Lisboa: A Diamond in the Rough

The famous elevator. Basically its a hilly place and the people are lazy so the wealthy installed an elevator which turns out to be a gift from Mr. Eiffel himself. So he has given this and the Eiffel tower as gifts.. he must have been loaded. Anyway you can see the resemblence in the architecture.
Lobby of cool Arab place
We went to this really cool Arab place where you can play poker, have a drink, have a confernence and stuff. It looked like a dump on the outside but the inside was amazing. I guess do not judge a book by its cover.
Another cool church. The pink you see is the renovated roof in the 1950s
Tom the Austrailian and his Dad and Antonio at the wine tasting. The others were tasting port we did the red wine
I guess in June or July every neighboorhood is decorated like this for some huge festival
The castel had a lot of these peacocks







Cool church

Trolleys everywhere
The bar I went to with Antonio. You can see the cup light shades and the straw chandalers. But cool atmosphere nonetheless
The dinner at the hostel for the first night.. Antonio is the front right
Entrance to the city from the River
In front of the city entrance... The person had some trouble taking this one.
A cool monument. I did not like it at first but it grew on me.

Its going global
Monestary
Monestary
I have a ton of good ones of the bridge here are a few


The river is on the other side of the statue. It acts as like the entrance to the city


Lisboa:

Lisbon is one of the cooler cities I have visited. I am surprised it is not talked more about as a place to visit in Europe. Their culture is amazing. It is possibly the friendliest and most welcoming culture I have come to know. They also have the best food that I have had so far. They specialize is meat like pork or steak and fish. They also have amazing wine and cheese. There is a joke slash play on words that if you only eat pork and cheese you must be Portuguese.

My trip started coming into the airport and surprisingly I could read most of the Portuguese since it is similar to Spanish. However, listening and speaking Portuguese is a whole different story. The pronunciation is off the wall. I took the city bus to Placa Rossio, which is right downtown. I stepped off the bus and it seemed liked I was approached by six different Northern African looking people offering me drugs probably because I looked like such a tourist with my bags and all. I quickly saw a hotel and went in there to get away and make sure I knew exactly where I was going. I stayed at a really cool Hostel, which was rated the Best in Europe called Living Lounge. It is an awesome place and feels very homey.

I went to bed and woke up the next morning to our free breakfast. I had cereal and a lot of bread and Nuetella. The forecast said rain all weekend but it did not rain that much and that morning it was sunny. Thus, I went and rented a bike thinking this would be the only day I could be outside. I rode up and down the coast of the Tagus River and checked out some of their monuments, including a Monastery. I also passed a bridge which looked exactly like the Golden Gate Bridge and rightfully so since it was the same architect. The biking was very hard in one direction because of the wind and in the other direction I barely needed to pedal. After the bike I took a long nap and signed up for a dinner in the hostel for only 8 euro (wine a food are cheap in Portugal). We had a typical cod style dish from Portugal. All the wine we could have, salad, bread, and soup. I ate with people from Korea, Amsterdam, Wales, Canary Islands, Portugal, and Switzerland. It was a good mix. Then the chef, Antonio, asked us if we wanted to go out for a drink. I said yes and he took us to the Barrio Alto, which is the place to go out at night. This place is very very cool. There are no names on the bars. This is because even though Lisbon is a big city it is still like one big neighborhood where everyone knows each other and the bars too. So there is no need to advertise, people just know. They do have numbers though but that is just for the postal service. We started the night out with their famous ginger desert drinks. It is served like a shot so I took it like a shot… turns out you sip on it. Oh well. Then we were actually served a shot and I sipped that… turn out you take it like a shot. Haha I was not on my game. The bar we were in was really cool. All the bars are small and have different atmospheres. Antonio told me that people will only spend 400 Euro to decorate the place. It looked like they spent 10 times that. Although they did have light shades made out of cups and chandlers made from straws, but it looked cool nonetheless. I met some of his friends who were nice and one was a Photographer. We talked a little then the bar closed and I went home to get some sleep.

The next day I did the free walking tour from the Hostel. Antonio was the tour guide. He knows everything and everyone. So we went to many churches, the castle, the elevator, and a few cool spots within Lisbon that I would never have found by my self. We also got to eat a typical cake/pastry from Portugal, had a typical Portuguese lunch, a wine tasting, and went to see some Fado, which is the typical music from Portugal. I met some interesting people on the tour and we all ended up having dinner again at the hostel and had some more amazing food. This night I ate with some Australians, an Irish surfer, a girl from Japan, and these guys who are getting certified in Paragliding. A very fun dinner. I am now facebook friends with Tom the Australian And Yuko the Japanese girl.

We then went out to Barrio Alto (me, the Australian, the Irish surfer, and the Japanese girl). Since it was a Friday the streets were packed and you can drink on the streets. So instead of going in the bars we would just buy beers and drink on the streets and meet people. It was an awesome time. (Paco said this is how the Bojrn area by the Cathedral in Barcelona was like about 20 years ago. He also said it is very typical of the culture of the Mediterranean, which reminds me that Antonio said Portugal’s cultural is like a sponge. They are very open to change and take the best of each culture they have contact with, an example is the word for thank you Abrigado which is very similar to the Japanese word Abrigato. They picked this up through trading with the Japanese). Then we went to this club, which I guess is owned by John Malcovich called LUX. It was cool and a good time. We made sure the reserved Japanese girl let loose haha. I went home early to get some sleep. Now I am hanging in the hostel studying waiting until I will get my bus to go back to Barcelona. I have a final on Monday and then school is out for summer! I hope I can find something good this summer in Atlanta. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

All in all a great trip and I am glad I did it alone. I also got to experience the Hostel culture at its finest. Great city, great hostel, great time!