Hostel Chaos and a hike through San Francisco?

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For our first big weekend trip, we decided to go to Portugal. This included an original group of 8 (already quite a large group) and I took on the role of logistics planner. We knew we wanted to go to Lisbon, but I had also heard from my high school Spanish teacher, Mr. Armstrong, that Algarve in the south of Spain was also very nice. So, I put together a trip that had us flying into Lisbon where would spend 2 nights and 1 day and then train down to Algarve for two days and a night on beaches and fun. Well, this sounded like such a great itinerary, that more people wanted to go, and by the time we left, we had 14 people venturing off to Portugal.

The adventure started with a delayed plane… 3 hours delayed including a gate change. This seems to define low budget travel for me. But, once we got into the air, it was is only an hour flight over to Lisbon and we landed right around sun set which looked very beautiful over the ocean. What would have been a cheap taxi (we didn’t not know they charge 2 Euros per bag when you place it in the trunk) got us to the hostel in 10 minutes. The hostel was nice and very spacious but the lady working at the front desk did not appear to have passed finance 101. She could not get the money situation straight with my deposit and what we still had to pay (although we didn’t make it that easy on her with some people paying by credit card, people paying with large bills, etc.) Thankfully we had someone from Brazil in our group who spoke Portuguese that helped get everything worked out, or else I don’t think we would have ever got checked in. Unfortunately, that was not the end of our troubles with the hostel. Read below.

Despite a rocky start getting there, we finally made it out for dinner. Lisbon is a very beautiful city at night and we enjoyed strolling around as we looked for a place to eat. We ended up strolling a little too much and soon realized a lot of places were closing down for dinner, so we quickly managed to find a restaurant that was the epitome of ‘tourist trap’, but we didn’t have any other choice (unlike Madrid, where everything is open really late, most places close around 10 or 11 in Lisbon). Portugal is really known for its seafood and Bacalhau, which are dishes made with dried and salted codfish. I decided to try the Bacalhau and concluded it was so good that I had it for dinner the next night as well!

Lisbon is also very well known for its nightlife. The nightlife is centered in two main areas, but starts in the Barrio Alto where we found three streets and a main plaza packed with people pouring out of bars and small dance clubs. It was a really fun atmosphere with everyone out drinking in the streets (felt kind of like a college block party) and the bars were really cheap. A couple of the girls really liked the 3 Euro giant mojito and the exotic Euro shot place that was about the size of a shed with two people working in there and at least 40 pushy people eager to get their shots. The guys liked the 2 Euro giant beers. We went there both nights and both nights is was packed as I think it is every night. This is also where I experienced personally my first attempted pickpocket! While standing at a very busy intersection waiting to cross, I all of a sudden got pushed from behind and as I regained my balance I felt someone reach into my back pocket. I whipped around to grab the hand, but he was already gone and I could see him running in the other direction. Luckily, I don’t keep anything in my back pockets and it was failed attempt on his part. But, it really got me cautious as I was walking around the rest of the night.

The other place that people then go to after the Barrio Alto closes around 2 is the Dock’s along the river, which is where all the big clubs can be found that have been converted from old warehouses. While we had intended to go down there at least one night to check it out, we never actually did on account of exhaustion and early morning wake up calls to catch trains. This meant also, that I didn’t get to see my friend from Santa Clara, Mari, who is studying in Lisbon and I had been planning to meet up with at the docks. It was an epic fail of communication on both our parts, but I think she will be coming to Madrid, so I will get to see her then.

So back to the hostel situation before I finish our time in Lisbon. First of all, be aware that free breakfast is very broad and as we found out, could just be a piece of toast. While eating our humble piece of toast the next morning, we were also informed by the financially incompetent lady from the night before that they had overbooked the hostel and needed us to move to another hostel down the street (apparently their Internet had been down for two days so they couldn’t see that people had double booked reservations). Anyways, I didn’t think this was such a big deal, as I was excited to negotiate a deal for a cheaper price and all but some of the others were not so thrilled and decided to sit around complaining for a half hour rather than just getting up and moving. This just reminded me of a lesson I have already learned many times before, but that some people just do not deal with change well and are inflexible as steel! But, it turned out the place they moved us to was nicer, newer and came with a much nicer manager who spoke really good English and gave us some really good suggestions and advise for the second day and night. And it ended up only costing 5 Euros (instead of 15) for the second night.

When we were out exploring the city, I kept feeling as if I was in San Francisco. First of all, they have a bridge that looks actually like the Golden Gate Bridge. Second, you climb hills to get everywhere. Third, they are famous for their historic trolleys. The day metro pass we bought was a good investment as it got us on the metro, buses, and trolley’s all of which we used as we went to see the sights. We saw and visited a lot of buildings, and other interesting places, but they are not too exciting to talk about. There are some pictures you can see.

There are two things worth noting on our sightseeing adventure though. First, while visiting the monastery, we came across a very outgoing and nice young lady from San Francisco who was traveling all of Europe for four months ‘couch surfing’ where you just sleep on other people’s couches for free. She had a slew of stories and was fun to talk to, but she also told us of a place called Pasteis de Belem where they sold the best little pastry treats for only 90 cents. So we of course had to go find this place and she was right! This delicious treat from heaven was an egg tart called Pastel de Nata and was originally from this bakery in Belem that is now a big tourist destination that is well worth the visit.

Then later that day, while enjoying the great views from the castle and admiring the sun setting over the city, I ran across a fellow SCU student. It was one of those things where we both pass each other, do a double take, and are like “do I know you?” While we didn’t ‘know’ each other, we had recognized each other from Santa Clara and got to talking about where we were studying, what we had been doing in Lisbon and so on. Her name is Kim and she is studying in Salamanca for the quarter and through our talking we also found out that her group was one of those that had double booked in our hostel and was the reason why we were asked to move! It was such a coincidence and was quite funny… We parted ways and we offered to show each other around in Salamanca and Madrid when we visited (which I took her up on the next weekend).

In all, I really enjoyed Lisbon and could have even spent one more day there. People tend to give it mixed reviews, but I would rate my experience as a very positive and fun one. We were now off to beaches and sun in the south of Portugal.

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Photos

Along River with S.F. Looking Bridge
Portugal is very well known for its seafood with lots of of fishing spots around

Comments

[deleted_56437]

I'm jealous!!!
So jealous that you got to spend more time and were able to go up Sao Jorge!