Portugalloween

I apologize for once again getting a full week behind. I haven't been able to use my hands this week as they have been frozen in the nasty bout of weather we've had. It dropped into the 50s this week. What on earth is happening? Instead of sunshine we have rain and instead of warmth we have blustery wind that is so strong it makes the palm trees dance. The Portuguese do not believe in central heating even though the brick buildings are colder on the inside than the weather is outside. Thus, I have been wearing 2 pairs of socks indoors except to shower. Wearing long underwear. Long sleeves. Sweatshirt. Wrapped in a blanket. My feet could chill a bottle of wine.

I mean, I might be exaggerating a little. I don't think everyone else is quite as cold as I am, save for Noey who is also from Texas. But I am cold when I'm inside the dorm. It's ridiculous.

I am fairly certain that I left off at Day 5 of the Adventures of Daniel and Elena. I had a lot of work to do that day, including a presentation to give, so Daniel ventured off on his own while I got to study. An uneventful day for the most part, save for the sheer exhaustion on my part. I told Daniel to meet us at the dorm at 9 so we could go to dinner. The Portuguese eat fairly late, so our arrival at our favorite Indian place at 10:30 was fashionably on time with the Thursday night dinner rush. We feasted, stuffed our faces, ate so much we couldn't move. And then we digested by wandering through the streets of Bairro Alto to give Daniel a taste of prime Lisbon nightlife (and his first-ever Lisbon caiprinha, a must-have if you ever visit) It was a fun evening and a great sendoff for my favorite visitor. Friday we slept in and took Daniel to Elephant Walk, another one of our favorite haunts, where we indulged in tostas (paninis) and drank lime-apple-orange-beet root juice. It was...a culinary adventure. And I'll leave it at that.

No, I won't leave it at that because I haven't mentioned Elephant Walk. It's a delicious little cafe that makes (experiments with?) fresh fruit juices daily. They let you sample each of the juices in tiny shot glasses so that you're totally satisfied with your purchase. And for the delicious price of 3.10euros, you can have a huge glass of fruityliciousness with a hot tosta and walk away feeling beyond satisfied. There are 2 people who work there that we have become friends with. One, a Brazilian grad student, is trying to work on her English because she is in a journalism masters program. So she speaks English to me and I speak Portuguese to her. It's amazing how friendly everyone is here. Most people are impressed that we even try to speak Portuguese and they are very patient with us. It's extremely refreshing, especially since popular culture encourages the idea that the rest of the world hates Americans. I haven't really had any problems with that here and it's nice to feel like I don't stand out as much as I thought I would.

And one more thing about Elephant Walk: It has a long lunch counter where you can sit and eat your tosta and it has a tiny room in the back that can seat 12 people at 3 tables. The room is approximately the size of my dorm room (shoebox) but it's amazing what they've managed to do with the decoration and design of the place. It feels a lot bigger than it really is and the closeness creates a kind of intimacy that makes the place really cozy and fun. It's the kind of ambiance you could never recreate in Texas, simply because no business would attempt to use such a small space and most people would be too uptight to eat rubbing up against someone else and they'd demand their personal space. Either that, or they'd be too impatient to wait their turn to squeeze through the crowded lunch counter. Portugal is first and foremost a lesson in patience and I'm thrilled to say I've acquired a shocking amount of patience. And cleanliness. That's right. I clean my room. Every day.

(Moment to wallow in self pride. Thanks)

Back to reality. I said goodbye to Daniel after Elephant Walk and headed down the street to school to meet the rest of the Americans for our weekend trip to Evora. The mood, like our luggage, was light and we were all very excited about relaxing in a quiet town after a very busy week. The train to Evora took us across the bridge that spans the Rio Tejo, affording us a spectacular view of the city. Camera still broken, I contented myself with making mental pictures. Evora is a very sleepy town. Our walk from the train station to the hotel took us past horse stables. There were very few people out. We checked in and walked around, ending up in the main square of the town and settling at a pastelaria. Our CIEE trips are prepaid so all meals--including lanche--come out of CIEE and not our wallets. Thank you parents. So naturally, lanche turned into a chaotic mess as we ordered multiple pastries and coffees and gelatos and IceTea limaos. I'm pretty sure I've seen animals hoard food in a more civilized fashion. It took 4 trays to get everything to our table. The same concept applied to dinner--every appetizer, big entrees, drinks, lots of bread, dessert, refills on everything. In the 26 hours or so that we were in Evora, I'm pretty sure we spent about 10 of them eating. Our touring of Evora was low-key: we visited the cathedral, the university, a couple churches. In one of the churches, we had to cut our visit short because we had found wedding #3. And it was going on. At least, the groom and his whole side of the family was there. But they let us in anyways, as long as we promised to stay off the red carpet running along the length of the nave.

So typically Portuguese. Let's ignore the fact that two people are about to have the most special day of their lives and let the tourists in! Minutes after we walked out the bride arrived and we clapped for her and smiled and admired her dress (which was beautiful, by the way) Wedding aside, the touring was relaxing and simple. We stopped for pictures on a terrace overlooking the city in the shadow of the Temple of Diana, a 5000 year old temple that sits on top of the hill with a simple guardrail at the front to indicate "Don't climb on the 5,000 year-old monument." (This was a concept some people had trouble observing) It was mind-blowing, though, to be walking up a hill and oh, there's a temple. A 5,000 year old temple. Just hanging out on top of the hill. No sign, no ticket booth, no fences to keep you from getting too close. It was pretty cool to be physically connected to history.

In short, Evora was beautiful, peaceful and full of delicious food. The rest of the weekend passed without incident. Lazy Sunday was as lazy as ever and my African neighbors were right on time with the 8 hours of Bob Marley blasting from the 3rd floor.

The week flew and it was Thursday before I knew it. We discovered a Brazilian bar in Bairro Alto, which of course was extremely exciting for our Brazilian friends. It started raining, so much of the evening alternated between hovering under balconies to stay dry and squeezing our way through the crowded bar to dance and sing along to the music. Friday I slept in and Sarah accompanied me on a bus trip across town to find the Olympus store so I could go about getting my camera fixed. The trip in itself was cool because I got to see a different neighborhood that I probably wouldn't have otherwise seen. It was further north than I've been in Lisbon. Even better, the guy at the camera store signed off on my camera as still being under warranty even though it's not, so I am getting it repaired and rushed for FREE. Life is muito bom.

I chose not to celebrate Halloween, although some Lisboetas in Bairro Alto were dressed up, most in witch costumes and with painted faces. They were dressed in more traditional Halloween costumes instead of "sexy nurse" and all the other inappropriate costumes traditionally found on college campuses. Still...I don't really like Halloween much so I skipped the dressing up and enjoyed a nice (dry) night out on the town. It was kind of cool just being out for Halloween and noticing the differences between American celebrations and the rest of the world. Some bars had hung decorations but in most places it felt like any other night in Lisbon. In any event, I think i would rather trick-or-treat for pastries...

Last night Sarah and I made hamburgers before going out, complete with ketchup. Everyone who walked into the kitchen said, "That smells good!" and we just smiled and congratulated ourselves on such a delicious meal. They really were. Had it not been freezing in the kitchen, the evening would've almost resembled a Saturday night cookout. Almost. We had a fabulous night out dancing and someone stole my coat from the coatcheck, balancing the fabulous with the less-than-fabulous. After being lent a coat by a friend, we headed home where Sarah and I sat in the kitchen watching the sunrise. (!!) A truly Portuguese schedule and truly wonderful weekend.

And now I am officially caught up. Maybe the next post will be less of a ramble and more coherent. Maybe. This week the most exciting thing on the horizon is the election. The American Embassy is hosting an election night party at the Hard Rock Cafe and we got invited. We are officially VIPs, as we had to give them our passport information for security clearance. Pretty spiffy, huh?

Boa noite! Ate logo

Everywhere we go people want to know

The Adventures of Daniel and Elena: Day 2.

I know. It's hard to believe that after everything we packed into Day 1 that there was enough of us still standing to do another day, much less make it home that night. But we did both. In fact, I took my first solo cab ride and spoke only Portuguese to the driver. Impressed? Well what if I told you I fought off another woman to get the only cab waiting at the train station on a Sunday evening?

Ok, I didn't have to fight. I did run down the stairs though. Two at a time. And I knocked on the cab's window to wake him up and he looked just as happy to see me as I was to see him, because let's be honest: calling the cab company and having to have that conversation entirely in Portuguese would have just been soooo un-Portuguese. (i.e., too much work. especially on a Sunday)

Monday morning dawned as every other Monday morning dawns here: bright. Daniel and I headed to our neighborhood pastelaria for his very first pastel de nata. Hooray! After a thrilling (?) morning of classes, we met me at school for his first taste of delicious, government-subsidized cantina food. I showed him the dorm and then we headed to the metro to go downtown. Baixa is the area that most people think of when they think "Lisbon." It's a little touristy but still fairly authentic as it was the main focus of rebuilding after the earthquake and it was the northern boundary of the city until that point, which considering Lisbon's long history, is a long time to stay such a small city, especially through the years of being the farthest-reaching empire on the planet. But we can talk about history later. The point is, Baixa was definitely an important item on the to-do list for the week.

We walked around for a while, checking out Praca do Commercio, the old city center and medieval market. We wandered through the wide streets of Baixa, window pastry shopping, people watching and enjoying a beautiful afternoon. After a while we had the inspired idea to jump on Tram 28 and sit through a jerky buggy ride through Alfama. If you ever want a scary experience, try to ride a tram through Alfama while other cars are on the road. The roads are 3 meters wide and yet cars still try to make it a 2-way street. It's Ridiculous. I had never ridden 28 past the castelo, so imagine my surprise when we came to the end of the circuit...and we weren't back from where we started. Typical. Even more typical, I had no idea where we were. Thank goodness for maps. 2 metro stops later we made it back to Baixa, where we passed a man in jazz pants and face paint moving his hips in giant circles. He was facing the shop windows. He made a very wide arc with his hips. We then stumbled upon a group of protesters. I can't exactly explain what they were protesting. Their homemade t-shirts said "Be the change!" and "H2O" and "Be proactive" One guy had a drum and occasionally stepped into the semi circle to shout "Water!" or "Change!" and then bang once and return to his spot. We didn't really stop to watch. We kept walking and eventually came upon senhor jazz pants again, except this time he was in full costume and character. He was one of those statue guys who doesn't move until you put money in his cup. I had a few euro cents in my pocket so for grins, I threw it in there.

BAM!

The man bends over completely backwards and smacks down completely flat on the stones in a single movement. And he just stayed there, limp and twisted like bean bag, like it didn't even hurt. Ouch! It looked incredibly uncomfortable. Totally worth the 8 cents. More walking led us to a "gelato" shop. Word of advice: Don't ever get gelato with someone who lives in Rome. It's embarassing. And you'll never hear the end of it. (Love you Daniel) As we walked and ate, we passed by a store that was going out of business and had giant "liquidacao" signs in the window. Needless to say, we ate our ice cream much faster and turned around to head into the shop. Countless pushy women consumed the bottom floor so we pushed through the crowd and I went upstairs to help Daniel. They had blazers on sale for 15euros so we played guess-my-size and then took big gulps of fresh air to head back downstairs to the madness. 10 minutes later, we escaped alive with full stomachs and only down 15euros in his wallet.

Now you're probably wondering why I waste your precious time with all these menial details. Well, Baixa is not usually this exciting. Maybe it was the novelty of rediscovering and playing tour guide and whatnot, but honestly, I have been down to Baixa quite a lot and never had quite so many of these little moments that just make my day. From staring open-mouthed at the largest crabs we've ever seen to speaking Portuguese with street artists...it was just an incredible afternoon. And all the chestnut stands filled the air with this deliciously hazy smoke that made the city feel very wrapped up and intimate. We ran into the protesters one more time, this time as they were walking down the street. They were singing in call-and-response style:

"Everywhere we go people want to know
Who we are, where do we come from
So we tell them
We are from Yoor-up"

Yes, Yoor-up. Probably "europe" except that it was the only word they seemed to have trouble pronouncing in English, which is the language they had chosen to shout in. Still have no idea what they were shouting about...

Day 3. Tuesday. Or rather, bestdecisioneverday. One of the many nice things about Lisbon is that its hills afford several spectacular views and there are plenty of high points from which to enjoy them. I took Daniel down to Rato to wander down Rua Politecnica, a street that winds all the way down to the river and goes through several prominent neighborhoods. We stopped at this beautiful balcony overlooking central Lisbon; it was the first place CIEE took us when we got here and therefore was my first glimpse of the whole city.


We walked through Bairro Alto a little bit and I was totally amazed by how different it is during the day. For those of you who have ever been to Austin, you will appreciate the fact that the shops in Bairro Alto are like the kinds of places you'll find on South Congress. Except here they are in closet-sized holes in the wall and you often don't know they're there unless you look. Or go in broad daylight. I looked at the hours: many of them are only open starting in the mid-late afternoon until midnight. Midnight. Honestly, when does anybody sleep in this city? Because apparently if you get to Bairro Alto before the retail shops close at midnight, you're early.

But back to the daytime, because there's so much to tell! We walked, walked, walked through some of the most Lisbon-ish parts of Lisbon and headed for the train station where we bought tickets for Cascais. Despite the changing weather, the beach is still a wonderful place to go. First of all, the train follows the coast so you get 30 uninterrupted minutes of river and then ocean views. Once in Cascais we wandered further down the coast to Boca do Inferno. The fishermen were out again, rods in the water and eyes staring out to sea with looks of perfect contentment. We had brought along pasteis de nata, which tasted even better in the salty ocean winds. We sat for hours, watching the water crash and swirl and be sucked underneath the rocks. Barnacles literally coated the rocks just a few feet from us. We could hear the water swirling in hollow spaces underneath us and when we looked close enough, we realized there were holes in the rocks that went straight down to the water below. How. Freaking. Cool. You could tell that when it was high tide, the water would come high above where we were sitting. There were barnacles 7 or 8 feet up on the cliffs.



The clouds had rolled in a bit so we decided not to catch the full sunset, feeling the onset of the wind that would only get colder as it got dark. So we headed back to Cascais, stopped at Santini for more delicious, but still not authentic Italian--duh, gelato and then took the train back. Another night of cooking at the dorm with Sarah and Day 3 came to a peaceful, if not exhausting, close.




Day 4. Wednesday. Adrenaline Rush Day.
Still with me? I know it's been overwhelming. You must be asking yourself, how can so many wonderful, beautiful, perfect days have possibly happened in one week? I don't know the answer. Maybe it was just the magic of being together with Daniel across the world, on our own outside of a family event. Or the fact that since we're both studying abroad, we are both on the same page when it comes to experiencing new places. Or maybe that Daniel's just awesome. I'm not sure, but whatever it was, fate was in our favor. (And no worries family. I still did work. And we still slept a sane number of hours. We just...modified.)

Wednesday we had an art history field trip so Daniel came with us to Sao Vicente and Santa Engracia, a convent and the national pantheon. He knows wayyy more about art history and architecture (Classics major...go figure) than me or my professor, so he supplemented the tour with his own insights and I learned a lot. Then we held up the group when we discovered an ancient cistern underneath the church and spent a few minutes gaping at the water that reflected the ceiling of the cistern so perfectly we thought it was a mirror. Honestly. I'm not sure I can handle so many little fantastic surprises like this. Pretty soon, I'm going to start expecting amazing things to turn up at every corner because that's what they seem to do here.

After my afternoon class was over, I stopped at the dorm to pick up Gustavo and drop off my stuff and then we headed downtown to meet Daniel. We caught the tram (luckily knowing where we were going this time) and endured a very, very crowded ride up to the castelo. We practically ran the rest of the way up the hill, worried we wouldn't make it in time before it closed. Hurrying is so not a part of my life here but it was worth it. In fact, that was the theme of the whole afternoon: worth it. It was cloudy, windy and cold and I was utterly exhausted from balancing school, life and touring--2 full days worth of activity squeezed into one, three days and a row. *phew* I get tired just thinking about it. So yeah...I wasn't utterly thrilled for my third castle visit and I was hitting myself over the head for agreeing to go with the boys. Well, obviously I should've known not to doubt my city. I will never doubt again.

Being at the castelo Wednesday afternoon was more spectacular than the rest of the week combined. We walked the castle walls and took gazillions of pictures (not me. camera still broken) The sky rippled with blue, gray and purple clouds, changing tint every few minutes as the sun sank lower in the sky. At one point we were sitting on top of the walls admiring the sky when I thought about how good it would feel to stretch. I was sore from all the running all over the city for four days straight. So I planted both feet firmly on the ground and leaned backwards over the castle walls.

W.O.W.

People always talk about how the sky is bigger in Texas than almost anywhere else but it has nothing on Lisbon upside-down. The sky was infinite. The varying colors of the clouds created a stunning pattern of blues and grays that only seemed intensified. Or maybe it was the fresh autumn wind blowing my scarf and hair into my face, forcing me to sit up and get a serious head rush. And Dad, I'm sure you're probably white as a ghost thinking about how dangerous that move was. Well, I know a thing or two about physics and I was holding on. It was absolutely incredible. An adrenaline rush of the type I've never experienced, not in my years of climbing and roller coasters and ropes course and everything else. This was so unexpected because I wasn't doing anything that I would normally consider to be adrenaline rush-producing.

It felt so unbelievably good. So good that I convinced the boys to try it. So before you know it, all three of us were leaning over, hands gripped around the thousand year-old stones, laughing into the wind, watching the sunlight reflect off the clouds and feeling that the world could not be anymore fascinating. Well, I should learn to be more patient before I jump to conclusions like that. We walked back down towards the castle entrance and Gustavo pulled out a package of chocolate cookies so we could much. We decided to sit; no one here eats on the go, after all. What's the hurry? As we sat, the sunset began.

It's hard to say when a sunset really begins, especially after an afternoon as beautiful as ours had been. But this was distinct. The sun simply burst out from underneath the clouds, a stunning, brilliant, blinding orange that perfectly complemented the deep blue of the clouds. This is when we realized we couldn't just leave, not with so much promise for a beautiful sunset. And it was. I don't think there are words to describe the moments where the clouds suddenly change colors, first purple, then pink, then electric pink, then orange and then..well, I'm not even sure what color came next. The sky changed so much in such a short time. Like fire.





(All of these are Daniel's pictures as my camera is still sad and broken.)

(And this one is Gustavo's, for the same reason)

We were almost too stunned to move after the sun finally set over the city but night=cold, so we started walking back down the hill. We passed a port wine shop and Daniel remembered that he wanted to try some before he left Lisbon so we went in, with the intentions of buying a small bottle so we could try it. But of course, the owner of the shop was not content with us just buying a 4euro bottle of port. (Wine is really cheap here so 4euros is actually a pretty decent bottle) But that's preposterous! What's even more preposterous is that he at first thought he could take advantage of us as tourists. He was pleasantly surprised when I told him I live here and his whole attitude towards us changed, evidenced by the free wine tasting and Port 101 class he proceeded to give us. Serious. We had been heading home for dinner and senhor surprise gives us a surprise wine tasting! Fabulous. He persuaded us to buy a slightly more expensive bottle, but we decided that it was worth it. A perfect ending to our day in Baixa. We headed home to make dinner and taste a tiny bit of our port. Delicious.

And so ended Day 4. Stay posted.

Recipes for a perfect susnset

1 fresh, beautiful fall afternoon
1 eleventh-century castle
1 package of chocolate cookies

OR

1 beautiful day in Sintra
1 terrifying bus ride speeding around hairpin turns on top of cliffs
1 sprint to the end of the world

OR

1 train from Evora with an un-obscured window seat

Mix ingredients together in one busy week and enjoy.

Ok, so obviously not all of these recipes are possible to make in your kitchen, but they are possible in Portugal. And this is the best at-a-glance description I can possibly give you of my week, which was insanely busy. And insanely AWESOME. This post is part 1 of many parts to try and record the past 10 days or so. I don't have the patience or physical endurance to write about it all in one sitting. The main thing to keep in mind when reading this post is that my cousin Daniel came to visit and so I sort of "rediscovered" Lisbon this week as I played tour guide and revisited a lot of places that I haven't been since my own intial tourist explorations. But before I get to Daniel, Sarah and I had two incredibly cool adventures two weekends ago:

• Friday October 17: Pastelaria Tour. Sarah's Portugal guidebook has a list of the "Top 10 Pastelarias in Lisbon" Being pastel experts, we had the inspired idea to hop around town and check out the supposed best of the best. 2 of them we had already been to, so we headed downtown to find number 3. We didn't really have any criteria by which to judge but when we walked into Cafe Suica, other than it being phenomenally expensive, it had a huge selection of pasteis that we had never seen before. SCORE! Even the names were exciting: "Eskimos" (es-key-moosh) and "Framboesa" (which is just "raspberry") These pastries were smaller than our palms but they were definitely each 2-person treats. So rich. So fabulous. So sinfully delicious. Since it is usually more expensive to eat inside a-la-carte instead of being served, we stood at one of the many bar-height tables and moaned about how full we were. Leaving Suica, we stumbled upon another phenomenal pastelaria but since we had an agenda, we sadly passed it by (to return at a later date, of course) We walked through Baixa and we passed the Elevador Santa Justa, this giant 19th-century elevator that takes you from Baixa--downtown--straight up one of Lisbon's hills. Our metro passes worked on the elevator, so we decided to take it up for a view of the city. Note to potential Lisbon visitors: Don't wear a dress or skirt when you go to the Elevador Santa Justa. It is very windy. There is also a pastelaria/bar on top of the elevator but we also passed this by for the spectacular views of the city. At the top, the elevator lets out to street level behind the ruins of a 14th-century convent so we wandered around up top until we stumbled upon our next pastelaria. (Honestly, we stumbled. We couldn't decide which way to go so we kept changing our minds and then it appeared out of nowhere as we tripped down the cobblestones) This is where we differ from the guidebook. We tried new pastries, which were more reasonably priced, and I spoke Portuguese (score!) but this pastelaria wasn't anything more special than our neighborhood pastelaria. That being said, all pastelaria are just a little bit more special than your average...anything. After our second pastry of the afternoon, I felt like I would explode or go into a sugar coma so we took it easy on the pastries. As we wandered around we came upon these girls in crazy costumes being photographed and filmed. Fashion show! It looked like some kind of twin fashion show almost, because they were all in pairs in these insane outfits. Regardless, we stood across the street taking pictures like tourists. We wandered through Baixa to catch a tram up to the top of another hill but since it was a Friday afternoon, there were lots of tourists trying to get up to the castelo. So we headed home and crashed after our serious sugar highs. In case you were curious, 2 pastelarias, an elevator ride and 3 hours of walking is one complete day's worth of activity here. Why rush to squeeze everything in when you can just do it again tomorrow? This is the attitude everyone seems to take to everything; I love it here.
  
• Saturday October 18: Oceanario! A quick Lisbon history lesson: In 1998, Lisbon hosted the World Expo. To accommodate the event, the city constructed this entire mini-city with a very modern edge. The area is still called Expo and one must really devote an entire day to visiting it. Some of the things you can find at expo: the Lisbon casino, the Oceanario, Europe's largest aquarium, cable cars along the Rio Tejo, the Vasco da Gama bridge, approximately 11 miles long...the list goes on. The area is cool enough to just walk around and not even go in anywhere. Expo is also home to the Vasco da Gama mall, which is about to be replaced as Portugal's biggest mall. Other than not allowing picture-taking, the Vasco da Gama mall was pretty cool and pretty freaking huge. The main concourse is three or four stories with a giant glass roof. We looked up to the roof and realized there was water pouring down. Uh oh. Rain?! Yikes. We hadn't thought about that. (Maybe because it's always sunny in this city) We shopped for a bit to pass the time and then went out into the main area to check again: water was still pouring down. What was going on? We walked to the glass doors at one entrance and it didn't look like it was raining that hard, but we didn't really want to go outside to check. After an hour or two of shopping, the water was still pouring down the ceiling of the mall. And that's when we realized...there's a fountain on the roof of the building that sends water cascading down the curves of the glass ceiling. Whoops. (It turns out that it did rain like crazy in central Lisbon that afternoon, complete with hail, but at Expo we only got a few drops) Expo was really cool in the cloudy afternoon. I don't know if it's because all the metal and glass reflected off the eerily calm river or maybe just because the hordes of tourists had been slightly discouraged by the weather. Whatever the reason, being at Expo was really awesome. We waited in line at the Oceanario but it was worth the 15 minutes and 10 euros to get in. I love aquariums. The Lisbon Oceanario has no turtles (I know! Ridiculous!) but it did have the Peixa Lua (sunfish) this massive fish that was probably about 4 feet tall and 5 or 6 feet long. I will post pictures as soon as I manage to get them off my broken camera. Otters, penguins, anemones, an octopus, bioluminescent jellyfish and coral, giant crustacean "spiders," eels, manta rays, sharks, sting rays, and way too many screaming children. Overall, not a bad afternoon.
  

We also had the sad realization that we are already halfway through our semester here :( It's a bittersweet realization. Naturally, there are a lot of things that I think about from home. Lisbon's Jewish community isn't very active so I've sort of missed out on the fall marathon of holidays. The weather changed this past week and it's been cold, making me wistful for mom's butternut squash soup served in the little pumpkin bowls. But there's so much to look forward to here, and I feel like I'm rapidly running out of time in Lisbon. There are still so many places in Portugal I want to see, so many experiences I want to pursue, so many pastries to try...I go on and on about how time works differently here and how the people here have a fundamentally different outlook on life, and I didn't even realize how much I've truly adopted that outlook. I constantly surprise myself when I realize what day it is and how many days have already passed. Where does all the time go?

This week, it went to a visit from Daniel. I was a little hesitant about Daniel's visit. Our resident director had told us that while it's nice to have visitors, once we get settled into a routine having a visitor really throws that off. So I was a little hesitant. I had a big work load already for the week and I was concerned that I wouldnt' be able to balance having a visitor and still enjoy my daily life.

Well, go figure, there was no need to worry. Daniel arrived Sunday morning. My line of the metro was flooded from the heavy rain and hail in Lisbon the previous day so I successfully navigated the bus system to meet up with him on Lisbon's prettiest street, the Avenida da Liberdade, a 19th century Parisian-style boulevard lined with...palm trees. It being a Sunday morning, the city was completely silent. Even the construction workers directing the five cars of traffic were silent. This city literally hibernates on Sunday. So it was the perfect day to head to Sintra to show off Portugal's unique castles, palaces and history. We got queijadas, as one must always do in Sintra, and wandered around the historic center of town while we waited for the bus to take us up the hill. Having already climbed it once, I convinced Daniel that we should save time and knees by taking the bus. Luckily, he is sensible and agreed. The bus ride turned into an authentically Portuguese experience. As we crawled through the narrow lanes and hairpin turns of the village, we got stuck. Cars parked illegally on the road prevented the bus from turning. Or turning back. Whoops. The bus driver spent a few minutes backing up and moving forward by inches at a time. Once the bus finally got turned enough, another car coming down the mountain conveniently stalled right in the space the bus needed to be able to complete the turn. Everyone on the bus had their faces pressed up against the windows speaking loudly in Portuguese, trying to open the windows to get a better view. Or to get some air circulating because the 40 some-odd people on the bus were getting kind of cranky. We tried asking what was going on but everyone ignored us while they jostled each other and shouted things out the window. We finally caught a glimpse of the stalled car. It was a Mercedes, so of course our first thought was that we had accidentally hit the car in some way. You never know in these buses...After 20 minutes of being stuck, the entire line of traffic on the hill had managed to back up and a bunch of men pushed the car far enough up the hill for the bus to complete the turn. Cheers erupted from the bus crowd and we continued on our merry way. I've already written before about the Palace of Pena, the fairytale castle, so I'll skip right ahead to the Moorish castle. Another short history lesson: Portugal was once occupied by the Romans, and hundreds of years later, by the Moors. (there were other groups in between but I won't test you) Eventually the people living in northern Portugal drove out the Moors during the Reconquest. The ruins of a Moorish castle still stand atop Sintra.

This castle was astounding. The walls are still in really good condition even though the castle is some 1200 years old. The cistern that provided water for the castle's soldiers still stands--and still has water in it. (although I would not recommend drinking it) Since the castle is on top of the rocky hill, it's a little bit of a hike to walk the entirety of the walls but it was so worth it. We also visited the remains of an old chapel. Inside the chapel, you can still see remains of the frescoes that covered the walls and ceiling. How. Freaking. Cool. At one point we were being followed by some people around our age and Daniel asked me if they were speaking Portuguese. They weren't. In fact, they were speaking an Italian dialect. It was a cool small-world moment: My cousin is visiting me in Portugal from Rome and while we're walking around a Moorish castle we're being followed by Italians.

After the hiking/sweating/mosquito-swatting of the Moorish castle, we attempted to head back down the hill but somehow ended up on the opposite side from where we came. For a while we thought we were actually lost but we realized we were still inside the outer walls of the castle. After having to double back once or twice as we reached dead-ends, we finally found an exit from the castle grounds, only after passing a nun walking in meditation. A young couple eating an orange on a giant rock offered the nun a piece. She said no thank you and blessed the couple and continued on her way.

...what century am I in? It felt like a very old world moment. Or maybe it was just the crumbling millenium-old stones and the utter silence on the mountain. Who knows? We also passed a trellis-type thing that looked a little bit like a sukkah. Once we were on the outskirts of the village, again, on a different side than when we went up, we passed a plaque on a house that said "Hans Christian Andersen." We took a step closer to read (slash translate from the Portuguese) and it read the following: "Hans Christian Andersen stayed in this house when he visited Portugal in 1866." Whoa! Getting lost totally paid off. No doubt the fairytale castle of Pena and the primeval woods of the mountain were a great source of inspiration for Andersen, who stayed a few weeks in the little pink house.

Honestly, I think Daniel just had some kind of amazing luck. Because little moments like this happened all week. He squeezed a month's worth of my own authentic Portuguese experiences (that you couldn't recreate in a guidebook even if you tried) into five days. After the Hans Christian Andersen tour of Sintra, we settled in for lunch at the Lord Byron Cafe and watched the sun sink lower in the sky as the afternoon wore on. The Lord Byron cafe attempted British decor, but it was too overwhelmingly Portuguese to have much effect. We visited the Palacio Nacional, a palace covered in thousands of azulejos with uniquely painted wooden ceilings. The coolest part of this palace was the kitchen. The palace is over 1000 years old, built upon by each generation and each conquerer that moved through the peninsula. At some point in time, two giant cones were built. These cones sit on top of the kitchen and you can shout up and the cones echo at you. We each stood in one of the cones and shouted to each other. There was nobody else in the museum so the noise hopefully wasn't too disturbing....but even if it was, let's be honest: How often do you get the chance to stand in a 1000 year old kitchen with 100-foot cone roofs and shout at the top of your lungs? Not very often. After our first circuit through the musuem, we went through it again looking for a specific room we thought we had missed. The other people in the museum gave us the most bizarre looks as we rushed through each room without even stopping to look around. They probably thought we were crazy but we were just on a mission. Turns out the room we thought we had missed we had actually not missed so we doubled back again and went backwards through the museum until we got the entrance/exit. 1 1/2 visits of the Nacional Palace, 1 Moorish castle, 1 fairytale Pena palace, 1 queijada, 1 Hans Christian Andersen house, and 1 adventurous bus ride: a pretty spectacular day.

But did you really think it was over?! No, of course not. Sintra is about 12 km from Cabo do Roca, the westernmost point of the European continent. Back in the olden days, people believed this was the end of the world. We had decided earlier in the day that we wanted to try and catch the sunset at Cabo do Roca so we found the bus station and lanched while we waited. The bus ride took us through what can only be called the suburbs of Sintra, although Sintra itself is not very big so these were more just villages. The sun was steadily getting lower in the sky and our bus driver sensed the tension on the bus: if we were going to pay 7 euros to go to Cabo do Roca, then gosh darn it he would get us there by sunset! As it turns out, this entailed a little bit of speeding. Even along the top of the cliffs. Even around hairpin turns. Even in one-lane, 2-directional streets between ancient city walls of tiny towns. Gripping the arm rests, Daniel and I told each other that if anything were to happen (like driving off a cliff accidentally) at least we were together. We finally got to the bus station, after watching the sun sink lower and lower, and we literally bolted off the bus. As soon as our feet hit the ground, we started running.

Into the sunset. To the end of the world.

Cabo do Roca is relatively remote. The bus stops at the turismo (tourist office) There is a restaurant slash souvenir shop, the turismo, and a man selling roasted chestnuts. A few hundred yards away is a lighthouse under repair. That's all. We ran, leaping over rocks and through the scrubby grass to the railing protecting visitors from falling 140-meters down the sheer cliff faces to the ocean. Even as we ran screaming towards the ocean, the sun started to sink below the clouds. It glowed electric orange, a stunning contrast against the dark blue-purple clouds. The horizon extended infinitely in every direction. Looking down the coast in either direction, all we could see were more cliffs jutting out into the ocean. Far below, giant rocks broke the movement of the water, creating a dull roar that resonated off the cliffs. It was a 270 degree view, and it was breathtaking. A jet flew by and everyone started cheering and waving. As the sun sank below the clouds, the rest of the sky lit up pink and purple. We faced the sunset for as long as possible, letting the wind blow us around and block out the artifical lights of the world behind us. For a few minutes, it was us and the world, the ocean, the infinite expanse of nothingness.


There is a monument at Cabo do Roca, a giant stone pyramid with a cross on top, marking the coordinates of this westernmost point. A bunch of Brazilian tourists posed with the monument for a solid 15 minutes so Daniel and I had to be patient. We spent the wait time calling our family from the end of the world, noting that we were closer to them than any other point during the semester (Hi Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mark! Hi mom and dad! Hi Eric!) Time again flowed completely differently than in the real world. The light from the sun lingered for quite a long time after the sun had disappeared but then all of a sudden it was an extremely dark night. Like I said, Cabo do Roca is pretty remote. We waited, huddled against the wind, for the bus where we again gripped our seats as we made the cliff top hairpin turns in the dark.

It's not possible to watch the sun set over the Atlantic in the United States.

And this was a perfect sunset.

Now my fingers need a break from typing. On a final note: A lot of the day-to-day Portuguese that I'm learning I learn orally through interactions with people, so there are lots of words I don't know how to spell. I recently figured out that I've been signing my blog entries "Ciao!" when really, it's spelled "Tchau!" The ciao spelling is Italian, not Portuguese. Whoops. My first reaction was to be embarassed and go back and change every entry but I've had much more embarassing Portuguese moments, so I'll let this one slide. Just thought I'd correct the record since I know our resident director and resident assistant both read this. (Hi nuno and eduardo!)

So...until I get feeling back into my fingers after a long post...Tchau!

Chestnuts roasting on an open street corner

(a whole box of pasteis! Aren't they pretty?)

My apologies, readers, for a prolonged absence from the portublog. My immune system decided to play copycat with the US economy and crashed for about a week, so I've been hibernating in my room and sleeping like nobody's business. As a result, my weekend was a complete blur of nothingness and I don't have chock-full days of experiences to recount. The blur continued until yesterday when I finally felt more like a human being than a wet noodle, and today I finally got things back on track with a visit to the pastelaria and a Portuguese lesson from Senhor Tall, who, by the way, has no teeth. I'm not sure I mentioned that.

Last week we celebrated Nuno's birthday with a homemade cake and this week we weren't able to get out of class for Columbus Day. Completely uncalled for. As Eduardo put it, we are at Point A. (Columbus sailed the ocean blue from Lisbon, Portugal) Why shouldn't we celebrate?

The sun is setting outside my window and it feels like a good time to relax and reflect on my first month here. It hasn't quite been anything close to what I expected. Pictures and guide books do not do Portugal justice. Sure, they can direct you to the best pastries, but they can't capture the taste or the sheer happiness that accompanies each bite. They can't capture the shades of the sunset or the hundreds of different smells that waft by with each step. Vendors recently started setting up small carts where they roast chestnuts right on the street under your nose. A euro or two gets you a paper cone of hot salted nuts that warm your hands while you walk. Granted, it was 75 degrees today (fahrenheit. i fail at celsius) But I can just imagine how great those chestnuts will be in a month when, if ever, it gets cold.

This is really just an interim post to address my prolonged absence from the face of the planet. This weekend we are attempting to visit Coimbra, just two hours north of Lisbon, for a brief two days. I will, quite literally, keep you posted. In the meantime, a few honorable mentions:

• Last week we went to see Burn After Reading with our Brazilian friends at a cinema near the dorm. Although we've been busy immersing ourselves in truly unique European and Portuguese experiences (or again, at least attempting to) going to a movie was in and of itself a different experience. The movies are mostly in English with Portuguese subtitles, so we enjoyed our native language. It was cool to read the subtitles though and realize that I do understand some Portuguese. It was also really interesting to note the split-second lapse in laughter or the use of truly American (and vulgar) terms that we then had to translate. That entire movie is one giant reel of vulgarity and utter confusion; I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for the translators to make it coherent in a different language and substitute all the American slang with Portuguese slang. We also ate Magnum bars in theater, which of course was awesome. Ice cream just isn't as big a deal at American movie theaters. I love Magnum bars.
  
• Another specialty shop to add to my list of favorites is the lantern shop. Not just a lighting shop, but a shop that makes and sells oversized lanterns and lighting fixtures. These things are half as tall as I am, and the shop stretches from its front on one major street, to the back. When the back door is open on the small alleyway, which it often is, you can watch the artisans work surrounded by a forest of sorts of hanging lamps. And you can see all the way through to the front of the shop, which lies on a major street. These things are so big that even if I purchased one I would not be able to carry it onto the airplane.
  
• My cousin Daniel is coming to visit on Sunday. I am very, very, very excited.
• I have a new favorite pastry. Obviously nothing compares to pastel de nata but in the savory pastry line, I have discovered pao com chourico. Literally, bread with chourico sausage. It is deeeeelicious. Senhor Tall has taken to saying "Pao com chourico?" whenever we walk in, which is usually spot on. Unless it's afternoon, in which case he correctly assumes we are there to lanche and brings us pasteis de nata instead. Also, iced tea limao. I don't really drink iced tea at home but here I can't seem to go more than a day or two without it. Probably the caffeine more than anything (yikes!) but it is delicious and so unbelievably thirst-quenching after walking around in the sunshine. I wish all Portuguese food tasted more like pastries. Instead it tastes like codfish, the offishal food of this country (for some reason I cannot understand.)
• If you haven't guessed, I'm not a huge fan of codfish.
  
• Tuesday night we celebrated a friend's birthday and went to Bairro Alto for Indian food and dancing. It was a great night. After being stuck inside all weekend with a miserable cold, it was nice to get some fresh air and be with friends. It's amazing to me that even on a Tuesday night Bairro Alto is full of people just enjoying life. Forget going to work. That's soooo un-Portuguese to worry about something so serious. I think these are probably the same people we see heading to work on the metro at 10 or 11 in the morning, leisurely reading the paper as they saunter in two or three hours after what might be considered the official start of the day. What a great country. I wish Americans weren't so serious all the time, or didn't have as much to worry and get stressed about. It's going to be so hard going back to that lifetsyle in the United States.
• Last week we went on two field trips for art history, visiting the Torre de Belem, St. Jeronimo's monastery, the Lisbon cathedral and the Castelo de Sao Jorge. The return trip to the castelo was cool because we got a special presentation with the Camara Escura--a giant periscope that reflects a 360panorama real-time view of the city into this giant white bowl. Our guide gave us a 25-minute tour via the camara, and we could see people wandering around in Baixa-Chiado and cars crossing the bridge. (Lisbon has a giant Golden Gate Bridge-like bridge that looks pretty much exactly like the GGB in San Francisco. copycats) It was a neat way to see the city. I thought it would be something of a waste of time since we've already been to so many of the places he showed us, but that's just proof that a closed mind gets you nowhere. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would talk more about the Torre de Belem and the monastery etc., but I am revisiting these places when Daniel comes so I will do a more complete post with pictures later. I have this amazing ability to always forget my camera on the days when we go on visits for art history. It's really, really, REALLY cool to have a class in the city rather than in the classroom. If all learning was done this way I doubt people would ever want to skip class. I understand that theory and background is important for really understanding a subject but after being outside in the beautiful Lisbon sunshine, it's difficult to get inspired to learn or pay attention inside a tiny, cramped classroom with no air condition or circulation.
  

As some of the novelty of the city wears off I'm finding that I have a much better sense of where I fit. After a month, I started to get a tiny bit worried that the daily routine of going to class and doing homework would eventually overcome the excitement that even the smallest things hold here. And worse, since I've adjusted to the city and being in Europe and living with the Portuguese people's lenient attitude towards everything, I worried that I was getting too complacent and falling into a pattern of general tiredness and all too often, saying "Well, we've been to so many pastelarias, I don't really feel like walking across town to try a new one. It's so much easier to just go home..."

No, this is not how I want to spend the rest of my semester. I once wrote a poem:

"If everything in life was perfect, my, wouldn't imperfect be missed?"

This is sort of like Lisbon in reverse. Last week I was sick, things weren't as wonderful as they'd been, and I was really missing being able to just enjoy life here. So now that I'm feeling better, I have snapped back into the attitude of not wanting to just go home and take a nap, or just sit around with friends rather than be out in the city with them. It's nice to feel like I'm back on track, with a great weekend to look forward to instead of pajamas and Sudafed. Having that "imperfect" reminded me just how fantastic and perfect it is to live here. And yes, I am sure that eventually I will get sick of every day being so wonderful and exciting. But for the time being, I can't imagine life without pasteis, relaxation, stresslessness, sunshine and Lisboetas. (the people of Lisbon)

So, interim post-turned-actual-post aside, this weekend looks to be full of an excursion to Coimbra, a return trip to Sintra with Daniel, and all-around enjoyment of life. Stay tuned faithful readers.

Here's some Portuguese to learn in the meantime:

Tem uma mesa para dois?
(Do you have a table for two?)

Photo update

A big thank you to Gustavo for bringing his camera to the beach. These are photos from Cascais and Boca do Inferno. And I have decided that even though two weekends ago I decided Friday was the most perfect day ever, I have to update. Because last weekend--Cascais, Boca do Inferno, Sintra, dancing the nights away...last weekend was one of the best weekends of my life.

This week was a little on the dry side for blog posts. It was a week. I ate lots of pastries and polished my Portuguese skills, but I've been feeling a bit under the weather so it was a week full of naps rather than new adventures. It rained the other day. Our very first actual day of rain rather than just a few drops.

I'm not sure I really like Lisbon in the rain. The sunshine just suits me so much better, as evidenced by the pictures. Ciao os meus amigos--ate logo!

From Hell's Mouth to heaven on earth

Sand between your toes. The gentle lapping of waves upon the beach. Salty curls blown into your mouth by the wind. The sun shining brilliantly on flushed cheeks, reflecting off a radiant ocean. Water crashing on the rocks. The roaring of the waves as they rush into the nooks and crannies of the ancient cliffs. The happy fisherman, sitting on the rocks, waiting and watching and breathing in the cool salty air. The warmth that runs through you as you bring your knees in closer in the wind, the feel of the rocks under your bare feet. Solid, frozen in time. An eternal moment. A perfect sunset.

A primeval forest. Shafts of sunlight breaking through the trees. The cool, damp earth beneath your feet. Shuffling through leaves that have drifted gently down around you. Moss-covered boulders protruding from the infinitely green mountain. Birds flitting above your head. Ancient, crumbling stone walls. Trees stripped of their bark by forest animals, towering nearly one hundred feet above you. Reaching the summit, basking in the late afternoon sunlight. An incredible vista. On one side, the Atlantic, shimmering serenely beyond the hills. On the other, an expanse of white houses with burnt orange tile roofs, stretching across the valley into the distance among gently-rolling lush green hills. A light breeze. Utterly calm. Utterly breathtaking.



Despite my attempts, I don't think these words even come close to capturing the sheer spectacular-ness and amazing-ness of my weekend. In true Portuguese fashion, we went into this weekend having no plans. We had talked briefly to our Brazilian friends about going to the beach on Friday, but other than that my 3-day weekend was a blank slate. Thursday afternoon on my way back from class I stopped in the pastelaria to pick up pastries for our girls' night later that evening. After five full minutes of Portuguese conversation with Senhor Patient (!) I walked out with a variety of different pastries that we hadn't tried and practically skipped home because I was so excited about speaking Portuguese in public. We eventually made our way over to Elsbeth's house, where her house mom came into her room saying, "Girls party! Girls party!" And it was. We salivated for a little while over the pastries before finally digging in, taking mental notes for comparison of the use of chocolate, cinnamon, cream, custard, filo dough and all-around deliciousness in the different pastries. A cultural study, one might say.

After movie night we headed to our first Erasmus party. Erasmus, European foreign exchange, throws parties three nights a week to encourage students to socialize and meet people from across the continent. Even though Erasmus is technically a european thing, we were able to get erasmus cards which gives us free access to their parties and discounts on cultural events throughout the city. Score! We had decided to leave early (11:30) to beat the rush and attempt to get our cards before it got too crowded. Well, as you might have guessed, we were horribly unfashionably early. 11:30 is dinnertime! So we wandered around Bairro Alto, grabbed a pastry, and headed back at a more appropriate hour (12:30) We met up with our Brazilian friends and danced the night away. Surprisingly, even through all of the loud music, we still met a lot of people. I met a guy who grew up in Austin so we talked a lot about Texas and the upcoming election. But let's be honest--my true love is dancing. Standing around talking wasn't going to cut it, so I excused myself from the nice Austinite and got back to the music.

Friday we slept in and headed to Cascais for a beautiful day at the beach. Sadly, the weather has changed. Cascais was no longe the blissfully calm and beautiful beach where I could lie around all day until the sun set. Nope, we had wind. Lots of it. We had met some Americans at the train station who were in Lisbon for the weekend from Madrid and they asked us, "Is the beach usually like this?"

I know. I can sense the disappointment, too. Sarah, Annia and I still decided to run screaming into the ocean and ironically, the water was not as cold as it's been the past few times. The one windy, not-so-beachy day turns out to be the one day where I don't get frostbite in the water. I'm tempted to say it was "unfair" but let's be honest. I was at the beach in Portugal on a Friday. I have no room to complain. After returning to Santini for muito delicious gelato (and introducing everybody to the so-good-I-could-die cinnamon gelato) we decided to wander westward towards Boca do Inferno. Literally, "Mouth of Hell." Boca do Inferno is a series of cliffs along the coast where erosion has created some pretty powerful gorges where the water crashes and roars. It is stunning. It took forever to get out there because we stopped every five minutes to take in the view. We climbed down the rocks to the lowest point where we could safely sit without falling into the water. We sat. No need to do anything else. I hadn't brought my camera, so I wasn't distracted by anything digital or artificial. A fisherman sitting near us had his pole in the water and eventually pulled out a live squid. *shudder* It was one of those "I have to look" moments. It was pretty cool but I didn't want to watch it die and become his dinner so I returned to my observation post (the rock) and curled up to shield from the ever-increasing wind. The water was a perfect dark turquoise, the rocks turning yellow-orange in the light of the setting sun.

I have taken to not wearing my watch on the weekends, so I have no idea how long we sat there. Eventually we got too cold to sit still so we started to wander back. An utterly exhausting and perfect day.

Saturday the girls came over for brunch. No exploding kitchens or anything. We are really getting good at this cooking business. After brunch we headed to the train station to catch a train to Sintra, a royal retreat town a short distance outside Lisbon. Sintra's main attractions are multiple castles and palaces from all different eras of Portuguese history. It's really a 2-day trip, if not more, but time is not really a factor here that we ever consider. We don't hesitate. We don't plan. We go. And so we went. Again, an experience that words cannot accurately capture. We had no idea where we were going and yet I felt completely at peace. "It's an adventure," we told ourselves. Sintra's local pastry is called "queijada." Think cream cheese icing and cinnamon and that's pretty much what it tasted like. A little bite of heaven. We lanched at a cafe at the foot of the mountain looking up to the Moorish castle on top, Portuguese flag flying proud in the wind. We wandered into the main historic part of town, wandered through Parque de Liberdade, a rich park with paper mache statues of animals that of course begged us to play. When we finally got into town we made our way to this church that had a patio out back with a spectacular view of the valley and the ocean. Lo and behold, we stumbled onto another wedding! I promise we are not wedding crashers. This wedding was a much more joyous occasion than the one we witnessed in Porto. The bride was actually smiling (ohmygosh!) and everybody was kissing and throwing rice and shouting. It was very exciting, especially for us tourists who had come underdressed for such a special occasion. I really should start traveling with a dress and heels in case we stumble upon anymore formal occasions...

All the palaces and castles are built on the hill/mountain so there is a bus you can take to get up there. We did not take the bus. What was the point of coming all the way out there if we were just going to sit on a bus for half of our visit? No point, we told ourselves. So we walked. For the most part, the climb was manageable. We passed beautiful quaint houses and eventually came across a park. A man looked over the hedge and spoke to us in Portuguese. He told us we could cut through the park if we were going up the mountain. It would be prettier, there would be bathrooms, and we'd get back to the road eventually. We were hesitant, because the man just stood there watching us and waiting for us to come through. He told us he would waive the entrance fee to the park. We slowly turned back towards the entrance of the park and a young woman was coming out by herself so we stopped and asked her if it was safe to wander through etc., and she looked at us like we were crazy for being scared of a park during the day. But the man was still standing at the entrance waiting for us when we got there. Elsbeth picked up a spiky plant off the ground to use for defense and we braced ourselves for what was sure to be a really awkward encounter. The man continued to accompany us into the park but we eventually figured out that he worked there because another woman started asking us for directions.

Close call.
Sort of.

The real hiking began in the park and we climbed and sang "Proud to be an American." Why that song of all possible songs came up, I'm not sure. But we were completely alone and it felt so great to sing at the top of my lungs, even if we were singing a song that was sure to draw some nasty looks from some Europeans. After the park we entered the forest. Here's the great thing about Sintra. It's a tourist hub because of all the castles and culture, but it doesn't overcater to tourists in a way that destroys the authenticity of the place. Take for instance our hike up the mountain. Most tourists take the bus since it's a 2 km hike and very steep in some places. But if you choose to walk, you spend most of the walk just walking on the side of the road or even in the forest itself. There's not a separate pedestrian path with drink stands every 10 minutes or vending machines or anything. This probably sounds incredibly dangerous, especially since the road winds and cars tend to speed around the curves, but it was really cool to just walk through the forest. We had lots of opportunities to climb on boulders and stop along the side of the road and explore beyond it. We came upon the Moorish castle first but decided to keep climbing to see the fairy tale castle that is the Palacio Nacional da Pena. In a cruel twist of fate, the only vending machine selling agua was out of order. Alas, we keep climbing. The cobblestone road was slippery with hundreds of years of foot and horse traffic but we pushed on. Upon finally reaching the gates we were THRILLED! We'd climbed for about an hour and the steep incline was starting to take a toll on morale. (except for Annia, who triumphantly ran up the hill and took pictures of us groaning at her) Through the gates, we still had more climbing to do up through the gardens and the grounds but it was worth it because the castle was amazing.

Each turret and tower is decorated in a different style. The exterior is brightly painted in some places and covered with beautiful azulejos in others. The view was spectacular. We walked the castle walls for a 360 degree experience and leaned out over the balcony to feel the wind in our hair and the warmth of the fading afternoon sun on our faces. The inside of the castle was not nearly as impressive but still worth mentioning. The royal families that inhabited this palace were pack rats. One sign even mentioned the "fear of empty spaces." I think this captures it nicely. Every corner of every room was either painted or decorated or covered in objects of varying grandeur. The queen's dressing room, for instance, had 6 chairs, 1 bathtub, 2 vanities, a fireplace, French silk-covered walls and copious amounts of paintings and frames and trinkets and crystal. And this room isn't much bigger than your average bedroom. There was an "Arab room" full of exotic furniture and art from around the world, although none of it particularly "Arab" in fashion but much more Far Eastern. The history-lover in me had a great appreciation for the artifacts and the ability to glimpse into the past and reconstruct the physical surroundings. Even cooler is that the palace is built on the foundations of an old monastery and they maintained some of the original monastery, like the azulejos-covered cloister and fountain. I felt like I was walking through a fairy tale.

We lanched on the terrace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. There's nothing like a delicious Magnum bar after a 2km uphill hike. After wandering back down we stopped in the Village Cafe for a cheap meal. Being 6:30, we were the only dinner customers. Our waiter really liked us and was impressed that we even spoke a little Portuguese. (Thanks Elsbeth for helping translate!) He brought us taste testing samples of Eristoff Black, a raspberry-flavored dark blue liquor and we sang along to VH1 's "Top 10 Music Videos of All Time" that was playing on the TV. When our waiter heard us singing, he came over and told us that we should come back Monday night for karaoke. We explained that we did not live in Sintra but he did not seem to think this was a problem and continued to encourage us to sing for the next hour.

A brilliant beyond brilliant day. The entire thing proceeded without any advanced planning. It was so relaxing not trying to rush around and see everything in one day. In my opinion, Sintra is not a 2-day trip but a 3- or 4- or 5-day vacation. We saw one palace of Sintra's many, many palaces and castles. And we sampled queijadas. And we played in the park. And we climbed the mountain. The Pena palace has a giant clock tower that has no hands. I pointed this out and Elsbeth responded, "It's because the Portuguese don't believe in time."

So true. This is a philosophy I am totally on board with and I hope to eventually bring back to my life in the states. After a short nap we met up with friends and headed down to Docas, a trendy nightlife area of the city. Docas = docks, so guess where we were? Right on the river! Surprise. We went to this cool club called "W" and proceeded to dance the night away again. After we got back we sat around in the kitchen eating an early breakfast (Yikes!) and collapsed into bed around dawn. It is a schedule I do not usually follow, but it is the Portuguese way so close those shocked mouths mom and dad and enjoy the fact that your daughter is embracing her new culture. :)

I have written previously about how Lisbon completely shuts down on Sundays and I can finally understand why. Everybody is so busy on the weekends enjoying themselves that they forget to sleep. Sunday is a good time for this. Everyone at the dorm wears pajamas all day and it is very quiet, minus the African guys downstairs who somehow got ahold of drums and were drumming all afternoon. If there was ever a good time for homework in this city, Sunday afternoons would be it. Any other time feels like a waste of life-changing experiences I could be having in this beautiful country.

Three honorable mentions:

• Last Sunday we went to a free jazz festival in the Jardim da Estrela. Pleno, a juice company, sponsored the event and brought out these giant white bean bag chairs for people to sit in. The lawns were covered in clumps of people sitting and relaxing and enjoying the music and atmosphere. Handicraft vendors lined the walkways selling their products. It felt a little bit like Austin except that everybody was fully clothed and the multitudes of dogs running around didn't belong to drag rats that tried to mess with me by telling me I'd dropped my wallet and then laughing when I turned around to look for it. The dogs here are really well-behaved and most weren't even on leashes. Annia and I thorougly enjoyed playing with all the pooches.
• There is a lot of graffiti here. Last weekend we saw graffiti in live action. We were walking behind two guys and they suddenly ducked into a doorway and started spraying. It was kind of cool. Not the defacement part, but just seeing it in action. They were extremely nonchalant about it, as you might expect in such a chilled out city. It wasn't even dark out.
  
• Identification cards. Everything you do here provides you with identification. For example, our monthly metro passes have our pictures on them and ID information embedded in the security chip. We will be getting our university ID cards soon, but we also have university student association cards with our picture. Some of our friends got gym memberships at the City University, and those have photo identification, too. We got Erasmus cards to go to Erasmus parties and those count as a method of identification. Excluding my passport, I currently have 7 different forms of identification. When we get our university IDs I will have 8. It's a little ridiculous.

Living here is like living in poetry.

Join the sexiest paper in the world

This is the slogan for the toilet paper store at El Cortes Ingles. Yes, there is a toilet paper store. A designer toilet paper store. They sell other paper products in addition to toilet paper: paper napkins and paper towels. Their products are all very brightly colored, including the toilet paper. You can buy lime green, hot pink, bright turquoise, black, red, orange, yellow toilet paper and paper towels to coordinate to your kitchen and home. I think this is awesome. It's outrageously expensive for a product that is going to be cleaning up messes but the concept is pretty cool.

In addition to the toilet paper store, my favorite specialty shops so far have been the coin collector shop, the glove shop, and the orthopedic shoe shop.

An entire shop dedicated to orthopedic shoes. What a great world we live in. I like the European model way better than the American model: instead of massive shopping complexes where you can get everything at once, every product has its own specialty shop and you can just pop in and out very quickly on your way to and from places. The walking is healthy, it gives me lots of time to think and soak in the sunshine, and I don't spend as much money on things that I don't need now or ever. It has become a part of my daily life, stopping at the fruit stand on the corner and paying less than a euro for a full bag of fruit from the middle-aged Portuguese man who likes to smile at all the old ladies that come into the shop. Every day at our pastelaria Senhor Tall winks at us and our other new friend, Senhor Patient, is very patient with me as I try to conduct my transactions entirely in Portuguese. Yesterday I was trying to buy multiple pastries for dinner with the girls and we spoke in Portuguese for five whole minutes.

!!!!

Muito accomplished, if I do say so myself. He taught me some useful things like "to go" and the names of all the pastries I like and he was very patient as I showed him that I understood what he was saying by counting out my change exactly. That's the nice thing about Lisbon: the people. It's so easy to establish a niche here. Everybody is so friendly and accommodating and everyday I feel like there are people around keeping an eye on my progress. Sergio, our friendly front gate security guard at the dorm, has been teaching me new things whenever I have to ask for something. "I'd like a token for the dryer" becomes "Quero uma ficha do socara" (Don't check the spelling; this was all spoken and I'm 100% I spelled it wrong) He even brought me a Portuguese grammar book to help me study. One catch though--it's all in Portuguese.

Back when I was trying to choose a location for study abroad, I thought that going to Europe would be too generic and too overdone. I was looking for a place that would still be European but would also be off the beaten track and really allow me to immerse myself instead of living life like an American surrounded by Americans in a different city. Lisbon is spot-on for me. It's a modern city with old-world charm, it's not too big but it's big enough, the people are amazing and the atmosphere is beyond words. And the best part? I feel so alive. Every day, if not every hour, I face obstacles and come out of them with such a feeling of accomplishment. I get a rush from the smallest things, like ordering completely in Portuguese or meeting my new Brazilian friends or navigating my way across the city without getting lost. Even just being able to read advertisements. I feel like the world is happening in real time and I am completely in it.

Having the opportunity to interact with so many people from all over the globe also helps put things in perspective. None of the study abroad students here are concerned with being stressed or overloaded or too busy to take time for themselves. I have nothing to be angry or irritated about, no huge burdens in extracurricular activities, no meetings, no appointments. I have the freedom to take advantage of every opportunity. I can make spur of the moment decisions, I can change plans and I can even not make them and things still turn out great. Everybody is focused on meeting other people and learning about the world. Being here is not about the in-class learning as much as it is about interacting with other people my age outside of class. And it's fantastic. Having conversations with other people about their daily lives in their countries make me that much stronger in my beliefs about the way life should be in my own country. I have never considered myself a particularly political person but now that I am old enough to vote in a presidential election (and the economy is going to the dogs and Bush has to leave office) I am very engaged in and excited for this election, as are people around the globe apparently. So I engage in a lot of discussion about politics and have a better sense of what I want. For example, education. Portugal finances public education so students go to school for almost nothing. Even at the school cantina I can get a whole meal for 2 euros because it's subsidized by the government. Granted, Portugal is a much smaller country than the United States, but even a country like Brazil has affordable public education because the government helps pay for it. When we compare with our friends the cost of going to college they are shocked that we would pay anything more than a few thousand dollars a year to learn and get a degree, without which we wouldn't be able to move forward in our lives and get good jobs to support ourselves. Pardon my rant; I am merely fascinated by the global perspective I've been able to get on my own country. I don't know if I'd ever be able to leave the United States permanently because I can't bear the thought of being away from everybody I love for that long, but I think it would be pretty amazing to live in another country for a few years to get a better sense of what I really want and expect from a government. I think I can't accurately judge the American government until I've had experience with another one. It's just a thought but I daresay it's an intriguing one.

On a less serious note, I also had the opportunity today to clean out my school email inbox. It felt so unbelievably good to delete hundreds of unimportant emails and reinforce my belief that just by being here I am a happier and healthier person than I've ever been in my life. Well, mostly healthier. Between the pastel de nata and the inexplicable desire to purchase lime green toilet paper, I might have a few unhealthy urges. I can't help it. Pastel de nata is too good for its own good. And hot pink or turquoise toilet paper? I mean, come on. That is just begging me to buy it.

I love Lisboa.