Lisbon, Madrid, and day one of class...

The last few days

(Warning: I didn't look up any spellings for this post.....)

So I have been absent since my initial post, yet I have been very busy thus far on my trip. I believe I have walked at least 30 miles in the last three days, and my legs would most likely agree with that estimate. So far I have been to Lisbon, Madrid and the Palacio Royal in Aranjuez (the one in Madrid is tomorrow).

Lisbon

Upon arrival at the Lisbon Airport at 4:00 pm local time, I had no problems finding a taxi, getting to my hotel (Turim Lisboa, very very nice..), and hitting the showers. I contacted the people I knew who were staying in Lisbon, and so the trip begins. I started out in the sailors quarters, seeing some things by myself while waiting for the 9:00 hour. During this time period I was able to find an internet cafe, and check my email. Enter first cultural challenge (Mark Sommers announced it... double dare style): where is the @ key? The answer? Alt GR, which I assume stands for Alt Greater. Since their are so many symbols, they need more than just a shift key: enter Alt Gr.

Upon checking my email, I discovered that one of the persons I was meeting with had their money stolen. That wound up just being a side note to the evening. I met at the Traveller's House hostel, and I must say I was impressed with how nice it was, perhaps I will rethink my position on staying in hostels. (Although my hotel was only $80, and it was quite nice) We had some wine and Super Bock (Portugeuse beer), and went out to eat al Ninho. A fried chorizo and sunny side up egg later (local food is interesting), we moved on to Barro Alto for some karaoke. Watching europeans sing american music is even better than americans doing it. They had so many people there, we couldn't even participate. The European Idol on the evening was the British genteleman with no hair, who sang New York, New York. Well played good sir.

About 3:30 I was headed back to the hotel, successfully staying up since arrival per my anti jet lag strategy. The next day at 11:30, I awake to the cleaning women yelling something in a language I did not speak. Jet lag gone, and one cup of coffee later I was on the streets of Lisbon. The city is quite amazing. Upon first glance I thought it was very dirty and possibly unsafe - after closer inspection (aka, I witnessed them using a FIRE hose to wash the streets at 3:30 in the morning), I found the city to be very clean, and safe (within reason, always be careful). It is just a very poor area of Europe, but people do well for themselves.

Sights: Governor's Castle, Monument of the Discoveries, St. Jeromes, Alfalma (sp?), Santa Jorge Castle, Rua Augusta, Santa Justa elevator. Without going into detail, everything was great, and within walking distance. I did have an expresso while on a trolley however... Lisbon gets an A, but only stay 2 days, because the city is not very large and be easily covered in that time.

Drinks: Super Bock = better than budweiser
Ginginza (sp?): Some almond liquor that is better than jagr and quite possibly just as strong.

The last night I was there, I took a cab to the train station. The night train was nice, dinner was good, had a nice chat with some older Americans travelling in Europe. Some Portuguese man gave me trouble for not speaking the language, but other than that it wasn't bad. I would say Portugal definitely has a high language barrier however. My new favorite saying is discuenta estudiante, which double in spanish. This saved me about 30 euros in Lisbon alone.

Madrid

First day we went on a five hour walk of the city, to SOL (city center), and plaza mayor. We also went to the suez market and had tapas. Very impressive, SUPER CLEAN city. I am enjoing my stay thus far. I have a huge apartment with 4 other guys, the 8 girls in our class have a separate apartment accross the hall. The group clicks well, so things on that front are fun. Today, as I mentioned we saw the Palacio Royal outside Madrid in Arunjuez, and had our orientation. Everything is getting settled in, and I plan on going to Barcelona courtesy of a $40 flight. That's right. $40. $80 roudtrip. We are going to Barcelona Friday afternoon, and coming back Saturday night, with a trip to Toledo on Sunday.

Those years of Spanish and the Rosetta stone are paying dividends, as I actually know quite a bit more Spanish that I realized. I read the advertisements to learn key phrases, and we have two people in our group that are fluent. Speaking Spanish is actually very fun, and they are willing to help a new speaker learn based on my experience.

This should be a catch up, i'll try to share some funny stories and more detail at a later date. However right now I need to clean up and work on my presentation on Latvia. I will be using future posts (at the end), as a journal on cultural differences, experiences, language issues, and business topics in the EU as a way to keep a journal for my class. So if you don't want to read about the EU, feel free to leave that section out.

Final note for Kristin, I have pictures of trains for Nate, including something I rode in that looks like the shriners should drive it in their next parade. I will post those later when I have more time.

Hasta Luego

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Part of trip: Europe 2009

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