Aerobus at Restauradores, then checked in to my flight in about .5 seconds. I made my way to security, then to my gate, and again had a lovely little wait. Oh TAP. The flight home was pretty uneventful, and then I took the train/metro home. It was so so so much fun and I am really happy I got a chance to go there. I can't wait to go back to Portugal at some point in my life, there is more I want to see there!

Today was a lazy day. I got up around 12, and then Gaby, Christen, John, Johnny, Aaron and I decided to go have a recovery lunch down by the beach. I had a large plate of yummy patatas bravas. YUM. It was a nice relaxing lunch and we were looking right at the beach the whole time. Then we came back and have all been relaxing, minus a trip to Caprabo for some food. Tonight is the big celebration for both John and Aaron's birthdays! Yay! It's so weird, because we have been talking about this night for a long time and now it's finally here. Too weird. And a week from right now, I'll be on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic or maybe Canada, on my way back to LA. Ahh! Have to enjoy every last minute of this week!

Besos