Portugal was quite the experience! I don't even know how to start. I guess I will start from the beginning...because that's a very good place to start.
The trip started with -The Bus Ride From Hell-. A night bus, which is already bad, but on top of that two stale beer, B.O., piss smelling drunk men sat behind us. They were emitting the sort of smell that keeps you awake. When we did manage to fall asleep, one of the men reached around Kristin's seat and grabbed her arm, she punched me in the arm to wake me up, and we didn't really sleep after that.
We were also Couch Surfing for the first time in Lisbon. When we got to our couch surfing host's home after waiting for the metro to open, we just wanted to sleep. He had a full house of Couch Surfers already so we were forced to go out and about in the city. It was a day of drowsy tourism. To put it simply-we were unhappy, tired, and didn't speak a lick of Portuguese. We had thankfully asked Ilmer (our couch surfing host) for a few words, so we felt a little better. There is something horrible about being the ignorant American tourist-which we definitely were being.
So did we end up hating Lisbon--->NO
What saved it?
ILMER!
Seriously, without couch surfing I don't think we would have liked Lisbon as much as we ended up liking it. That first night we went to a Couch Surfing dinner and met lots of great people. The next day he took us to a traditional Portuguese music performance: Fado, and after we were invited to a friends house for dinner. He cooked us two traditional Portuguese meals, and pointed us to all the right pastry shops!
We also took a day trip to Sintra. There is a castle there that the Disney castle is supposedly based off of. It was a really cool castle. It felt much more cozy than any other castle I have been in. Sintra was like a fairy tale land. It was rainy and foggy the day we were there, but the fog gave it an enchanted, magical feel. It was beautiful.
Some things I learned from this trip:
1. Do some research before showing up in a city (ok so I guess I knew that before I left, but hopefully I will actually do it now)
2. DO NOT TAKE A NIGHT BUS!
3. know some key phrases in the native language of the country you are going to before you leave
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