I Heart Lisbon

My last minute trip to Lisbon last week was a success. The overnight bus from Sevilla to Lisbon was probably the worst part. We arrived in Lisbon at 5:30 am and I could not catch my train to Sintra (about an hour outside of Lisbon) until after 7:00, and then I could not drop my bag off at the hostel until Noon and there was no where to store bags at the train station so I was a zombie for a few hours. I spent one day and night in Sintra and went to see the Moorish Castle and the palace. Both were really pretty sites and there were great views of the city. I went to Lisbon the following morning, but first went to the coast, called Azenahs do Mar. From the picture I saw, I thought it would be a nice, lively coastal town and although it was nice the town was absolutely dead so I got off the bus, took pictures, then caught the next bus back and went to Lisbon.

Azenhas do Mar

I LOVE LISBON!! I think out of all of the big European cities I have seen it is my favorite. It is really colorful, lots of hills (kind of like San Francisco), not full of tourists like Paris, Rome, etc., there is a castle which adds to the already beautiful scenery, free wine tasting, cheap, decent food, and they have their own version of The Redeemer. Who wouldn't love a city with Jesus watching down on them?

In the Castle of São Jorge


Here is a view of Lisbon with São Jorge in the background


I was lucky enough to meet some great people as well, more importantly great Brazilians which meant I did not have to speak Spanish and pretend to understand Portuguese when they were around. The Portuguese accent is so different from the Spanish accent it is crazy. I could get by reading some basic things and a few times I did understand my Brazilian amigos but overall the accent is really hard, I can't even impersonate it. But like Italian, the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese do interest me, perhaps enough to study it in the future, I guess that is if I ever get my Spanish down, haha.

Amigos

On the Granada front, it's snowing in the Sierra Nevadas right now and therefore much cooler than it has been in the two weeks. I am still lost as to what I need to do for my university classes, and my lectures this past Tuesday were extremely boring which kind of disappoints me and makes it hard to pay attention. I now know that we need to do "trabajos" for both classes so although I mentioned my teacher said I could write a paper if I want (Perhaps I misunderstood the if you want part) I think I will have to, which is fine, but I still am not sure exactly what to do. Pablo is the same as usual and Maribel and I are best friends (JK).

My housing with Paqui ends in the first week of May and it is really expensive to stay here another month, about the same it would have cost me to leave my bags here except I would actually be here, consuming. So the 600 euros it would cost did not seem worth it to me and I have already found a place to stay for May. My friend Sarah is dating this guy from Morocco and she is going to stay with him for May and I am as well. I'll be staying in the living room, but I'll have a mattress so that's all I really need.