Lisbon, Portugal

Wow...another major delay in between posts. The only excuse for this one is that I just finished midterms. Thankfully, not much has happened...other than trips to Lisbon and Barcelona...and a fun couple of weeks in Madrid!

A couple of weekends ago, Elise and I caught a plane on a Friday from Madrid to Lisbon, Portugal. For those unfamiliar with the flight, it is pretty similar to the flight from Raleigh to Charlotte...the amazing thing was that it is an international flight! Upon our arrival, we found a bus to the city center and it pulled up right outside of the hotel the four of us would be staying in. Wait, four of us? Graham and Elise is four people? No way. We were meeting up with Elise's sister, Ashley, and Ashley's husband, Greg. They're in their mid- to late twenties...the four of us have a blast together, so it was bound to be a fun weekend. Greg was in Europe for business and Ashley came along, eventually taking a long trip through Spain with Elise. Ashley was still enduring a layover in London, so we met up with Greg at the hotel and grabbed some tea/coffee until Ashley got to Lisbon. We all freshened up a little bit and then Greg and I "led" the way to dinner. We got a recommendations for a great view and great restaurant...though we found ourselves to be mislocated (I misremember the claims of being "lost"). The four of us shared a bottle of wine, some nice bread and cheese, a fine meal, and most importantly, a great conversation. After a post-dinner ice cream (which the girls led us to), it was time for bed.

Saturday, we grabbed breakfast to start the day. It seems that it is a Portuguese tradition to offer food at a restaurant that seems to be for free. It is like how American restaurants put bread on the table...the problem in Portugal is that if you eat that bread, it is about a 5 Euro charge. Not fun..and we learned the hard way...a few times. Lisbon is surrounded by pretty good sized hills and is right on the coast. To me, it looked a lot like San Francisco (it even has a giant bridge that looks identical to the Golden Gate). We climbed up to the Catedral Se (by the way, Portuguese looks decently similar to Spanish, but sounds like complete gibberish), then hopped on a metro to Sintra. This was the point that Ashley's photography (she's a professional photographer...she didn't ask me to do this, but check out her site at ashleybuechele.com) really took off and Elise and I became the stars of the photo shoot.

Sintra was a fun little town about an hour's train ride from Lisbon. We witnessed the "cutest train station ever" according to Greg...we saw a precious dog, a funny little boy, and just all around cuteness. We took a bus to the top of a hill to see Palacio Pena and the gorgeous views of the water and surrounding wilderness (Portugal was very green). Next, we saw Quinta de Regaleira...it is a giant estate on a hillside, built by a rich man in the early 20th century...like the Portuguese version of Biltmore. There was a really cool well (the Initiation Well) that certainly didn't hold water, and we took a cave tunnel to find the entrance. Crazy place, but I'm glad we saw it. Back to Lisbon we went and we had dinner at Cafe Luso, where we had a fun dinner and watched a fado show. Fado is the traditional song/dance of Portugal...the music/singing sounds a bit like American soul music, but with a folk twist...and the dance is most definitely folky. For their grand finale, they even came to our table, but a giant arch in the hands of Elise and I and dragged us on stage to dance. If you know us, you know that we like to smile. Uncomfortable, mildly embarrassed, and overall just still in shock, there was a lot of smiling going on.

On Sunday, Ashley, Elise, and I got breakfast and then saw the Castle de St. Jorge...a very cool castle with one of the best views of the semester. We started exploring down the hill and found the Pantheon and further down to the water. We took a tram to the Monastery (by the way, the weather was absolutely gorgeous...we've had maybe 5 days of rough weather all semester) and saw some more of Lisbon's waterside area. We met up with Greg, got lunch, and took a train to Cascais, a beautiful little beach town about an hour outside of Lisbon. Finally taking time to slow down and relax, we stood in the cool water and chatted and got some sun for a few hours before I had to head back. Elise escorted me back to Lisbon via the train...even though my ticket was denied and I was nearly kicked off the train way before our stop. I tried to defend myself, but they wouldn't listen to me until Elise entered the discussion. Thankfully, she explained the situation and I just paid for the additional ticket when we got to Lisbon. Whew! Elise saved me!

A couple of hours and a flight back to Madrid later...and I still have a couple of trips to blog about! Please leave me a comment!