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.
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| This elevator just goes... to nothing. |
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| 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.
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| We're in a museum |
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| 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.
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| Almost the Golden Gate Bridge |
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| That looks pretty castley to me |
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| 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.
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| A brewery you say? Lead me to it, my good man. |
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| 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.
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