Portugal- Day 1

Salsa dancing was a lot of fun on Thursday. The class was short on boys (of course) so us girls just danced together and we had a great time.

Lisbon, Portugal: Day 1

Friday morning, the bus for Portugal left at 7 AM. It took probably around six hours to get there because the bus driver has to stop every couple of hours to abide by the laws here. It was probably around four or 4.5 hours of actual driving time. The scenery, of course, was beautiful on the way there. Green rolling hills with trees, livestock, wind farms, and cute little towns were passed by the whole way. When actually arriving in Lisboa (Spanish for Lisbon), it wasn't exactly what I had pictured in my mind. It looked almost industrial and rather dirty. We checked into a hotel (it was nice to be out of the home-stay for a couple nights) and decided to explore the street around our hotel before we had to meet up with our tour guide. Again, we were all a little disappointed with our surroundings because there just wasn't much to do: no restaurants and harldy any shops. We went back to maybe get into the hot tub for a little bit and relax, but we quickly decided not to because a) it was luke warm water at best and b) it cost 7 euro per person. No thank you. So, we settled on watching some television that was actually in English! That was surprisingly refreshing.

We met with the tour guide and took our bus down to more of the "Plaza" area. Right away, we could tell we were going to like this place better than we thought. There were shops and restaurants and the area just looked a lot nicer. One part was right by the river and was very pretty. Our tour guide took us to the Plaza del Comercio and was telling us some facts about how there had been earthquakes and tsunamis in the past that had swept away part of the city when some of us were distracted by these five or six guys. They were taking pictures of the scenery, but they also seemed to be sneaking pictures of our group too. Sometimes acting like they were taking pictures of eachother with us in the "background". Altogether, we thought it was quite odd, but really didn't think much of it. After the guide was done talking, she told us we should walk down by the river and take pictures and just look at the view. Several of us had just walked across the crosswalk when we crossed paths with that same group of guys from before. Now it became quite evident that they had been taking pictures of us, but even more obvious that they were just looking at me when one of him came up and said "Foto?" and put his arm around me. He got on his tip toes and flashed a smile while the girls around me were cracking up. I got a picture on my camera too for good measure. Another one stood on top of a block to take a picture with me. I guess they had never seen anyone taller than them before--we think they were Italians. Anyway, it made for a good laugh.

Next, we walked all of the way up to the top of a hill to visit the Castle of Saint George. The view from up here was amazing with a mix of all of the apartment and business buildings but also the river and bridge that looked similar to San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. We explored through the castle that was in fairly good condition but also had pretty gardens in the middle. An added bonus was that a group was practicing for their concert later that evening, but we got to hear all of the music anyways. They were very fun to listen to, the lead singer had a beautiful voice and it was neat to hear it in Portugese.

After that, we were on our own to find dinner and our way back to the hotel. We did a little shopping on the way back down the hill before all the stores closed (they closed much earlier here than in Spain) and found a place to eat outside in the middle of the main strip. Our waiter was very nice and he spoke some English, so that helped quite a bit. He asked if we wanted anything to drink. I asked if the water cost money and he said yes, so I said no thank you. We all had some water left in our water bottles anyways. A little bit later, he came out with a pitcher of ice water for us! He was so great because he didn't charge us a penny. We were very thankful because this was the first time we have had ice water on our trip so it was a real treat. I tried some of my friend's cod that she got for dinner and it was quite good. Cod is something that they are known for here.

One more of a side note, when we were around shopping, another unusual thing happened. We were walking outside to find a place to eat when a man walked by muttered to us in a hushed voice and showed us something in his hand, "Hash, cocaine, coke?" Don't worry, we declined, and despite this incident, it was a very safe part of town.

We headed to find the metro station that would take us back to our hotel. It was a little scary at first because we had been in this very big city for only a couple of hours and we were supposed to find our way back using the metro and knowing absolutely no Portugese (except for thank you: obrigada). The tour guide had kept saying it was really easy, but she was speaking directions in very fast Spanish, and her accent is more difficult to understand than most that I have heard. Luckily though, it was very easy to find, and another local that spoke some English saw us trying to figure out the ticket machines offered a helping hand and we were on our way!