Lisbon Part 3: Day trip to Sintra

I. Love. Sintra.

Saturday
We woke up groggy and ready for free hostel breakfast.  Clearly we needed more sleep after breakfast, so we went back to bed.  But not for long, because today was our day to visit Sintra.  It's a small city west of Lisbon, easily reachable by train.
Sintra is FUCKING AWESOME.

We might be nearing Hogwarts

Fact: it is more magical than Disney World.  I can't even describe it in words, which is extremely unfortunate, because Sintra is just astounding.  It is full of palaces, gardens, and a Moorish castle from the 9th century.  We didn't have enough time or money to visit everything, but we damn well tried.  We started off going to Quinta da Regaleira, which was the summer house of some promenant Portuguese families throughout history.

Is this real life?

The house itself was impressive, but even more so was the labyrinth garden.  It was more like a beautiful adult playgrand.  That was an accidental typo, but I'M KEEPING IT BECAUSE IT IS COMPLETELY TRUE.  Castle-structures, amazing flowers, secret gardens, and ACTUAL UNDERGROUND CAVES.  I just can't describe it well enough to do it justice.  So fucking magical.

Mini castles are all over the place

Unnecessary underground passageway

T-rex stompin a fountain.  Nothing wrong with that.

wat

The guy next to Sarah laughed as she took this picture

We were going to take a bus to our next stop, the Moorish castle, but it was 10 euros.  Fuck that.  So we hiked up the mountain instead.  We weren't planning on going inside, but it looked amazing, so we didn't really have a choice.  It was the exact castle that you visualize when you think of the word "castle."  It was unbelievably gorgeous.

The U.S. doesn't have many of these

This is absolutely Disney World

Honestly, I don't know what impressed me more: the Moorish castle, the Quinta, or the Alhambra.  All were so awesome.
Getting some pastries back in town was an essential next step.  I can't remember what they're called, but they are Sintra's famous pastry and are baller.  Man, we were starving.  Haha, we also saw a couple sets of pigeons having bird sex.
Apparently I was tired, because I slept through the entire train ride back.  For dinner, we were in the mood for a dish we had heard about in Portugal, kind of a mixed seafood stew with a tomato base.  Somewhat expensive, but delicious.  And we finished just in time to catch sunset on top of the central elevator.  It was pretty stupendous.  And there is a crazy mega-moon tonight, so it was a great way to end the trip

We can finally see the sky in Portugal!

Bye Europe!

Lisbon Part 2: Finally feeling healthy

Thursday
Sarah and i woke up fairly hung over, but I'll be damned if I miss that awesome free breakfast.  We slept again after we ate.  Whoopsidaisy.  But then we went for a stroll and are now hanging out in a park.  The weather is still weird, but it's nice for now.  We got some more Pastels de Belem and the best strawberries that have ever existed.

Not a bad looking park

After some relaxing in the park, we bought some salmon, veggies, and rice from the supermarket to try to save some euros for dinner.  FINALLY, we had sufficient amounts of food.  And that salmon and stir fry was damn good.  We met up with some Brazilian guys after dinner whom we had met the previous night on the hostel bar crawl, Bruno and Jao (I'm actually not entirely sure to spell his name).  We went to a really small bar that was recommended to us.  It seemed like we were drinking in someone's house, but there was a great Fado player there.  Fado is the Portuguese style of slow, jazzy guitar playing.  With the Fado, we had some insightful cultural talks (gettin cultured in Europe, yo), beer and wine, so it turned out to be a good night, albeit quieter than the night before.

Friday
This morning, Sarah and I woke up significantly earlier than yesterday.  After a delicious breakfast we hopped a quick tram-ride to nearby Belem.  This is a really beautiful town right next to Lisbon on the river/ocean/whatever the fuck it is.  There were a lot of impressive monuments to see, including the Padrao dos Descobrimentos (a huge monument dedicated to discoveries) and Torre de Belem (a small tower taht was once on an island, but is now up on the bank).

At this point in the trip, we are getting good at looking at stuff

What are you doing, building?  That's water, you don't belong there!

We then visited a Portuguese maritime museum, where we became cultured in the ships and adventures of Portugal's history.
After this, we visited the famous Pasteis de Belem for their famous pastries.  Granted, we've been devouring them every single day already, but they are better here.  So good.  I'm going to miss these the most I think.
After returning to Lisbon, Sarah and I went for a walk around Bairro Alto, which is more in the hills area.  It was actually more of a beer crawl than a walk.  We'd stop at each nice looking park or overlook and grab a beer.  I really enjoy the countries where you can drink outside.

What an excellent beer-venture

When I create a country, that's definitely going to be legal.  We then came back to the hostel for last night's leftovers.
Whelp, our night was certainly eventful.  Sarah and I went out with some guys from the hostel, turns out it was the hostel manager and his friends.  We went to the Bairro Alto area, which is completely insane at night.  Everyone is just drinking out in the streets and everything is insane.  What a crazy atmosphere.  Cheap drinks, guys walking around trying to sell sunglasses (at night? come on bro), and cars trying to drive down the tiny, crowded streets.  We had a healthy mix of beverages and finally met up with Ed, who is also in Lisbon with some HBS friends.

The classiest Ed has looked in a long, loooooong time

We traveled around to a bunch of bars, continuing to drink in the streets until everything closed at 3am.  Some guy tried to get Sarah to touch his "banana," because oddly enough he had a banana with him.  Really strange.  Finishing with a nightcap at Ed's bachelor digs (he and his buddies rented an apartment, which is normal for HBS), we watched some youtube videos before passing out on his couch.

Haiku-a-Day Challenge: Week 50

HOW IS IT WEEK 50 ALREADY.

Caturday 6/16/2012
Just hiked fifteen miles
My knees will surely explode
Mt. Lafayette rules


Sunday 6/17/2012
Early backpacking
Another amazing day
I will eat so much

Monday 6/18/2012
Finishing the Bonds
A spectacular sunrise
And a looooong walk out

Tuesday 6/19/2012
Making some edits
Busy with work and thesis
I'm making progress

Wednesday 6/20/2012
A much needed break
Went swimming at Walden Pond
A cure for the heat

Thursday 6/21/2012
Sweltering potluck
The only way to cool off
Is six popsicles

Friday 6/22/2012
Four margaritas
A good pre-game for Lincoln
to kill some vampires*
I think vampires is two syllables?  Well it is now.

Lisbon Part 1: Why is everyone speaking Russian?

I can tell that I'm getting a little tired of journal writing at this point.  Unlike Iceland, where each entry was about 3 pages long, they are like 1 page long now.

Wednesday
We woke up at fuck o'clock in the morning for our flight to Lisbon.  The airport looked like it was completely abandoned.  Nothing was open and the screen showed the wrong flights.  Needless to say, it was a bit terrifying.  But the flights to Lisbon went fine, mostly because I fell into a deep coma for both of them.  And the bus from the airport stopped right at the Rossio plaza, which, incidentally, is where our hostel is.  Lucky us!  We went out to go exploring immediately, despite the shitty weather.  The weather here is really wacky; it has sudden bursts of pouring rain, then Sun, then overcast, then rain, etc.  We got caught in a big rain burst when we went up the central tower/elevator.  The elevator had great views of the city, but got a bit annoying when the rain started up.  There are actually quite a few hills in Lisbon, so lots of areas to have great views.

This elevator just goes... to nothing.

Rossio plaza, right next to our hostel

Right next to the elevator was an archeological museum set in the remains of an old, semi-destroyed cathedral.  It was really amazing.  It had a lot of archeological items from monasteries and convents from around the world.  Part of the cathedral, the main room, had no ceiling, so everything was outside in the open air, surrounded by pillars and arches that once held the roof up.  Other rooms were still intact, so they held items that wouldn't survive the elements.  Like several tombs and actual mummies from Egypt.  I have never seen anything like it in the U.S.  Fully preserved and mummified children.  The closest thing I've ever come to is seeing part of a mummy in a museum after waiting in a really long line.  Retrospectively, that was probably the coolest museum I've ever been in.

We're in a museum

YOU NEED A NEW POSE

After awesome-museum-fest-2k12 (and another good rain) we had a really strange lunch and went down to the waterfront.  I guess it's not technically the ocean, but it smells ocean enough for me.  We kind of derped around, visiting a cathedral and some other stuff, making our way to the Castelo de S. Jorge.  Built by the moors in the 11th century, it was later converted and improved for the first King of Portugal.  We toured the castle, saw some stuff... it was fun.

Almost the Golden Gate Bridge

That looks pretty castley to me

I feel like making proclamations right now

It's amazing how there are fewer restrictions in Europe.  In the U.S., every ledge would be roped off for safety, you can't touch anything, but here you can climb up onto castle ramparts, touch ancient tombs, walk right up to buildings hundreds of years old; it's so different.
We walked around a bit more and had some of Lisbon's famous Pastel de Belem, a delicious egg white pastry that tastes like a mixture of creme brule and rainbows.  We had them with tea back at our hostel, which is an amazing place.  Right in the middle of everything in the city, and the breakfast that comes included puts "toast and cereal" in the other hostels to shame.  Eggs and chocolate pancakes.  Fuck.  So good.
On our search for dinner, we happened upon a pretty popular place that happened to be the first brewery in Portugal.

A brewery you say?  Lead me to it, my good man.

We like beer

They had great beers, but we started noticing that "starters" in restaurants are a little weird.  They bring a bunch of different shit to your table before your meal, but none of it is free.  The fucked up thing is that we had to pay for each individual butter pack that we used.  It was so creepy.
Our hostel put on a "beer happy hour" where we have as many beeres as we can drink in an hour, before a bigger pub crawl.  It was a good way to meet a couple people and learn some Portuguese.  We had a really cool drink too, which I'll have to make back home.  But we maybe went a little overboard and I definitely don't remember anything after the second bar.  I checked my jacket the next morning and in the pocket was a map of Lisbon crumpled into a ball.

Granada Part 2: Lotsa walking, lotsa awesome

We last left our heroes riding home on the struggle-copter after dancing literally all night, arriving home around 7am.

Sunday
This morning (I guess it would be more correct to call it the afternoon at this point) we went to a nearby cafe for beer (haha) and fried eggplant with honey.  Then we walked around the city, but it's shitty out today, so we're probably going to watch Game of Thrones at some point.
Ok, Emily came over and we watched some epic GoT, then walked around the city some more.  Needless to say, we headed in the direction of food.  Emily knew about a little British owned pub, where we had some rounds of drinks and excellent tapas.  We hung out there for a bit just chatting, then went to an arabic themed tea and hookah bar, where we obtained some excellent tea.  Then kebab... I've been noticing that different cities in Europe do kebab a little differently.  In France and Germany it was half a toasted pita, filled like a hoagie.  In Madrid, it was a kind of crunchy flat hamburger bun type thing.  Here in Granada it is a filled pita, rolled up like a burrito, which I think is the best yet.  ...clearly I've been thinking a lot about kebab...
After the kebab nom-session, we hit up an irish pub and got a few more drinks.  A little pricier, but having some Guiness in Europe reminded me how it's so much better than back home.  After Emily left, Sarah and I stayed until 3am for a few more drinks.  Then we tried for more kebab, but it was unfortunately closed.

Just a couple of normal sisters

Monday
We got up this morning for a walking tour of the Albaicin wall and some other areas in the north that we hadn't seen yet.  It's been kind of overcast, but at least it's not raining.  And we got some INSANE strawberries at an outdoor market on our way to meet Emily.  Holy crap: best strawberries EVER.  We basically walked around the northern part of the city, through the quaint-as-fuck passageways and gates and down magical streets.  A lot of great views of the Alhambra from different spots around the city.

Ok this city is pretty rad

The weather is... interesting

Kitteh wanted some Bueno Bar

After getting our walk on, we went to that little hippy cafe again to get some food and tinto.
Later at night we opted to go to an irish pub for trivia.  It was in English, so at least we could play... but it was run by a British guy.  Some of the sports questions were... skewed.  Most of them were based on soccer.  Not so good.  But I rocked the music questions.  And after about 7 coronas (great choice at an irish pub) it was the first time on the trip I felt a little drunk.

Tuesday
Sarah and I woke up at sunrise to see from the hostel roof.  Finally a nice day!
We used the Sun for some extremely pleasant walking and sight seeing.  We went up to a park by the Alhambra, Carmen de los Martires.  It was really pretty and had some peacocks to imitate, so that's fun.  And there were little kittens to play with.  We then returned to the park from yesterday with the great view of the Alhambra.  We had a few beers in the Sun with a great view: always a good way to spend your afternoon.

Kittehs love me

My zoom is pretty decent

I'm not sure which Alhambra I like better!

 
Then we decided to have some cookies and sangria on the hostel roof.  It was a perfect way to prepare for a bullfight.  That's right, ANOTHER BULLFIGHT.  Emily got us tickets at the Plaza del Toros, which is rare now because bullfighting is starting to become looked down upon.  This bullfighting experience was a lot different from the one in Sevilla.  Fans didn't dress in suits and flamenco dresses for one thing.  And the matadors didn't wear flashy, ornate clothes.  But on the bright side, we arrived early AND there are stairs in this stadium, so we didn't repeat the horrific experience from last time.  And the matadors put on a better show.  Well, at least two of them had really impressive moves.  But the last one had a really tough bull, and right off the bat was trampled a bit (how the hell was he ok after that?).  But he kept losing the bull's interest, and then botched his finishing attempts really badly.  The crowd was not pleased.

This dude was nuts

MISSED IT

Anyway, we finished our Granada experience with a return trip to the Poe for delicious tapas.  Holy fuck those are so good.

Haiku-a-Day Challenge: Week 49

Caturday 6/9/2012
Hiked some more mountains
The Wildcats!  Great view of Tux
My knee is destroyed


Sunday 6/10/2012
Some outdoor reading
And then indoor thesising
I liked the first part

Monday 6/11/2012
Coming to the end
Ok thesis.  Let's do this.
Just a few more weeks

Tuesday 6/12/2012
A long busy day
Late night running with Sarah
Gets the blood moving

Wednesday 6/13/2012
Poems get boring
When all I do is thesis
I am almost there

Thursday 6/14/2012
I've had better days
Lots of great food at potluck
But still.  Some things suck

Friday 6/15/2012
Heading to the Loj
Brownies and soup await us
We must prep our bags

Granada Part 1: so many tapas

The first few days in Granada were so insanely action packed that I didn't get to writing in the old journal for a couple days.  And soooooo many tapas.

Friday
Sarah's sister, Emily, met us at the bus station in Granada, where we took a city bus to our hostel.  It's difficult to describe Granada.  One street will be large and city-like, but the next street over will be a lot like Sevilla: small and very Spanish.  You can tell that there was a lot of Muslim influence though.  One of the older areas of the city, which used to be the market square, is now occupied by shops whose owners speak arabic.  The main attraction in Granada, La Alhambra, used to be a Moorish plaza before it was converted to a Catholic area.

Granada seems ok

Our hostel is amazing: we finally have our own room (with a bonus bathroom!) and the roof has an amazing view of the Alhambra and nearby Cathedral.

Get out of the way, I'm trying to look at cathedrals!

Fun story about the cathedral: we walked in to take a look, as many others did, and there was a wedding going on.  Really strange.  The bride and groom signed the paperwork in front of everyone?  Is that normal?  I'll tell you what isn't normal: complete strangers, dressed in rain jackets and flip flops, watching a wedding full of people they don't know.  Weird.
But anyway, Emily showed us around a bit, we got some kebab (obviously), had some Tinto de Verano at a cafe (like sangria, but sans fruit and with carbonation), and then walked around some more.

The tinto round came after the beer round

We met with some of Emily's friends at a cheap tapas bar.  Insanely cheap drinks and free tapas with each one.  The best were fried eggplant with honey.  We didn't feel like party cat-ing too hard, so we went to one other bar (sunflower seeds come with your drinks?) before calling it a night.

Saturday
Today was the day we booked a tour of La Alhambra.  There was some mix-up with the tickets (fyi booking online is insanely complicated apparently), but we eventually got everything settled to see La Alhambra and the connecting gardens and Generalife (King's summer house).  It was unfortunate that it was raining and that we got soaked, but that didn't "dampen" our moods.  HAR HAR HAR.  As expected, everything was amazing.  The gardens were really cool, showing the difference in Muslim and Christian design.

Not sure why this guy's summer house was right next to his regular house...

They also had some great views of the rest of the Alhambra.  This was even more gorgeous, with insides that were ridiculously ornate and courtyards that were actually stunning.  The craziest part through were all the walls.  So intricate, most of which had rows and rows of chiseled arabic writing and other designs.  It was nuts.

The outside of the building does not at all indicate that this is a circular structure

We're at Hogwarts

That seems difficult

After that, we changed out of our wet clothes and hung out at a cafe for a bit.  We had to relax before Beast Mode Bar Night 2012.  We started at a tapas bar, Poe, where I had 6 tinto de veranos, mostly to get the free tapas that came with.  They were unbelievable.  A spicy thai chicken, pork stew, skewered pork with pineapple.  I can't believe how cheap everything was.  For less than 12 euros I was slightly tipsy and full of delicious food.  SO GOOD.  Fuck.

That pile of tapas bowls belongs to me

Then around 12:30 we went to an amazing discoteca up on the hill facing the Alhambra, which looked incredible from up there.  So while dancing literally all night, we had an amazing view.  And club music.  Awesome.  Then we headed home around 6am.

This was our view while we danced to "Call Me Maybe"

Sevilla: We did a lot in 22 hours

We arrived in Sevilla around 5pm on Thursday and left around 3pm on Friday.  We had to cram that time with as much Sevilla action as possible.  We almost died trying.

Thursday
We took a taxi to our hostel, because we had no idea what the fuck was going on or how to get anywhere from the train station.  This turned out to be a good idea, because right when we arrived, they were shutting our street to cars because a crazy festival was starting.  I asked the guy at the hostel what it was for, and in our conversation of mixed English and Spanish: "no reason.  Just cervesa."  I already like this city.

This was taken within our first half hour in Sevilla

We immediately went out to enjoy this festival, which turned out to be massive amounts of men in suits and women in dresses or flamenco garb.  In the streets.  Just drinking.  The bars were nuts.  We ordered a couple of gin and tonics, in which the bartender put  a hefty, hefty amount of gin.  He pretty much turned the bottle upside-down over our glasses until it was empty.  Drinking out in the street, we soon realized why a huge crowd was forming: matadors were making their way down the street, and these guys are like celebrities here.  Oh and a bullfight was happening right near us.  We decided "why not" and downed our gin (and tonic) to go buy some tickets.  They were sold out though.  But good news!  We found a scalper who gave us 35 euro seats for 20 each (since that was all we had).  Nice.  However, getting to our seats was AT BEST the most uncomfortable situation I've ever experienced, without hyperbole.  Four different people told us four different places for our seat locations.  And when we finally found where they were, getting to them was a feat in LITERALLY CLIMBING OVER PEOPLE.  There are no stairs in the stadium, so we had to actually use people as hand railings to get by them.  It was the worst.  Eventually, after a horrific experience, we got to our seats.

Not a bad view from our seats

 
Bullfighting is probably one of the most interesting things I've seen in my life.  At first a confusing sport, after the 6th and final bull, I started to understand the process and strategy.  And after you put the morbid fact that they torture and kill 6 bulls aside, it is actually done in a classy way (if that makes any sense) and everything is about honor, discipline, and badassery.  It was amazing to watch.  The first phase includes 3 or 4 guys with pink capes, getting the bull to run around the ring a bit.

Please don't kill me

In the next phase (each phase is introduced by a band or horn section), the bull is led toward a guy on a horse, who stabs it in the hump of the neck with a long pole as it charges the horse.  Then three guys with shorter, colorful spears come out.  Each has two spears with a fish-hook type of thing that sticks in the bull.  As the bull charges them, they dodge at the last second and stab the bull's hump with the two spears.  Pretty terrifying.

Kid stuff

Finally, the main matador comes out with the red cape and sword.  This portion is more like a dance than anything.  He basically calls the bull to him, then tries to get the bull to turn and charge the cape as many times in a row as possible.  Then, in what is one of the most badass things possible, he turns his back on the bull to walk off.  So ballsy.

Here, Toro Toro Toro...

After a few charges, the bull is pretty tired, and the matador readies his sword for the killing strike, trying to get between the ribs through the heart and lungs for a quick death.

Lining up the killing strike

If it's not a good strike, the bull suffers a bit and the crowd boos the matador.  If it is good, the bull is down almost immediately and the crowd waves white scarves for it.  Really interesting atmosphere.  One of the matadors actually had an amazing strike.  The bull took three steps, spit up blood, and then collapsed.  The crowd threw the matador roses, or more often, seat cushions.  Someone then comes out with a dagger to finish the bull off (if necessary), and they drag it away with a team of horses.  The words I'm using to describe the event sound like it's really harsh, but actually it's almost like an art form, and an amazing experience.
After the fight we wanted to eat, but at this point it was late and I really wanted to check out this semi-hidden flamenco bar, the Carboneria.  It's really squirreled away amongst the tiny, tiny streets (some only wide enough for a motorcycle), but we eventually found it.  Thanks to Michelle for recommending it, because it is awesome.

She does not give a fuck

Some spanish-yodeling going on

Kind of like Razzy's in that you walk through some kind of strange outer room to a bigger, basement-like back room.  Here, we grabbed Agua de Seville (the only ingredient in this drink I understand is whipped cream) and got seats for the flamenco show.  It wasn't entirely what I was expecting, but still really cool.  It was more about the music than the dancing.  A really amazing classical guitar, clapping, and then a Spanish style yodel-singing.  One of the groups had a dancer, but the dance was more about stomping to the claps and having a facial expression saying "I don't give a single fuck."  Another great experience and a really cool bar.

Friday
This morning we had a LOT of work to do.  We had to see as much of Sevilla as we possibly could before our bus.  We rocked it like a hurricane.  First, we hit the Plaza de Espana and nearby park.  Gorgeous.

THAT is a colorful bridge

Exceptional pose

Almost a little too beautiful

Then, we took a look at most of the amazing Sevilla attractions and architecture.  Equally as gorgeous.  I'm not going to go into all the detail, but we did a lot and it was awesome.  Finally, we went into the Catedral de Sevilla and Giralda, which is the third largest cathedral in the world.  Great views from the Giralda (tower) too.  Then we booked it to the bus station.

View from the Giralda

More incredible scenery on the bus to Granada!  Rolling hills and farms, and finally the city, surrounded by the Sierra Nevadas.  I'm pretty pumped about the Granada portion of the trip.