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Published: October 6th 2009
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Contemplating Lisbon
Having deep thoughts at the Castelo de San Jorge. The first official ISA excursion is completed, and I have to admit, it was nice getting out of Sevilla for awhile, and though I’m starting to appreciate the benefits of going to see the sights of a place in an organized mass of people, I still prefer traveling in a smaller group. Two people is best.
Day one: After the sleepy bus ride to Portugal, where Connie and I had plenty of time to bond, we arrived at the infuriatingly luxurious hotel (just give me a bed, seriously… I’m not that hard to please and rather cheap…) and Raquel and I wandered down the street to explore what was nearby before any organized activity began. We were certainly not in the center of Lisbon, so there wasn’t much to see, though we did have the opportunity to peruse the goods at a rather eclectic street market, which was my first opportunity to practice my Portuguese. Here I digress:
Someone will certainly hate me for this, but to me, Portuguese sort of sounded like a more inebriated version of Spanish. Or perhaps that’s just what it sounded like when spoken slowly, which was generally what I experienced. It was softer,
Torre de Belem
The beautiful view from this tower overlooking the sea. too, many more s's. I’m sort of kidding about the practicing Portuguese part, I don’t actually speak a word of it (though I can add it to the list of languages in which I know how to say “thank you”), but if I spoke Spanish slowly, and they spoke Portuguese slowly, we could generally understand one another. Fantastic! Also, I forgot: I do know how to say "orange," because the juice I drink in the morning has four different languages on the packaging. Laranja!
Then we headed back to the hotel for our first mass tourist experience: a visit to the Castelo de San Jorge, which was quite lovely. I took the tour in Spanish, and I’m not much for remembering history, anyway, so I mostly just enjoyed the gorgeous views and beautiful weather. However, according to Virtourist.com, The Castle was constructed over the Roman ruins in 1147 and was the royal family’s palace from the 14th to the 16th century. How interesting!
I’m sure there was some more talking and wandering, we saw some interesting neighborhoods, and then the rest of the evening was free time, which we took up by wandering the streets in search of
Seeing in Sintra
Kate photographing the charming town! an authentic, convenient, not-too-touristy restaurant. It’s an art, I’m telling you.
Warning signs of an over-priced restaurant that caters to tourists:
-Excessive use of English
-Excessive use of the words "authentic" or "traditional" (There are also things specific to each country or area. In Spain, it's generally signs that say "we have tapas!" or "we have sangria!" ...almost everywhere has tapas, and as I've previously mentioned, Spaniards don't really drink sangria. Though I do... but I'm not Spanish.)
-Someone shoving a menu in your face as you walk by, listing out loud the food and prices.
Our guides actually recommended we head down a street lined with restaurants full of these characteristics, and, upon escaping, we slipped down a side street and planted ourselves in a rather modest establishment with a non-English speaking waitstaff and a fantastic meal, complete with Vinho Verde, a sweet, white, sparkly Portuguese wine. My new favorite!
The next day was full of more obligatory sightseeing on a bus, which is probably the only benefit I see to being in a tour group on shorter trips. Instead of spending time and money searching for the "must-see" landmarks and buildings, we got driven to each one, and were provided with a short synopsis of what we were seeing. Though as I've previously mentioned, I'm not so great at retaining these synopses, or even what the name of the places were called. But that's what the internet is for, right? So apparently, the things I was taking pictures of were:
Mosteiro dos Jerónimos- a 15th century monastery with a gorgeous cloister
and
Torre de Belum- A tower overlooking the sea built in 1515-1521 to protect the seaward entrance of the city
Following this, a satisfactory lunch, and then what? The little paper guide that ISA gave us had "Sintra" listed, without really much explanation, except to say that "Salir a ver el mundo y no pasar por Sintra es ir ciego." To go to see the world and not pass through Sintra is to go blind!? Well, we certainly can't have that! And so, we did exactly what the sheet told us to, and found the particular metro stop where we thought this Sintra was located. Being led to believe by the sheet that we were looking for some sort of castle, and not seeing anything obvious, we asked around. After a few good laughs at our expense, we discovered that Sintra was... not in Lisbon? Turns out, Sintra is the name of a town 40 minutes by train outside of Lisbon. "Alright!" my reaction was, "So where's the train station?"
Unfortunately, it was not the reaction of my fellow group members Brandon, Connie, Kate, and Chris. And so, I was making the decision to either let the idea go, or go with the idea myself, when Kate gave in and decided to go with me. Thus began our adventure to Sintra, which turned out to be my favorite part of the whole weekend.
We got to Sintra too late to actually get into anything (i.e. the breath-taking Moorish castle or the National Palace that was at one time the summer home of Portuguese royalty- please note that these things I remembered myself, probably because I wasn't just passively observing) but we still enjoyed observing a different part of Portugal. After briefly helping the woman at the tourist booth with her English homework (hilarious) we wandered through the charming town and up a charming hill, saw the charming palace and charming castle, and took in the charming vistas. It was a fascinating mix of charmed (of course) visitors and bemused locals, and we got yelled at obnoxiously several times on our way up a particularly windy, narrow road. What they were saying was incomprehensible, at least to my ear, though I did hear a few barks. My theory is that they were just trying to be irritating to a couple obvious tourists, as we had our cameras glued to our hands and were taking pictures of everything in sight, but it has been suggested that, since the yellers were decidedly of the male persuasion, the bark is the Portuguese equivalent of a "cat call" or a "wolf whistle," if you will. Something to look into, I suppose. At dinner time we located a rather hidden, deserted restaurant, polished off some more vinho verde, and headed back to Lisbon for a Portuguese pastry and an French encounter with a strange Italian man. "I am not Italian!" he repeatedly articulated in French, and after my reluctant inquiries of "Okay, where are you from?" he proudly announced, "Italy!"
We took our last taxi ride back to the hotel before heading back the next day, with a shameless driver who belted out Portuguese tunes the whole way there. Taxi drivers can be quite the characters, and indeed I heard one story of a driver who demonstrated the slight rivalry between Portugal and Spain that I heard talk of but never witnessed. I have no basis of this claim but for a bit of anecdotal evidence. "Do you know why we call Spain our brother?" he apparently asked. "Because you can choose your friends!"
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