Lisbon Part I

This past weekend we had the option of going to Lisbon, Portugal. Everyone in our group went except for two girls. It was suppose to be rainy and cold in Lisbon, but we lucked out and the weather was fairly nice all weekend. We had to meet at the bus at 3:30 in front of the Plaza Gabriel y Galan, which is where we always meet for excursions. The bus ride was roughly around 6 hours, but our driver Antonio liked to take lots of breaks. In fact one the breaks was to liquor store right before we crossed the boarding. Antonio wanted to make sure we had enough to drink. The liquor store/supermarket was happy to have our business as all thirty of us pretty much cleaned out their supply of drinks and snacks.

We crossed the Portuguese boarder in our big tour bus with hardly any notice. Everyone was worried because some people forgot their passports, but the Portuguese boarder guards barely paid us any attention. Once we were in Portugal we had about four hours to go on the bus. The landscape of Portugal was very rocky, but the vegetation was abnormally green especially the grass. The were lots of houses and little villages nestled along the rocky ridges. As we got closer to Lisbon, the rocky hills and mountains flattened out and the city lights became clearer.

On our last excursion we had stayed at this gorgeous four star hotel, so we were all expecting the same type of luxury. However, we were sadly disappointed when we pulled up to our hotel. Although it claimed to be a four star hotel, it was no where near the same level as our hotel in Toledo. The hotel was fine though, and we did not intend to be staying in their for long amounts of time. Some of our group decided to go out and check out the night life in Lisbon. I stayed in with about half the girls to sleep, so we would have plenty of energy to explore the city the next morning. When we woke up the next morning, we were expecting a torrential down poor, but instead we were greeted by the sun. This welcome greeting of sunshine really made our little morning adventure in the city quite beautiful.

At 11am the group got together for trip to the beach. Antonio took us in the tour bus to the beach and the surrounding coastal areas of Lisbon. We walked along the beach and watched all the sail boats gliding through the water. There were palm trees everywhere and it was even warm enough I did not need to wear a coat. I took a couple pictures of all the fishing equipment they had along the docks. Fishing is a huge industry in Portugal. After walking along the beach and the town for a couple hours, Antonio took us to another place along the coast. There was a Portuguese military fortification that had been built in the 1600s. It looked just like a mini castle. With our international student id cards, we were allowed in for free, so we went looking around. We climbed all the way to the top of the building and to take a pictures overlooking the ocean. Antonio took us back to our hotel after our excursion. A lot of people, especially the ones that had stayed out all last night took a siesta, but a couple of the girls and myself had other plans. One of the girls on the trip, Mary, has a sister that has a friend who lives in Lisbon. Mary’s sister’s friend gave us tour of the city in her car. It was so interesting because she spoke English and could describe all the places we were seeing. She took us to the place where Christopher Columbus sailed off from. She took us to several old monuments and told us some of the history behind the city. She also told us that Portugal was the number one exporter of cork, like the cork used in wine bottles. Carla was her name and she spoke really good English for only living in the states for about a year. She was a lot of fun and it was really generous of her to show us Lisbon. Stay tuned for Sunday's adventures in Lisbon!!