Holiday in Spain

I arrived in Spain this morning and thought I'd give a quick update about the final two days in Lisbon and the train ride here before I begin my day. Saturday I was planning on going to Sintra, but unfortunately that tour got cancelled. For some reason I woke up semi-depressed and was not sure what I was going to do with my day. Since I was planning on going to Sintra on Saturday, some of the college students I met left the morning, and the English and Swiss girls were already gone for the day I was on my own. It worked out well, I went to Sao Sebastio a different part of Lisboa where there are a lot of parks, a huge mall, and the Calouste Gulbenkian museum consisting of his art collection, a temporary Darwin Exhibit, and a modern art museum attached. I took the metro over to the area, thought it was about time I get used to public transportation. It was pretty simple getting there and Lisbon's metro is very clean and not very busy. It drops you off in the mall in Sao Sebastio, which is great, but with 20 exits possible it was tough to find where I was going. So tough in fact that I got lost walking to the museums and instead ended up at a couple different parks and by a couple different parks I mean the same park, just different ends of it (which worked out besides the rain with amazing views of the city and river). Finally after about an hour of wandering the world I broke it down on the map as to where I had to go. I made it back to the mall and got to the museums. The modern art museum was small and for the most part unnoteworthy, but cheap to see with a "student" discount. The actual Gulbenkian was real nice. I put on my ipod and just looked at art all day. By the end of my art exploration I was feeling better about myself and where I was. Since it was already 3 and I still hadn't eaten due to not knowing what time museums closed on a holiday weekend I went to the mall and ate in their food court at "Sopa." I realize I have fun with ordering food because I don't have any idea what it is I'm ordering. I pointed to a soup that a couple people in front of me got, then to a piece of quiche with Spinach and tomatoes (turned out they were weird lookin carrots), and a bottle of water and paid. I found a place to sit. The soup was fine, pretty plain, but seemed to have a slight seafood base, but no actual seafood. The quiche caught me off guard cause it was pretty cold and after hot soup it was unexpected. Finally after about the 6th switch between soup and quiche I got the temp change down. Then I got back on the metro and headed back.

I got back around 6:30, knocked on the room of the girls I knew were still there and we planned on eating dinner at 9. We went to some Italian place, it was close, one of them was sick, and it was semi-cold out. The food was pretty good, though we all forgot about the classic Portugees move of putting down bread and appetizers on the table in what would in anywhere else appear to be free, instead you eat you pay. We all some bread, but what can you do, we knew for the next night. My food was good, just some Wild mushroom risotta (they were out of what I originally ordered) and a nice cheese appetizer that I can't remember the name of right now with tomato sauce etc. Afterwards we went back to the hostel, started hangin out and then we saw a bunch of new people hanging out at the hostel. Turns out it was a bunch of University of Michigan kids. They seemed very excited to hear I was from (the state of) Michigan. All were real nice down to earth kids so we all hung out the rest of the night. Most the city was shutdown with Easter preparations the next day and we just watched a movie. Went to bed after and the next day was set to begin.

I knew I had a long day ahead of me on Sunday so no clue what I was going to do. I just had to be at the train station by 10:30 p.m to get to Madrid. I got downstairs in the morning and saw the UM kids and asked what they were up to for the day. Everyone was planning on heading to Sintra. There were a lot of us who ended up going. The girl from Switzerland, about 5 UM kids, myself and 2 girls I met in the morning from St. Johns University. We got to Sintra around 12:45, bout a 40 minute train ride outside of Lisbon. The city was full of what were presumably tourists. We started walking and heading towards the castles and palaces the city was known for. After finding a small palace first, and walking around the area we were split on what to do next. The main Castle and Palace are on mountains, we looked up and I've never seen something that seemed further away in my life. You think Everest is bad, try walking to the top of Castelo de Mouros or Palacia Pena! We got some food, the group ended up getting split up afterwards and we went our own ways. It was me, St Johns, one UM kid separated from his crew, and the Swiss. I had a lot of fun walking to the top and learning about each person. After a little more than an hour walk or swim if you consider the sweat I was drenched in we reached the castle. And then realized we needed a ticket. Instead of just going to the door to see if we could buy a ticket we asked a random tourists. They sent us to a ticket office about 10 minutes away. We were able to buy both Palace and Castle tickets from there. We met back up with the other part of the group, and then quickly got separated into our mini groups again once we reached the castle. We realized there was only one more thing to do, conquer the castle. Just like Mario, I wanted though 5,000 points to get on top of the flag pole! I kept climbing higher until we all reached the pinnacle. There were incredible views of the city, the Palace across on a totally other mountain just leading to a feeling of not again, and the look down of what could only be considered a terrifying 50,000 foot fall or like 3,000. We all took pictures, walked around and then headed to the Palace. We were told it was about 10 minutes away. We arrived to the entrance, and they were about right. The true walk, however, was about 15 more minutes of step climbing and paths to walk up the mountain to get there. We arrived at this Palace that looked pretty incredible with a multi-colored outside, awesome architecture, great statues, and more incredible views. We took some more pictures, went inside to look at the history (no pictures allowed in there) and felt relieved that we completed the journey. Afterwards we decided maybe we would take the bus down, but after a while we knew the true feeling of accomplishment wouldn't be the same without getting lost in Sintra for over an hour trying to find a way back to the train station. Random dogs popped up scaring the shit out of me, cars came flying down winding roads we were walking on with no sidewalks, and thinking we remembered walking past a certain house when we clearly did not led to an enjoyable, yet nerve racking time. It was already 6, the last train leaves at 8, we were hungry, I had to get to Madrid and we didn't know where we were. Finally though after just sticking to the belief of keep going down the mountain and we'd be golden, we saw familiar structures in the distance.

We got back to Lisboa, I was drenched in sweat still (technically still am), and relaxed for about 5 minutes. It was almost 8 so we went to eat before I left. The restaurant was okay, had some grilled sole and tomato soup. It took a long time though so by 9:15 I asked for my check separately, paid, took a picture of the table, and said my goodbyes. I headed right to the hostel to pick up my luggage and knew I could take the metro two stops down to the train station. I ran down the steps, walked to the station, knew I had little cash or the rest was in my bag I couldn't go through a the moment, but it shouldn't cost me much I thought. I got my ticket and try to scan my metro pass and look up and see crazy lines and lots of x's. Apparently the metro got shutdown for the night. I was freaked out. I had about 45 minutes still, rushed back to the hostel, asked if she could get me a cab and how much it'd be. She said it'd be about $5 euros. I had about 9 on me. I was a little terrified because being not from there I knew it was possible I'd get ripped off. After about 10 minutes the taxi showed up, I get in and immediately the total on the meter was already 5 euros from some $2.40 service charge. Didn't care to ask just hoped I had enough to make it. Luckily it only was about 7.40 in the end so I was okay for that and the metro in Madrid when I'd make it.

The train was interesting, I had a small bed on the top of a bunk type deal. There were 3 others in my room, though only 2 others seemingly were in there the whole night. I finished my book, one of the men asked to turn off the lights and I tried to get some sleep. I passed out pretty easily, which led to some crazy nightmares. I think all the movement and noises of the train really got my mind going. I dreamt of being on falling planes and of all sorts of random people. I woke up a lot, including one point where I thought my future killer was staring at me. It was pitch black and all I could see were eyes looking in my direction. In the dark, with no glasses, I couldn't tell if it was one of my normal cabin mates so I decided if I close my eyes he'd go away. About 10 minutes later I opened them and he was thankfully gone. I slept on and off for the rest of the night, but no more killers. The cabin crew woke us with 30 minutes to go and I had officially arrived in Spain.

The metro was very easy, finding the hostel when I got off was not. It took a solid 30 minutes of walking in circles to finally find Jesus y Maria, the street I was staying on. Got in, met some people who were leaving from my room and now I'm about to head off to eat, get some money, and visit the art museum open today (the others are closed on Monday).

Thanks for reading, thanks for email, have a good one, I will update soon

'BK

p.s I'll try to get a few pictures up soon if I can.