Blogs from Lisbon, Lisbon & Tagus Valley, Portugal, Europe - page 39

just got done with dinner, we came exploring down some side streets looking for fado. and we found it. i wish i could explain fado....but i can´t with any good verbs so instead i will tell you that it is very emotional, and when they sing all you can think about is the music. you forget to talk, you forget to eat, if they´re really good you forget you have a ciggarette in your hand and you are captured by their voice. we had the pleasure of listening to 3 different singers and 2 guitarists. one of the guitarists was very old and reminded me of grampy. he was incredible. there were 2 men and one woman. the woman reminded me of you sarah, she had on a red dress with these incredibly high silver heels ... read more

so in lisbon they have one of those contests where you take a cow an then decorate it whatever way you want. very funny. i remember when they did that in new york, but i forget what those cows look like. you´ll notice a picture of my favorite cow here. so we finally got laundry done...man oh man...we needed that. i guess there´s no such thing as a laundrymat where you do it yourself here. someone else has to do your clothes.....anyway we were starting to smell and had to buy new underwear and t shirts cause we hadn´t done wash since we started this trip..it was awful. it´s hotter here than i thoguth it would be and mom and i both agreed it was a good idea for us to head south first, i can ... read more

1) Portugal is definetly and defiantly not Spain. Before I arrived, I too would have been hard pressed to distinguish between Portugal and its larger Iberian cousin. Portugal does however, retain an immediate and distinct atmosphere of its own, although this atmosphere is hard to define. I suppose it seems somewhat Carribean or South American to me, although having never been to the Carribean or South America I'm not exactly an authority on the matter. But it is certainly multicultural and seems much more exotic than other european countries 2) Until I recieve conclusive evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that all portugese people can sing very well. I mean really sing. One evening in Lisbon a group of people from my hostel and myself went to watch some Fado music. Fado ... read more

Hi again. Well, we made it back from our trip safely, & not a moment too soon. While we enjoyed ourselves immensely, we also overdid it a bit, & feel like we need a holiday from our holiday this time. Portugal was great though - quite different from Greece (which is all we have to base it on at the moment). People didn't bug you every 5 seconds to eat at their restaurant or buy their market products, which made things much easier, but at the same time, hardly anyone spoke English, & none of the road signs or subway stations had an English equivalent on them to know where you were going, so it was much harder to navigate around. However, the transport systems were still effective & easily enough understood after living in a ... read more

Thats right! More from Lisbon. We visited some great stuff today. Belem Tower being one. Went to downtown Lisbon with the dad. He was pushed, he claims, to the ground by some old Portugese ladies. This is not true. My dad has a history of falling down 1-2 times every trip. IT HAPPENS. At frist i have the feeling of i hope he's okay, but that quickly passes to one of hilarity. He hurts his foot and cant keep up with a young 24 year old man. I leave him behind to visit an art show i have wanted to see the entire time we have been here. I left him in Lisbon, boarded a train to Estoril and made my way to the art exizibit. It was excellent, and the best part is that i ... read more