Lisbon photos are up!

Note to future self, check upload speed of hostel's WiFi before promising to upload ALL your photos.

The rest of my photos from Lisbon proper are up, but those 30 pics took about 2 hours to upload. Sintra will be up later, probably in chunks.

In the meantime, I'm off on a walking tour of Porto that our hostel gives. Hopefully will get some more cool photos that I won't be able to upload =)

Lisbon

Hi all!

Sorry, haven't forgotten about the blog; the last three days have just been a wee bit hectic.

So! Quick summary, then I'll post more detailed entries later.

Monday, Sean and I wandered around Lisbon's landmarks for a while, grabbed lunch, and took unintentional five-hour naps. Yep. Apparently we weren't quite over the jet lag just yet. Anyway, before we passed out, we saw the convent at Carmo, which was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake that pretty much defined the historic area of Lisbon. Then, we went to the Se, Lisbon's cathedral, where we saw a rather adorable musical interlude: a group of Portuguese elementary school students singing "I've got the Joy Joy Joy Joy" in the cathedral. In English, for some reason.

Anyway, after all that church, we needed some good ol' fashioned violence, so we hiked (read: climbed) up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge, which was an interesting enough castle, but was definitely worth it for the views of the city. There's also apparently a family of peacocks that live up there.

Anyway, we came back and pretty much crashed right after that, then we went out for dinner at Beleal (excellent Portuguese food, no tourists in sight), came back, and went out to a Fado club with some folks from the hostel.

On Tuesday, we took a tour our hostel offered to Sintra, a small town outside of Lisbon. That's a wee bit too much to summarize here, so I'll save that for it's own post. The photo of me up above is from this trip, though, and it was a most excellent way to spend the day.

Anyway, today was a travel day. We took the three-hour train ride from Lisbon to Porto, where we're now staying at the Yes! Porto Hostel. Fairly uneventful--though rather stressful--trip. Haven't done much train travel in Europe, so I still get antsy, worried that I didn't get the ticket validated correctly or that I'm going to hop off at the wrong stop.

Anyway!

Photos are on their way. I'll have some (if not most) of them up by tonight. I'll try to post the Sintra summary as well.

Ciao!

Lisbon Day 1

Day one complete.

We got in around 9am, but couldn't check in to the hostel til 2pm. So, we dropped our stuff, grabbed some of the hostel's free breakfast (where Sean got a crash-course in Portuguese via the back of the orange juice box) and went a-wandering.

We went to the waterfront area, which had a gorgeous plaza, but was otherwise kinda meh. The cathedral was having Mass, so we didn't go in. We stopped and got some coffee and pastries (posted a pic just a minute ago) as a pick-me-up, since we were both kinda fading fast.

Anyway, we wandered through the Rossio (a big plaza with some gorgeous buildings and fountains), down some of the roads in the Baixa (one of the major tourist neighborhoods), and up and down the Avenida da Liberdade (think the a cross between the Ramblas in Barcelona and the Champs Elysees in Paris). There was a local food, wine, and music festival going on in the Rossio, and I bought a small bottle of ginginha, a sour cherry liqueur they make in Lisbon. I'll try it tomorrow and post what it's like.

Anyway, after that, we came back, and CRASHED. Sean and I both slept for at least an hour and a half. I managed to grab some shuteye on the plane, but he didn't, so he in particular needed that. But anyway, after that, we wandered to Praca do Duque for dinner, and ate at the Solar do Duque. Had a gorgeous view of the city, and good food. We sat next to two interesting groups. First was a pair of travel agents who gave us some advice on restaurants and trains, and second was a group of Portuguese guys our age who we swapped music advice with.

Anyway, we meandered back, planned out the next two days, and are crashing again. So, g'night!

Dinner 5/13

Dinner 1 in Lisbon: Grilled Octopus, boiled potatoes, and stewed greens.

Tags

Oh, forgot to mention: I'm going to tag everything from here on out with the city and country I'm in.

Also, I plan on keeping a digital food journal, so block anything tagged with 'Food' if you don't want to hear about that.

Snack 5/13

First food in Portugal: um nata (a custard pastry sprinkled with cinnamon) and um galao (think a cappuccino with less foam).

Total cost: 2.50 euros. Totally worth it! Can't remember the name of the cafe, but we were the only non-Portuguese people there. It's near the cathedral, so I might try and find it again tomorrow.

McGiggles

So! I forgot to mention that I'm not travelling alone, and my travel partner is apparently hurt that I haven't given him a shout-out yet.

Meet Sean, who now has to put up with my antics from here to Milan. Hi Sean! Like the photo?

Last meal

A bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke. Hard to get any more American than that.

Figured I'd get my fill of Americana in before heading out. Will be a while before I see one of these again.

Now, off to find a Starbucks.

Route

Subject to change, of course, but here's the planned route I'll be taking.

Ramblin' On

Hi er'body.

If you haven't heard, I'm starting at Microsoft full time in the fall, which means that this summer is is my last summer break.

So! I decided to do it right.

I'm flying out to Lisbon tomorrow (5/12) and trekkin' across Europe until I fly back from Dublin on 7/8. In between, I'm going to be visiting Porto, Santiago de Compostela, Madrid, Barcelona, Provence, the French Riviera, Monaco, Milan, Venice, Tuscany, Cinque Terre, Rome, Paris, and London.

If you want to keep track of what I'm doing, I'm going to update this blog at least once per city I visit (every 2 or 3 days), but hopefully I'll do it more. At the very least, I'll update it whenever my flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/38387561@N07/) is updated.

Apologies if I'm hard to get a hold of; not sure how steady my supply of Internet will be. Email and facebook are your best bets, but it might take me a while.