Lisbon, Portugal...a dream land

The Spanish are champions of four day weekends. They call their holidays "el puente", which means bridge in Spanish. This name exists as the holiday typically is on a Thursday and they "bridge" the holiday over to Saturday and skip Friday for work as well. Just one more thing that makes foreigners shake their heads at this country and their economic crisis. That being said, the second weekend in December is a "puente". I was fortunate enough to spend my holiday traveling to Lisbon, Portugal. Lisbon is the capital of Portugal and is one of the oldest cities in the world and the oldest city in Western Europe. I still believe Portugal is a hidden gem and often overlooked when thinking about where to travel in Europe. You would think that being Spain's neighboring country, Portugal would be effortless to get to. However, the case is quite the opposite. Flying or taking a train is time consuming and expensive, renting a car entails lots of road tolls and its too far to run (hahaha) so the comforts of a bus were the only option.

My friend Abby and I caught the night bus on Wednesday evening. It left at midnight from Sevilla and arrived at the dark and chilly hour of 5:30am in Lisbon. Despite having been oh so comfortable on the bus and having slept for a whopping hour or so, I was surprisingly wired and ready to go. We decided to wait an hour for the metro station to open rather than taking a taxi so we could save a couple of euros for our starbucks treat later that day. :) Well worth the hour wait!

We made it successfully to our metrostop, emerged on the dark/empty street and began our trek for the hostel. We asked a Portuguese lady for help with our directions and continued our ascent up this HILL towards the hostel! Gosh, there are absolutely no hills in Sevilla so it is always a shock to the system when I have to climb a hill. We arrived at the giant door of our hostel and our mouths dropped open once we stepped in. El Independiente Hostel opened about a year ago and is the former home of a ex Swiss ambassador. Let's just say it was beautifully constructed with marble columns, high ceilings and giant rooms. The best part was it was only 8 euros a night including a delicious breakfast and sheets!!! whoa.

With the whole day ahead of us we started it off right with a starbucks where we enjoyed the holiday music and planned out our weekend. Our first stop was to purchase an umbrella which was quite an experience. We went to this little shop where this Indian man was very well versed in his umbrella types. He sold us on the 16-point, double spring, black umbrella for 5euros. He was certain it was much more durable against wind and rain than his 8 point umbrella. Oh, and don't forget that any of his umbrellas make perfect defense mechanisms. I was a little torn at which umbrella and he told me this was an easy decisions as most decisions in life are, it's not my wedding dress right?! Anyway, we were happy about our 16 point, double spring umbrellas throughout the day as they kept us dry from the constant drizzle.

Throughout the day in Lisbon we walked all throughout the city, taste tasted the world renowned vinto porto, explored the mini Christmas shops and eventually hit a delusional state from lack of sleep. I think the pictures below better sum up all the sights we saw. As you can see, Lisbon is an interesting mix of the landscapes of  Prague to San Francisco. The characteristics of the buildings are very Eastern European yet Lisbon is right on the water and they have a bridge almost identical to the Golden Gate Bridge of San Fran. On Sunday we went to a flea market, which had an assortment of unique hand made gift to things I swear people pulled out of the trash.

In addition to exploring Lisbon we took a train 40 mins Northwest to the famous town of Cintra. Cintra is home to the stunning Palacio de Pena (Pena Palace). This Palace is really a castle. The exterior is decorated with yellow, purple and red coloring. Their are impressively decorated walls with tiles. The interior was simple and not goddy like some of the European castles I've seen. I had wanted to travel here since studying abroad in Granada two years ago, and I could not have been more thrilled to finally see it.

Our evenings were spent eating and drinking with the Americans that happened to be sharing our hostel room with us.  These girls also happened to be teaching assistants like myself but they were  stationed in Madrid. It was interesting as they were all about 26 years old and one of the girls was on her FOURTH year. Crazy. Anyway, the first night we went to an ALL YOU CAN EAT sushi bar for 10euros and for 4 more euros you could drink all you want. I wish sushi wasn't so filling cause I could've ate that for days. No sushi isn't authentic Portuguese food, but how could you turn down an all you can eat and drink sushi bar. The second night Abby and I enjoyed a classy salad and pizza meal. Again, clearly authentic Portuguese food. The last night we enjoyed some more local cuisine at the restaurant connected with our hostel. It is well-known in the area and many outsiders come from other parts of town to eat there. We celebrated our last night in Lisbon with a Pub Crawl in the well-known nightlife neighborhood of Barrio Alto. Good times.

As a whole Lisbon is a beautiful city. The Portuguesse people are very friendly and speak excellent English. It is relatively cheap to eat and stay once you pay a bit of money to get there. I would highly recommend visiting this town to anyone.

Welcome to LISBON!!!

Trolley's...reminds me of San Fran

Sweet Plaza that was all yellow

Prague or Lisbon?

 

Pena Palace

More Pena Palace

Cintra, Portugal

GIANT, RED ORNAMENT

Saturday Flea Market

So much like San Fran

A beauty

Ringing in December the right way!!

Hello friends and family...

I was fortunate enough to spend the first weekend of December in a winter wonderland I've never seen before, despite being a home grown PNW girl. My friend, Julie, from my gym invited me to come with her and some Spanish friends to Las Sierras de las Nieves. This is a mountain range literally called the Snow of the Sierras that is located in the Andalusian province of Huelva about 2 and a half hours from Sevilla. I was really excited to go hiking in these mountains and stay in a "rural casa" out in a small, white town village of the mountains. However, I was a little apprehensive about spending it with 6 Spanish adults and only knowing one of them as an acquaintance.

We had 2 drivers to transport all of us, one dog and our food to the village. Lucky for me I got to ride with Miguel, who happened to be a hilarious, "i love life" type guy yet he also happens to have a dog that rode along in the car with us. Most of you know how I feel about dogs in general but the biggest issue was that his car smelled like wet dog and dog breath...so that was fun.

As a group we stopped at the supermarket in Sevilla to buy all our food and drinks for the weekend. I thought I was going to pull my hair out. Spaniards are just too laid back sometimes. We spent 2hrs grocery shopping because we either had a large discussion about whether one or two bottle of coca cola was sufficient, how many bottles of red versus white wine to buy, how many kilos of meat we needed or not to mention the random side conversations along the way. I just bit my tongue and practiced being a patient person. We finally made it out alive and continued our journey. We were about 30mins from our destination when suddenly the road started to get rather curvy and Miguel was just flying around the turns. Julie and I in the back were feeling a little ill from the smell of dog and the curves combined...let's just say that Julie got sick but I don't think I was too far behind.

After what felt like hours of traveling and kinda second guessing my weekend, once we pulled into the driveway of this private rural casa my mind was instantly changed. It was a gorgeous, quaint two-story house that was freezing but had a great fireplace to warm the toes and the soul. The spanish group consisted of Cesar, Julie, Miguel, Auxi, Esther and Estephanie. They weren't close friends but each person had a very different personality which made the group dynamic quite entertaining, and then throw an American in there who has a hard time following the chatter, it makes for quite the weekend. We had a debate as what to make for dinner since it was so late, there's nothing more entertaining than listening to stubborn, opinionated Spaniards discuss such simple things.

We drove out the next morning to the trail head to begin our 10km hike. Right from the get go there was SNNNNOOOOOWWWWWW. I was so excited. Clearly. The further we ascended the more beautiful and snowy it became and the bigger the smile I had on my face. It's amazing how much some fresh mountain air, snow and blue skies can bring an instant warmth to my heart and help subside some home sickness. Along the way we saw some awesome frozen trees and even at one point you could see the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately I couldn't make it up the last part of the climb as I only had tennis shoes which don't provide the best traction on snow and the last thing I wanted was a pulled muscle. On our descent it was very foggy which created this very creepy atmosphere.

Before making it home that night we stopped in the center of town at a local bar for a drink. I tried the local "vino dulce" or sweet wine that tasted like liquid candy. Luckily it distracted me from my numb toes and legs. I learned another important part of the Spanish culture, they are obsessed with bread. We already had a loaf at home but we had to go all the way back to the bar to by more bread. Bread, bread, bread...you always gotta have it.  That night was made a delicious Spanish feast, huddled around the fire, drank wine and I got quite the cultural experience. I was continually amazed and admired how much each one of these single adults were just free spirits. We sat for hours in front of the fire and they smoked and drank more than I thought Spaniards did. We were all entertained by Auxi who spent most of the night enlightening us with traditional Flamenco song and dance from her native spanish village. I hit a limit with the smoking, drinking and singing and went to bed rather early to the rest of them who partied on til 3am.

Sunday fun day quickly arrived. We walked down to the village center and sat and soaked up the sun in one of the most beautiful places you could imagine. I don't really know how to put into words the views and mode of life in these small villages. It amazes me that people live here and probably the highlight of their day is when tall, blonde's come walking through the streets. I get looks like I'm from outer space.

On the car ride home the beautiful views continued with a red horizon as the sun set over this fantastic country. I wish my camera had not died. Oh well. I can't wait to go back.

View from the rural casa

Julie and I

I was trying to be the tree

Stunning...the yellow part in the background is the sun beaming off the Sea

Hello! The moutain behind me was the one I couldn't climb with my tennis shoes

:)