This weekend, I went to Lisboa, Portugal, with 2 friends, Kelsey and Lauren.  They are both from Springfield, MO.  Anyway, we had a great time! We stayed in a hostel called the Easy Hostel on Rua Sao Nicolas, in the heart of Lisbon.  We left Friday morning during the night and a taxi had to come pick us up to take us to the airport.  Luckily all of us live close by.  Aurora called the taxi for me the night before at about 10 pm for it to come pick us up at 4:45 am.  It came to my house and I packed my bag into the trunk, we picked them up, and we were off!  Of course all our flights didn't leave on time since we were flying with Iberia, the worst company in the world.  Regardless, we finally arrived at our hostel at about 3 or 4 pm that day.  Soon after arrival, we went to a place called Cafe Brasiliena or something and we had pizza and i had a mango smoothie..delicious.  We went o dinner later at a cafe near our hostel that was pretty cheap (we ended up there a few times) and I had grilled Codfish....delicious! a specialty of Lisbon.  THey are known of their chicken, cod, and pastries...fine by me.  Then that night we went out to the Bairro Alto, alto meaning "high" because it literally was!!  Who would have known that Lisbon very closely resembles San Francisco, CA!! I noticed this in 3 distinct ways...1st of all, they have a literal golden gate bridge there, ill show you the pics.  2nd of all, the whole city is just hills and hills.  3rd of all, they are really open to gay and lesbian people, and that reminds me of what I always hear about San Fran.  Anyway, Friday we really just went to check it out more than anything so we could actually go out Saturday.  We wanted to know our way there and around so we wouldn't get lost.

Saturday we had a great day around the city.  We trudged by foot all over LIsbon.  First we went to the Castle of San Jorge, near our hostel.  It was really neat.  You could get an AMAZING view of Lisboa from the castle.  

Then we went to a cathedral, I cant remember what it was called but it was neat also and reminded me of Notre Dame.  Inside it was spectacular.

Then, we went to a different part of the city, what is referred to as the "Fado" part, fado is a type of musical very typical of Portuguese people and os Lisbon.  We had to wind our way through a labrinth of streets to finally find someplace to eat.  We sat down in a funny little restaurant/someone's house and then an old man approached our table.  Mind you that we were the only people in the restaurant.  Where were all the customers?? Hahahaa..behind Kelsey at our table there was a ridiculous shrine..I'll have to put up a picture.

So then I ordered a fish cream soup and then I got codfish rice.  Unlike the rice in Spain, which means paella, rice in Portugal literally means rice.  It really had no flavor but it filled me up and was decently healthy.  THe man spoke no English or Spanish so it was point and say "Obrigado" or thank you.  That is really the only word we ever said in portuguese.

Then after getting a little lost we finally got home and were so pooped, so we took a siesta and showered and then went out to dinner and out Sat night.  But first, we went to a terrace to watch the sunset over Lisboa.  The terrace was hopping (clearly because it was V-day) and they had music and you could order drinks and food.  The service was really bad though because everyone was just sitting in chairs and couches and none of the waiters knew where anyone was.  I ordered a chamomile tea but by the time the sun had gone down it hadnt even come yet.  I knew they had forgotten about me so we just left.  But is was incredible, the view.  For dinner that night I had a ham and cheese omelet sandwich. Delicious again.  We went out for a little bit and Kelsey wanted to talk to "Stripes" who we thought was a Portuguese guy who was wearing stripes.  Our timidness kicked in though and we definitely felt like foreigners..hard because we didn't speak a lick of Portuguese! In the end, we ended up talking to a British guy, Ben, for awhile.  He kept telling us if we wanted to dance we had to go to the dock, but we were not really in the mood to walk so after Ben abandoned us for the dock, we went home.  It was an early night but we needed the energy for the next day.

The next day we went to Sintra, a town about 45 min away where there are a tonnnnnn of castles!! We hiked the HUGE Moorish Castle there and saw the most amazing view of all of Sintra and 2 other castles.  We also visited a great pasteleria (bakery) and tried these typical pastries, one was cinnamony and had a crunchy shell on bottom, like a little cup and then the other one was covered in sugar and had apples inside...Dr. Atchison will LOVE my cavities when I get back.

We also went to the National Castle of Sintra and toured it.  There is also the Palacio de Pena, but since Pena means pain and it looked like an even further walk after our huge hike up the Moorish Castle, we opted to simply take pictures of it.  It is really neat though because it is Pink and Yellow and all colorful.

After that we ate at a typical restaurant there and it was really good.  I had an egg on a hamburger with a salad.  Then we left for home!  On the train ride we were all falling asleep.  That night we cooked in our hostel in the kitchen and made a pasta with tomato sauce and tomatoes and garlic powder and oregano and olive oil and peas.  We bought all the food and used the hostels and we got our whole meal for 3 people for less than 2 Euro.  cant beat that.

We traveled almost all day today so I am tired and going to go!  I hope I didn't bore you with my giant description of the weekend.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day.  Mine was great although I spent it with two crazy girls instead of with my Z!