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!