Lisboa!

The thing about going to a city when it rains all weekend is that it's much more difficult to get an idea of what the city is really like. You're not quite into exploring because, face it, you're going to be soaked at the end of it, like it or not. But we did get to see a decent amount of Lisboa while we were getting soaked. Downtown Lisboa is a combination of tall business-age buildings as well as older, more traditional and colorful buildings that remind me of the decor in Córdoba.

After dropping our things at the hotel in downtown Lisboa, we were bussed off to a giant plaza where the old royal palace used to stand. Unfortunately, as Portugal is basically the California of the Iberian Peninsula, there was a giant earthquake some years ago, which destroyed about 90% of the structures in the city. Rather than rebuild the city how it once was, the reigning monarch took this as an opportunity to re-do the layout of Lisboa into a more urban one. So the rubble was taken out of the plaza, and it's now a center of commerce which includes a wine-tasting room on one end and the Museo de Cerveza(Museum of Beer) on the other. Oh, Lisboa. But there's a large arch/gate where the palace used to stand, as a smaller tribute to the old palace. In front of this is a trolley stop–they have cable cars just like in San Francisco. The similarities just keep coming.

Unfortunately though, we opted to walk up the giant hill to our next destination, rather than find a way to cram roughly 60 students onto foreign public transportation. Maybe a better plan, but it definitely showed me that I really need to get back into working out…

Anyway, at the top of this giant hill was the Castillo de San Jorge. This was basically a giant compound of large buildings and things we could explore for a while, and get some photos of the amazing views. I believe this was once a defensive structure of some kind, given that it was at the highest point in the city and included very large stone walls.

After we were done climbing all over the castle, they set us loose for dinner. My friends and I managed to find this very typical Portuguese restaurant in a neighborhood called Barrio Alto, known for their restaurants. We lucked out, and had some of the best seafood we'd ever tried. I opted for salmon (always a safer option for me), but my friend got the regional delicacy–bacalao (codfish), which really wasnot bad at all. And my salmon was die-and-go-to-heaven good. We also tried vino verde (green wine), something else Portugal is known for. Finally, the restaurant had a singing show during the dinner, in a very traditional Portuguese style called fado. 

The next day we woke bright & early to go to Monasterio de los Jerónimos, a very famous monastery in the city, as well as the Torre de Belém.

The monastery was kind of cool because it had some fun details. For the most part, it was your standard catholic church–pillars, stone, altar, stained glass, cross-shaped layout… et cetera (The magic of the cathedral may be wearing off on me, which is actually really sad…).

But there were a handful of tombs in there. Some of them were for deceased kings and queens, but had stone elephants supporting the stone caskets, as opposed to the usual lions or just square bases. Apparently the elephant supports are one-of-a-kind in the world, but I didn't get a picture of them (sorry team!).

There was also a tomb of a famous writer as well as a famous explorer upon entry to the church. The explorer's tomb was decorated with the engraving of a ship, for obvious reasons.

Also, there were a few design details that were added to the church that I found interesting. A lot of the detailing on columns or arches consisted of a cable/rope design, borrowed from ships, as exploration was a big deal during the time the church was being constructed. Also, the "veins" on the support columns spread out when they hit the roof, partially because that helps distribute the weight of the stone in the roof, but also to make them look like palm trees. When you lack palm trees in your own country (those hadn't come over the ocean yet), make them out of stone!

Next, we wandered in the pouring rain to the edge of the river, to see the Torre de Belém. Belém essentially translates to "Bethlehem", and is the name of a suburb of Lisboa. This tower is part of an olden-days defensive system, and once had a partner across the river, so ships would have to move through this pinch-point on the river before they could reach the port of Lisboa.

Also, from the tower you can see another San Francisco imitation–the fake Golden Gate bridge. It was built by the same steel company that contributed to San Francisco, and is the same color. And like San Francisco, if the weather decides to literally rain on your parade, you will not get any good photos of it. So here's a photo I stole from my friend's Facebook, since it apparently didn't rain when she went a week ago. (Thanks Lauren!)

The rest of the day after these tours was free time. My friends and I went to a sushi place where I a) actually ate sushi and b) ACTUALLY LIKED IT. Which is new, in case you haven't been around my picky eating habits lately. I have a feeling part of it is that we were on the coast, and therefore I assume seafood will generally always be better than it is in Colorado (landlocked state problems). But we had a great meal where we just stuffed ourselves, because it was an all-you-can-eat deal. Why would any college student not take advantage?? The only thing was that this was the first time I've actually experienced a language barrier problem–we had an issue with our order, and our waiter didn't speak English or Spanish. I'm assuming here, but I think most of the waiters and waitresses were Asian natives who had immigrated to Portugal. Basically, picture an employee whose second language is English (in the USA), trying to speak Spanish or French to a customer. It was almost a big mess, but the table next to us saw our problem and offered their translation services since they spoke a little English–thank goodness!

We also took a taxi to Starbucks. Because we don't have overpriced, over commercialized coffee shops in Salamanca. And it was right by a plaza of town where we could do some souvenir shopping and explore the city a little bit, even in the rain.

Mmmmm Starbucks

Lisboa in the rain

Sunday, we woke up bright and early again to get back on the bus. We made two stops at some little towns on our way home, the first of which was in a town called Óbidos. The main attraction of Óbidos is that it has a giant wall–which of course we climbed. If there is a tower to be climbed and my friends Adrianna & Mila are in the group, we will absolutely be climbing it!

Óbidos

Town cemetery from above

We also got to experience something called gingja, which is an itty bitty amount of cherry liquor inside a chocolate cup. It was like a chocolate-covered cherry, but about six times better and not so overly sugary! 

Batalha has Convento de Santa María da Vitória, a church built as a tribute to Santa María after the Portuguese won an important battle against the Spanish army. Once again–stone, columns, etc. Architecture was pretty standard.

However, there were a few extras. One was a white-marble room for more graves of Portuguese monarchs (these were from around the time of Ferdinand & Isabel in Spain I believe, while the elephant-supported tombs in Lisboa are from a dynasty a few hundred years earlier).

The other was a monastery garden which houses the Portuguese Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This tomb is not as grandiose as the USA Tomb, but it is a little more interesting when it comes to design. The headstone is more detailed with carvings of saints, and is capped by a lamp which is kept lit with olive oil. The changing of the guard, however, is much simpler than the USA's version.

Oh, and we found a fountain with fishes in it. These fishes are troopers, because that water was cold too!

And that, my friends is my trip to Lisboa! We passed the rest of the bus time with some movies that were put on the movie screens, and some riddles from an app I downloaded after we got very bored on the way to Lisboa.

So here's a riddle, in case you're bored.

With thieves I consortWith the vilest, in short.I'm quite at ease in depravityYet all divines use meAnd savants can't lose me,For I am the center of gravity

Maybe I'll just start adding riddles to my blog posts.

Thanksgiving!

So here's the scoop on how I passed my foreign Thansgiving. My program (ISA) knows that all of their 80 American students are probably a little homesick, so they prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for us. We dressed up, they made turkey, we had a lovely time. The food wasn't exactly like home, but they tried really hard. For example, mashed potatoes were not really mashed… it was more like a puree. Zero lumps sir. But hey, they were potatoes! And watching both our fellow students and our ISA directors figuring out how to carve a turkey was pretty funny at times. No one lost a finger, that's why I can say it was funny. But if I couldn't be with my family, being with my Fall 3 family was a pretty decent alternative! Here's a photo of most of the people I've spent my last couple months hanging out with!!

(PS–7 of these people are from Colorado, and 5 of them go to DU. That's why when I tell people I'm from Denver, they usually respond, "Oh, another one!")

Ay de mi Alhambra! (Pomegranate City, cont.)

 I have a feeling I'm about to attach a ton of photos, so I'm just separating our Granada trip into two posts. After lunch on Saturday, we met up with ISA to go visit the Alhambra. Thus the title, that was one of the first things I read in my Spanish literature class in high school, and it stuck with me I guess?

Anyway, the Alhambra, as best I can remember, was basically the final holdout of the Arabic empire during the Catholic inquisition. It means "red castle", which our tour guide was very happy to point out that also kind of translated to "colorado" (colored red) when he found out where the majority of our group was from.

They have super cool irrigation there too. I was very happy.

Also, we kind of accidentally stalked a wedding for the first part of our tour… they were just trying to take pretty photos and we were going the same direction… towards the church at the top of the hill!

Here's a palace. It's square on the outside...

…and round on the inside!! I don't recall why. But it's a pretty sweet design, especially if you look at it from above.

And there were cats all over… we don't know why.

Ladies and gentlemen, the majority of Fall 3, the lovely people I've spent the last few months with!

So this is the sneaky way that one of the Catholic kings got his two cents in without messing up the lovely arabic decoration–the double headed eagle symbolizes Carlos V of Spain & Carlos I of Austria, I believe. Don't quote me on the exact details, but I do know he was king of both and therefore had two different titles, thus two heads. The insignia is definitely not part of the original decoration though.

Arabic detailing

Old-school wallpaper

Also, it's October and the gardens still look like this. We're not in Colorado anymore.

Alhambra from the Generalife gardens on the other side of the hill. There's the church on the left, the square/circle palace in the middle at the top of the hill, and then the buildings that start on the right side and go down the hill towards the left are a series of arabic buildings with insanely detailed decorations and really pretty gardens.

So, this is the point in the tour when my friends, for whatever reason, were insanely hyper, and when we stopped for a mini-bathroom break (this was a 3 hour tour, for the record), decided that our audio tour headsets were Secret Service headsets… Which led to all kinds of nonsense, including the group decision that our ISA advisor who was with us was now El Presidente, and our tour guide making a joke about the Chinese Mafia when an asian tour group walked by a few minutes later… I can't completely explain the utter ridiculousness combined with the hilariousness of  the whole ordeal, but I promise it was funny. 

Ok but back to history & stuff now. We finished the tour of the gardens and got back on the bus, and took a little siesta at the hotel before going out to do our usual wander-then-eat evening. We tried to find a tapas place that ISA had recommended (they give us a little info sheet whenever we go on excursion, which includes restaurant recommendations like the Mexican place we found on Friday night) but it was a magical little place that apparently doesn't exist, so the group split up–half went to instant gratification at an Italian place nearby, and Britt, Matt and I went to get tapas on a street we'd been on near the hotel. After dinner, we met up with the rest of the group and went to a tetería where people could get hookah and tea and desserts, and we just stayed and talked there for the rest of our night.

Here's a photo of the sunset I took at the end of our bus ride home on Sunday, which was pretty much all we did. Unfortunately, the girl across the row from me got carsick and threw up… twice… and that was the most eventful part of my day. Glad I grew up driving mountain roads and have an iron stomach, or we could've had a real problem.  We'll just leave it at that though, no one wants to hear about that!

But when we got home, María had dinner ready for us, and had spent some of her weekend making pastries. She made the dough and everything, and they tasted like the best cream puffs you've ever had in your life. So that made me very, very happy.