First lets start with Thursday night though. Nothing too remarkable happened, dinner at my friends' apartment and hanging out there for a while. BUT around 11 we decided we wanted to get out for a little bit before I headed back to my apartment to get ready for the weekend so we went out for gelato and OMG it was the best gelato I have had yet. I'm still dreaming about it. haha. It is called Milano Chocolat and they have a lot of chocolate and fruit flavors but it is all so creamy and delectable. I had dark chocolate (my favorite!!) and nutella flavors. It was absolutely heavenly. I wish all of you could experience it, but you will just have to take my word for it. I can't wait to go back. Anyhow, now onto the more interesting weekend in Portugal.
Three of us went on this trip (Kristin, Jeff and I) which was nice because it wasn't too many people to keep track of or opinions to deal with. We were all pretty much on the same page the whole time which was nice. We took a 9:09 am train to Milan on Friday morning then had to catch a 40 minute bus from the train station to the airport. In total that portion of the trip took 2 hours and 45 min, which wasn't bad, but definitely a long leg of the journey of the flight before we even left the country. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare so we had to wait in a room for about 45 minutes until it was two hours before our departure so we could check in. When the time came we went and stood in line for a while, only to find out that our flight was actually at 4:50 not 2:50 like we had though so we ended up having to wait another 2 hours in the room before we could even check-in. Needless to say, we were ready to get out of the airport by then. I did manage to pass out on the 2.5 hour plane ride to Lisbon though which was nice. We arrived there and were able to bypass any customs so we were out into the city (sadly without a Portuguese stamp on our passports) within minutes.
We got a taxi to take us to the hostel which turned out to be quite the process. Not only did none of us speak Portuguese, but the driver had no idea where our hostel was located. We had the address written down, but he had no idea where it was located. He proceeded to ask about 6 other taxi drivers as we drove around the city and finally someone pointed us in the right direction. We arrived at the street, but the driver said he couldn't drop us off on it because it was a street only for the electric tram in the city so he dropped us off at the next street down. No big deal, so we walked back to the street he had pointed at only to realize that this in fact was not the street either. We had gotten maps at the tourist station at the airport, but the street we were looking for was not marked on it so we were rather hopeless. We ended up going into the most amazing store ever and had 2 very nice men help us find out where we were supposed to be going. Despite their limited English and our lack of Portuguese fluency we were struggling to communicate but we managed to get across the idea that we were very lost and needed to find our hostel. They immediately whipped out the world's smallest computer and started google mapping the location and then gave us directions from their store. I couldn't have been happier to have stumbled into such a fortunate situation at the very beginning. So despite the fact that we started off a little lost, we ended up having a great interaction with our first Portuguese locals.
We made it to the hostel and were immediately met by another very friendly (and attractive!!) Portuguese man. He spoke very good English which was so nice to hear after all of that traveling and showed us to our room. I kid you not, this hostel was nicer than some hotels I have stayed at in my lifetime. We had a room with bunk beds, a common area with couches and a table, a full kitchen where they served breakfast every morning, free internet use on their computers, very clean bathrooms and a relatively quite location despite being in the heart of the bars/restaurant area of the city. Since this was our first hostel experience we were all quite impressed with the amenities and realized we were probably spoiled this time in comparison to our upcoming hostels. After we had settled in we went downstairs and asked about places to go for dinner and the guy sent us to this small/cheap place that was supposed to serve local food. Well serve local food it did because I couldn't understand a word on the menu. haha. Eventually we found the "tourist menu" in the back that gave the highlights in English which was nice. I ended up ordering Portuguese pork (I figured I might as well) which was pretty good. I didn't feel well after eating it that night, but I'm beginning to think that had more to do with the fact that I am slowly becoming a vegetarian here since I have to cook for myself so my body isn't used to having to process meats. In any event, we were so happy at that point to be eating that it didn't matter. Afterwards we decided we needed to do at least a little exploring before crashing for the night so we walked to a park that we had seen on our map and then down to the water to get our bearings of the city a little bit. As per usual, we spotted an Irish pub and immediately went inside. I swear I am drawn to these places because of my name. We manage to find them no matter where we are. They had two Irish guys playing the guitar and violin and we just chilled out there for a little while and did some planning for the next day.
Saturday morning we woke up at 7 am to get ready for the day. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but we all figure we wanted to make the most out of the weekend and we could find other times to sleep. We ate breakfast at the hostel and then headed out to Castelo de Sao Jorge. We decided to walk there because the place didn't open until 9 so we had plenty of time. It was quite the tour of the city as we were walking among all of the apartments and filthy streets that Lisbon is known for. I didn't even really realize the disgusting nature of the city until I got back to Parma yesterday and noted the lack of smell and filth everywhere. Anywho, we made it to the castle and spent a little over an hour roaming around in there. It was gorgeous and gave us a great view of the city. We were nervous about the rain storm that was supposed to be coming at any time though so we left around 10 to head to our next location so we could hopefully beat the rain. It ended up raining on our walk to the next spot, but only for about 20 minutes and that was it for the day. So thanks to all of you who crossed your fingers after my last post because apparently it paid off. Next we headed to the Ribeira Market which is Portugal's oldest market on the river and was supposed to have a floor of food and then a floor of a flea market, but we couldn't seem to find the market portions so we walked aimlessly around looking at all the different food options. It is always interesting to see the different products offered, lots of whole eels, fish and pigs everywhere.
Next we headed to my favorite part of the day, Belem. It is a part of the city of Portugal but on the very far side from everything else. There we visited the Torre de Belem (a tower placed in the water), Mosteiro dos Jeronimos (Monastery where Vasco de Gama is buried), and Pasteis de Belem. Pasteis de Belem is a local pastry shop that is one of the biggest and oldest (1827) attractions in Lisbon, especially for the locals. They make 1200 of these "pasteis de nate" every day and serve them warm with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Absolutely amazing! We got some and ate them in a cute park outside of the monastery during the afternoon. I also bought a little ceramic vase to remember my trip by in Belem. Its very vibrantly colored and I think will be a good memorabilia piece for a long time. After spending much of the afternoon in Belem we headed to the other side of town again to go to a park that seemed rather significant given its dominance on our maps. It was a nice location to chill out for a while. My friends decided to lay down in the grass and rest for a while (we had practically been up and walking for 8 hours already!) while I ventured up to the top of the hill of the park to see if there was a view. There didn't really appear to be much to see since we were located in the commercial district at that point so I went back down and convinced my friends to keep on exploring. We took the long way back to the hotel to see a little bit more of the city, but we were all quite exhausted at that point so we headed back to the hostel for a quick break before dinner.
I had found the name of a restaurant in my research before the trip that was supposed to be located near our hostel so we decided to head there for dinner. We found the street, but couldn't find the restaurant anywhere so we decided to go with the method of walking up and down the streets until we found something that seemed enticing. After eating those pastries that afternoon though I wasn't up for a big dinner so we ended up going to a place where I got a chicken salad, but we had a good time anyway. To make sure to get at least a little big of Portuguese inspiration into the meal we ordered Porto before dinner, as per our waitresses suggestion. It was supposed to be a drink that you have before dinner to help with the digestion process, but in our opinion it was far too sweet tasting to be appetizing. At least we tried though! After dinner we did a little more walking around before heading back to the hostel for a game of cards and then bed. I had wanted to go out that night, but we had done so much during the day that we were all just too exhausted to function.
Yesterday was another day of traveling, but thank goodness it was a much less tiresome. We even caught a train within 5 minutes of getting to the train station so we made it back to Parma by 5 which was great. I had time to get in a run before it got dark which was so nice since we had been sitting all day in our different forms of transportation. I loved my trip to Portugal, but I was so happy to be back in Parma with all of my things, where people spoke a language I can mostly understand, and clean streets. When I got back from my run though I realized that I had no food in my apartment (because you can't leave anything over the weekend or it will spoil since there are so few preservatives here). I was less than excited about dinner, but then got a call from one of my friends saying that Nate wanted to cook dinner since he knew probably hadn't had time to go to the grocery store. Such a good surprise! I headed back here pretty early though to do some unpacking, laundry and catching up before heading to bed.
Its so nice not to have classes on Mondays. I slept until 9 this morning then got up and have just been doing little things around the apartment all day, but things that are pretty productive. I'll have my 3 days worth of classes starting tomorrow and then its off to Brussels, Belgium on Friday! Its so surreal to be talking about traveling like this. I can't wait to share all of my pics with you guys.
You guys have been awesome about sending me updates lately so THANKS! I can't wait to hear more about your lives soon.
Ciao!
E
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