And Now On To Spain

After one uneventful evening in Tangier, Alissa and I headed over to Spain.  We didn't have any accommodation booked for two nights in between Morocco and Spain because we wanted to be flexible.  We decided to go to Sevilla for two nights, which turned out to be a fantastic choice.  We caught the bus and arrived in the gorgeous city.  We found a place to stay pretty easily, which was nice.  After settling in, we went down the street for some dinner which was salad and tapas.  I tried a yummy dark Spanish beer, and we just sat at our table on the sidewalk and relaxed.  The next morning we found a place to do laundry so we had to wait around for that.  Then I wanted to find the palace, which turned out to be pretty close to where we were staying.  On our way, we walked through the university, which was very nice.  The palace was great, it had some Arabic influences because Sevilla is in the southern part of Spain.  We also went to the old cathedral that was next to the palace.  In the afternoon, we stopped at a sidewalk cafe for lunch and people watching, before doing some shopping.  Sevilla is really a beautiful city, quite clean and some beautiful buildings.  We had some ice cream in the afternoon as well which was delicious.  We headed to our hotel to freshen up before heading out to find dinner.  Again, we wandered around for a bit in the evening before settling on a place in front of the university.  We had a pretty early night and left in the morning for Granada.

Granada was on my top of list of things to see in Spain.  I was so excited to see the city that still had so much influence from Morocco and northern Africa.  We got to our hostel in the afternoon, and thankfully a girl who worked there saw us on the street and showed us the way, otherwise it would have been complicated to find (like EVERY other place on our trip!)  The hostel was an old Riad like we had stayed in Morocco, and it was very nice.  They were making a dinner that night for around 5 euros, so we headed out for a quick bite to eat in the afternoon because we decided to eat in our hostel for dinner.  We again found a sidewalk cafe to sit for a couple hours in the afternoon.  Our hostel had a bar in it as well, so before dinner we sat in there and talked and had a beer.  For dinner we had paella and an avocado/tomato salad, all of which was really good.  The following day we went to the bus station first thing because we decided to take the overnight bus to Valencia, that way we would save a night's worth of accommodation.  After we bought our tickets, we headed to the Alhambra.  It was quite a steep climb, and there were a ton of people there.  It was quite impressive however, the place was huge.  Again, there were Arabic influences in the buildings which were amazing, however we had just come from Morocco, so were kind of over that type of architecture.  I think I would have appreciated it much more if I had gone at the beginning of our trip, or at some other time.  That is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, but that I wasn't as over-awed as I might have been at a different time.  The Alhambra was started in the 9th century by the Moorish Nasrid Sultans, and was taken over in the 15th century by the Christians and slightly altered and added to.  After a quick dinner out, we headed back to our hostel to wait until our bus left at 11:30pm.

Taking an overnight bus sounded like an excellent idea.  We had to pay to take the bus anyway, so why not get our money back from our hostel in Granada for the second night?  It takes at least six hours to get from Granada to Valencia, so we thought we would get a decent amount of sleep.  Ha ha!  It was the worst bus ride ever!  We had to sit in assigned seats, and the guy behind me smelled like smoke which was awful.  Not to mention, we stopped every HOUR.  Some of the busses we had been on, didn't have many stops, so we thought since it was an overnight bus, there would be minimal stopping.  So wrong.  I think we stopped the most on that bus than any other form of transportation our entire trip.  The bus driver was pretty fast, which meant we were thrown all over the place also.  It really sucked.  We arrived in Valencia a little before 7 in the morning, and headed off to find our hostel.  The sun wasn't even up yet.  The guy at our hostel wasn't very friendly.  We knew we couldn't check in until the afternoon, but knew we could leave our backpacks there for the day.  He didn't even offer to let us rest for a bit or use the toilet.  So we walked down the street to sit in front of the Starbucks until it opened.  Finally, we went in and grabbed a drink and something to eat.  We decided to go to the cathedral because it was close and we new it would be open early.  Upon entering the cathedral, I basically lost it.  I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was end my trip and go home.  I had no sleep, and I was tired of travelling every couple of days and staying in hostels.  I literally couldn't function I was so tired.  I was like a zombie for five minutes in the cathedral before I told Alissa that I was going to go back to the hostel and beg for them to let me rest in the common room.  I was miserable.  Poor Alissa, I wasn't the best travel companion at that point!  When we got to the hostel, two girls were there who were much nicer than the previous guy.  We went up to the common room, and I took a nap on the couch for a couple hours.  

In the afternoon when I felt like a normal human being, we decided to go back to the cathedral because it was really beautiful and worth really admiring.  A lot of it was re-done in the Baroque style, which is not something I have seen too much of, especially in England.  There were some really beautiful relics and pieces of church art.  There was a withered arm from a saint that was good times.  Also, the cathedral in Valencia has a holy grail.  In fact, it is the only holy grail that has been approved by the Vatican, so its kind of a big deal.  

After enjoying the cathedral, we grabbed some ice cream and went exploring.  We found a contemporary art museum, and spent the rest of the afternoon there.  There were lots of really cool exhibits, and it was free!  For dinner, we decided to get tapas, so we headed back to the hostel to shower and freshen up.  One of the girls in our room was travelling alone, and she was really nice so we invited her to dinner with us.  There was a restaurant near us that had really cheap tapas.  It is self-serve, so the tapas are set up at the bar, and you go grab the ones you want.  Each tapas has a toothpick holding it together, and you are charged by the number of toothpicks left on your plate!  The restaurant was in one of our guidebooks, and a lot of locals were there.  We ordered a bottle of wine and experimented with the cuisine.  They were really good, and for a euro fifty each, well worth it!  I also ordered a cheese platter because I had been craving some Spanish cheese.  After dinner, we went and had a beer at a bar nearby.  

The following day was reserved for the beach.  We invited our new friend Beth to come with us.  It was pretty nice out, a little bit chilly, but nothing was going to spoil our beach day.  We set up camp and hankered down to spend the day.  About mid-day, we went and had sandwiches for lunch before setting up our stuff at another part of the beach.  We saw a few topless women, which was interesting.  Like an idiot, I didn't put sunscreen on my legs, and since it wasn't very hot out I didn't think it was a big deal.  I meant to put some on at some point, but forgot.  So I ended up burning the crap out of my legs.  They were some serious lobster legs.  They were swollen and a bit painful.  After an interesting shower, Beth, Alissa and I went to go eat paella.  Valencia is the birthplace of paella, so we had to eat it there!  We found a restaurant with tables outside which was lovely.  I picked out a bottle of wine, which I thought was red, but turned out to be rose.  It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't really good either.  We ordered a couple of delicious appetizers and shared Valencian paella.  Valencian paella has rabbit and chicken in it.  The rabbit was not very good.  But at least we tried it, and now we can say that we had real Valencian paella in Valencia!  After dinner we headed back to the hostel to meet up with a couple other girls from our room, and we drank sangria.  Cat and Rachel found box sangria at the store for one euro fifty, so that's what we were drinking!  Again, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't very good either.  Luckily, the girls had bought some sun cream that day, so I lathered up my legs which relived them a bit.  We turned in kind of early because we were all leaving the next day.  In the morning, the five of us went to grab a bite to eat before going in our respective directions.  It was nice to meet such friendly girls.  Alissa and I were off to Barcelona!

Part Three

After our lovely two days spent in Marrakech, we headed to Morocco's capital of Rabat.  We had to take the city bus to the train station in Marrakech, and it wasn't pleasant.  It was hot, and very overcrowded.  Alissa and I had to stand with our giant packs on, and the sweat was dripping.  Luckily, a nice woman and a nice man told us when we arrived at the train station, otherwise we would have had no idea!  We got to the train station and bought our tickets, and then decided to use the toilet before hitting up the train.  The toilet at the train station consisted of a hole in the ground, and you could 'flush' away your business with water that went everywhere.  Fun times.  To get to the train, we had to walk on the tracks.  The train had enclosed cars that sat eight people at most.  We had a mother and her cute toddler and a couple other ladies in our car.  The ride itself wasn't too bad, although there was very little airflow.  The little boy was super cute and well behaved, so he was good entertainment.  When we got to Rabat, we asked the direction we were supposed to go, and headed that way.  Yet again, we were lost and didn't know who to ask for help.  We wandered around for a bit, before finally seeking a taxi.  The first taxi driver we asked drove off because he had no idea where our hotel was.  The second driver called a colleague and asked, and managed to get us there.  Our hotel wasn't too bad.  At least we had our own room and bathroom, and even a balcony!

Rabat is like a modern European city.  Most of the city is relatively new, and that was where we were staying.  After checking in, we once again headed for some dinner, this time pizzas and salad.  We found a convenience store on the way back and grabbed some snacks to watch tv with.  They had a channel that showed American movies, so we watched that mostly, however the music video channel was awesome.  

The next day, we headed off in search of the Medina.  We ended up going the wrong way (of course) but got directions from a nice man.  Turns out, there are two train stations in Rabat, and the one we found the second day was MUCH closer to our hotel, the first one was on the edge of the city.  Good to know.  Anyway, we ended up picking up a new friend, Tarik.  He started talking to us on the street, and at first we tried to ignore him, but then we started talking to him and he was really nice.  He happens to be a tour guide in Marrakech, but was in Rabat visiting family for his birthday that day.  He offered to take us to the Medina and the beach.  The Medina in Rabat is smaller than in Marrakech, and less impressive.  The Medina is situated on the coast, and when we got there we waved to all our loved ones across the ocean!  

Tarik then took us to see the Hassaan Tower and the mausoleum of Muhammed V.  The Hassaan Tower was never completed for some reason.  It turns out, there are three minarets that were made at the same time, I think around the 12th or 13th century:  the Koutoubia Minaret in Marrakech, the Hassaan Tower in Rabat, and one in Sevilla, Spain.  Our plan was to see all three.  The mausoleum was built by the current king's grandfather, and was quite nice.  The grandfather, father and eventually the son will all be buried in that mausoleum.  Tarik was really nice and knowledgeable.  He had to leave to go to his birthday party, and we needed lunch, but we planned to meet up later.  

Alissa and I found a place for lunch that had paninis and fries, and coke in Arabic!  We then went in search for the archeaological museum.  We found it pretty easily.  It was pretty small, and very different from most western museums.  The curator was a nice man who tried to explain a lot of stuff to us in French, and I was so proud that I understood most of it!  Most of the artifacts are from Volubilus, an ancient Roman town, which is outside of the Moroccan city of Meknes.  We then stumbled upon an art museum, which made Alissa very happy.  It was a nice afternoon.

Then we relaxed at our hotel for a bit before meeting up with Tarik and his friend Youssef.  They took us to a cafe, and I tried what I call 'avocado milk.'  Its this popular think in Morocco made from avocados, and it looks kind of like milkshake, but it doesn't have ice cream and its not really cold.  It was good, it tasted just like avocado!  I also had chocolate cake.  We then went in search of traditional Moroccan soup, which the boys told us was really good, and different from soup we were used to.  The place they wanted to take us was closed, so we walked around for quite awhile, but finally found a place outside the Medina.  Tables were set up on the sidewalk, and we had soup!  It was good, kind of like a stew, although mine had some mystery meat in it that I gave to Youssef.  We then wandered back to the hotel and said goodbye to our new friends.  It was a nice evening.  

The following day, we headed to Fez.  

Fez:

Train ride from HELL!  I am not joking, it was horrible.  They sell more tickets than seats, so we were fortunate enough to not get a seat at first.  We stood for about half an hour, then one seat opened up.  Alissa sat, and I stood next to her.  Oh, I don't want to forget to mention that it was sweltering in there, and we had the pleasantness of smelling the toilet pretty much the entire time.  So I'm standing, and all of a sudden, a giant bag falls onto my head, falls on Alissa's head, and the head of the guy behind her.  Not cool.  Eventually a seat opened up a couple aisles away from Alissa, and I took it.  I closed my eyes and plugged my ipod in because I was feeling slightly motion sick.  Poor Alissa spent the entire train trying not to be sick, and she did it!  It was the WORST ever!

Although, we did meet a very nice gentleman who is a professor at the university in Fez, and his wife works at the tourist office.  His family happened to own the Riad we were supposed to stay at, but he recommended we stay at another one that his family owned because it was nicer.  He called his wife and arranged for a tour guide to meet us at the train station to take us to our Riad then show us around the next day.  

We ended up staying at the Riad that the man recommended, and it was fabulous!  It was really pretty and very nice.  In fact, Bono had rented it out the entire place before on his vacation, there was a big picture of him with the owner hanging up.  Our room was quite nice, and we had satellite tv.  We had a large bathroom, and a glorious bathtub that I utilized both nights.  Robes were included!  

Our tour guide Abdul took us to find a restaurant after we settled in.  It was still pretty early, so he took us to a place that wasn't open yet, but they opened it for us.  We had a full three course meal.  The salad course consisted of around 12 different salads that were quite tasty.  I had another lemon-chicken tagine, while Alissa had couscous.  Our dessert was fresh fruit, mint tea and biscuits.  One of the guys who worked there took us up to the roof to have a view of the city.  He also had a fez and robe that we tried on and took pictures of.  Abdul then led us back to our Riad where we each had a bath and perused the tv channels.  I found one that had news in English, but there were a lot of Arabic porn channels which was a bit odd.  

The next day, Abdul picked us up after our delicious breakfast of baguettes, coffee cake, crepes, yogurt, eggs, orange juice, and coffee/tea.  We were a little spoiled ; )  After wandering the first day in Marrakech, we decided it would be a good idea to get a guide in Fez because it is more confusing than Marrakech, and it isn't very expensive.  Fez was declared a World Heritage Site because of the way of life in the souks that has continued pretty much the same for almost 1,000 years.  So a lot of the buildings are having work done to preserve them.  Abdul took us to the tanneries which were very impressive.  It was amazing watching them work.  The smell wasn't the most pleasant thing, but it wasn't too bad, and it was truly fascinating.  We went into a shop and went upstairs to a viewing area overlooking the tanneries, and had a man explain the process to us.  There are many different vats that have different purposes.  First, they place the leather in a mixture of lye and pigeon poop to remove the hair and most of the fat.  The leather stays in there a few days, then it is taken to a giant water wheel where it is rinsed.  Then the leather is placed in whichever vat the color will be, red, brown, yellow, blue and green.  The leather stays in these pools a couple days, and the excess fat is scraped off.  Then the leather is dried and turned into purses, belts, bags, etc.  Fascinating.  

I asked Abdul to take us to an apothecary because I was having an allergic reaction on my hand so I wanted to get some oil or something.  We had walked by one that had an old crazy looking man in it with dead birds hanging and jars full of weird stuff.  I was hoping he would take us somewhere like that, but he ended up taking us to a pretty non-descript one.  I did get some oil for my hand, which helped.  

After our adventurous day with Abdul, we went back and sat next to the pool which was outside our room.  We decided to have dinner in our Riad that night, so we just relaxed beforehand.  For dinner, we had another full three course meal.  Salads, once again around 12, the specialty of Fez called pastille which is pastry filled with almonds, cinnamon, pheasant and spices, a tagine of beef and eggplant, and for dessert fresh fruit, mint tea and biscuits.  I tried a beer from Tangier that was nice.  The pastille was different, a little dry, but good.  

The next day we took the train to Tangier before taking the ferry to Spain!  We stayed one night in Tangier in a pretty nice Riad.  The train ride there was better than the one to Fez, but longer.  Tangier was not the nicest place ever.  We were offered drugs around four times between the restaurant for dinner and hotel which was no more than a ten minute walk.  We decided to go ahead and leave for Spain the following morning, rather than staying an extra day in Tangier.  The ferry was about an hour to Tarifa, and we were back in western Europe!

Its About Time: Part Two

The girls (Leah, Amy and Amy) left the following morning from London.  It was sad to see our travel companions go, but Alissa and I still had two more full weeks of vacation ahead of us!  The night before we flew to Marrakech, we stayed with Alissa's friend who lives in Clapham Junction, a suburb of London.  We decided to take a taxi from the train station  because we didn't feel like walking a mile uphill with all of our stuff in the cold English weather.  Unfortunately for us, we gave the taxi driver the wrong address initially, so he started taking us back to London.  Once we realized something wasn't right, we told the guy, and he seemed a little annoyed that we gave him the wrong address because we had to totally turn around.  So we pull up to a street and asks us the number.  Come to find out, this time HE got it wrong, so we had to turn around again!  When we finally got to the house, a 5 minute, 5 pound cab ride turned into half an hour at least and over 30 pounds!!!  All I could do was laugh, or else I would cry.  We met Alissa's friend's roommate, Dave who invited us to go to the pub with him to watch the football game.  It was Easter Sunday, so everything was closed but the pubs, so we joined him.  He and his friends were quite nice, and we ended up drinking quite a bit.  We went to a few different pubs, and by 8 o'clock I was sooo drunk and hungry it was ridiculous.  Not one of my prouder moments.  So Alissa's boyfriend met up with us because he happened to be in London too, so the three of us went to dinner.  I inhaled my pasta, and went back to the house to give them some privacy and finish our laundry.  They had a washer but no drier, and we figured surely our clothes would be dry by morning.  I literally got home a little after nine, and was still quite tipsy.  I was drinking water like nobody's business.  I laid our clothes out to dry.  We had to get up at five in the morning, and when we did, I was not feeling so good, and ALL of my clothes were soaked.  I decided to wash everything because we didn't know when we would get the chance again.  Keep in mind, it had snowed the two days before in London, so it was chilly.  Well, since all my clothes were wet, including the two pairs of trousers I had packed, I had to borrow some shorts and a shirt from Alissa.  She is not a big girl by any means, but she is quite a bit taller than me, and I am pretty petite.  I looked like a crazy person in summer clothes too big for me walking to the train station.  Then, we got on the to the airport, and I thought I was going to puke.  It took everything I had to hold it together.  Again, not one of my prouder moments.  But we made it alright, and had enough time to grab a few snacks for the plane.  The flight to Marrakech was not long at all, and before we knew it, we were in Morocco!

Marrakech:

First off, it was AMAZING, and I really encourage everyone to visit.  It was desert, which I have been missing terribly in cloudy ol' England.  We got on a shuttle bus which took us straight to the Medina.  We saw camels and many people riding scooters on the way there.  Our hostel had given us directions, so we assumed that it would be easy to find.  Well, the Medina was quite overwhelming, and Morocco is an Arabic Muslim society which is quite different from our usual lives.  Barely anyone spoke English, mostly Arabic, French and maybe a little German or Spanish.  We wandered around for at least an hour basically clueless and overwhelmed.  Finally, we decided to stop for lunch because we figured we would be in a better frame of mind with a full belly.  An English couple sat next to us, so we asked them for directions, and they pointed to where they thought we should go, which turned our right.  For lunch we shared a lemon-chicken tagine and mixed salads.  They were delicious.  After lunch and another half hour search through the souks, we found our hostel, which is actually a Riad.  (Riads are big houses that are owned by large, wealthy families.  The new trend is to turn these into guest houses).  It was seriously down some tiny, dark streets, with no markings or signs, it is amazing we found it!  It was the most awesome place I have ever stayed.  There was a center courtyard, a rooftop terrace to relax, a restaurant/eating area and the first night it was just us in our room.  The breakfast was included, and it was fresh orange juice, baguettes with fresh jam, crepes and coffee.  And it was cheap!  We were so blown away by our Riad.  

The Moroccan currency is the dirham and I think its around ten to one to the euro.  Anyway, things are really cheap, but they cost a lot of dirhams, if that makes sense.  So we didn't initially pull out enough money to pay for our Riad, but they let us check in anyway.  Once we put our stuff away and toured the Riad, we headed out to get some more money and tour the Medina.  It was still quite early.  In the big square, there were street vendors set up selling fresh orange juice (which is amazing, it is just squeezed oranges, but tastes like the best thing ever), dried fruit and nuts, and of course henna artists, snake charmers and other various entertainers and goods.  Alissa and I stopped and bought some cashews, burnt peanuts and dried apricots.  We then just walked around gazing at everything.  We stopped to watch some snake charmers.  And of course, suffered the ultimate tourist trap (which of course we were bound to do at least once).  A charmer came up behind Alissa and put a snake around her neck.  He said he was blessing her with his snake (seriously, no pun intended), and by doing so, she kissed the snake on the head, then he kissed it, then he touched it to her forehead.  He of course told me to take a picture of them, and of course I wasn't going to say no.  Then an older charmer came up, and put his snake on me.  He didn't speak any English.  The first guy put his snake on me too, and asked Alissa to take pictures.  Then they demanded money, and wanted 200 dirhams, which equals 20 euros, because I had been doubly blessed.  I only had 15 dirhams, since we were on our way to the bank, and he said he would take pounds or dollars, because he knew I was rich.  Alissa gave the old charmer an apricot because he put his hand out for money, and she didn't have any.  He took it.  The other guy however, was getting pretty irate, and it was making me very uncomfortable.  He said 15 dirham was nothing (its the equivalent of 1.50 euro).  But I wasn't going to give him anything more for just taking a picture.  Anyway, in the end he took it unhappily, and I felt very uncomfortable.  Lesson learned, but we got awesome pictures! : )

We finally got some cash, and continued to wander around.  We grabbed some ice cream, and had some small children come beg from us, one of which simply hid his ice cream behind his back to make it look like he had nothing.  

We had dinner at the same restaurant that we had lunch, on the rooftop terrace.  I had a lamb tagine and Alissa had couscous.  We also had dessert, homemade yogurt, which was again, the best thing I have ever put in my mouth, and traditional Moroccan pastries.  At night, the big square puts up food stalls for dinner, and we wandered through that.  We saw some goat heads and brains.  When we went back to the Riad, it was pitch black in the streets we had to take to get there.  It was scary, and probably not the safest thing ever.  However, the girl at the Riad had assured us beforehand that it was perfectly safe, and it turned out to be, if not a little scary.  We lounged in the couches in our Riad reading most of the night, and it was great.  I didn't want to leave those couches the entire time we were in Marrakech.  

The next day we went in search of some historical sites.  We first found the Saadian Tombs, which had been built in the sixteenth century, outside the Medina.  The royal family had been buried here.  They had been walled up by the king who followed the king who built them, and weren't discovered until the early twentieth century.  They were quite impressive.

We then stopped for lunch at a fancy rooftop terrace, I had chicken kebabs, and Alissa had a chicken curry.  They were quite good.  After lunch, we sought out the two palaces in Marrakech, the first was the El Badi Palace.  It was built by the same man who built the Saadian Tombs, and was subsequently destroyed by the same king who walled up the tombs.  Even though it is in ruins, it is magnificent.  You can tell that in the past it would have been truly impressive.  After that we went to the Bahia Palace nearby that was built by the chief Vizier in the nineteenth century.  It was covered in beautiful tile, it had lush gardens, and of course a harem.  It was quite impressive as well, and we were overawed by everything that day.  

That evening, we relaxed on the rooftop for awhile before having dinner in our Riad with traditional musicians.  The food was delicious yet again, I think I ate better in Morocco than any other time or place in my life!  When we arrived, they served us fresh grapefruit juice with a sugar rim.  For dinner, they made a chicken tagine, couscous, a salad, a vegetable tagine and bread.  After dinner they served the traditional mint tea that was sweet, but good.  The musicians were very good, and got us to dance.  We tried a Moroccan red wine that was tasty.  It was a really nice evening, and so nice that it was right in our Riad!  

The morning we left, we did some quick shopping, but I didn't get anything because I thought we had plenty of time to do so while we were in Morocco.  Alissa got a nice bag and earrings.  I wanted shoes and some sort of jewelry, which I never got because it turns out we didn't have another chance!  I really enjoyed Marrakech.  The people were super friendly once we got over being intimidated.  After the first day, we figured out how to get around and bargain for things, making us feel much better.  I want to go back!

Its About Time: Part One

So I figured since I have been home for a month and a half that it was about time for me to update my blog on my amazing Spring trip, and my life in general lately.  I have had enough time to get back into the routine and absorb what's been going on for the last couple months.  So here goes!

London: 

Alissa and I took the train down to London to spend the night there with her sister Leah, and her friends, both Amy's, before heading down to Portugal.  The girls flew from Baltimore, and were already at our hostel when we arrived.  It was a sweet reunion for Alissa and Leah, and made me miss my sister!  Poor Leah's luggage did not arrive with them, so we headed out to get her a few essentials and some lunch/beers since it was St. Patrick's day.  We had a lovely afternoon eating, drinking and seeing some sights.  We walked to the River Thames, contemplated going on the London Eye, but then decided not too, and headed over to the Tower of London.  We didn't go in there either, but it was okay.  I haven't mentioned that the weather was CRAP, cold, windy and rainy, not at all good times.  But we were all so happy to be on vacation and with each other, that it didn't matter.  We had dinner then hit a pub for a couple Guinness' before turning in.  The next day, we flew to Lisbon!

Lisbon:

Our first night in Lisbon was pretty good.  We arrived at our hostel, only to find out that they didn't have a record of our reservation, so they had to find us somewhere else to stay.  We ended up at a hotel that was probably less nice than the hostel would have been, but we were only there for one night, so it wasn't a big deal.  Alissa and Leah headed out to get us sandwiches for dinner while the Amy's and I took showers.  We then headed out on the town to experience Lisbon's night life.  Our first stop, Amy M. and I shared a bottle of red Portuguese wine that was delicious.  After that we found a lively bar playing loud  Latin music which was pretty fun.  Of course, we all had some admirers, which was funny.  A Brazilian capoeira instructor who was living in Belgium told me that 'For me you are the best here because you are blonde.'  It was flattering, however one dance was enough for me!  

In the morning, we headed to the bus station to make a day trip to Evora before heading to the beach in the south of Portugal.  In Evora, there was a chapel of bones that I was REALLY excited about, which is why we took the little detour.  Come to find out, we get to Evora, trek all of our stuff around the cute little town, only to arrive at the chapel and it was closed for siesta!  So pissed because there was only one bus leaving to go to the south, which meant that we saw no bones.  : (  Very sad, but we did go see the temple to Diana there which is one of the oldest Roman ruins in the area, situated at the highest point of the town.  The town was really cute, as I said, with lots of yellow on the buildings.  Did I mention it was raining that day?  

Quartiera:

We hopped the bus to our destination down south.  I had booked our hotel that was a resort on the beach.  When I did the hotel search, I was looking for hotels in Taviera.  So that is where I assumed the hotel was.  Upon further inspection of our accomodation print out, it turns out that our hotel was situated in Quartiera.   We had no idea if that was close to Taviera, because that is where we bought our bus was going.  A little tension was brewing, increased by our lack of understanding of the Portuguese language, but it turned out the bus stopped right at Quartiera, and our hotel was right across the street!  What luck.  So we lugged our stuff across the street, checked into our pretty decent rooms, and headed out for dinner.  We were recommended a restaurant nearby, and we all ordered steaks.  They were delicious, and at the end of our meal, they gave us a free glass of port!  I had never had port before, and it was quite tasty, if a bit sweet.  We then headed back to our hotel which had a rockin' gathering of retired folk playing a game similar to bingo.  They all seemed to be from England, as the south of Portugal is a popular destination for Europeans to go to the beach.  

The next day it was cloudy intermittently, which kind of sucked.  Regardless, we headed to the beach for some relaxation.  It was a bit chilly at times, and finally around lunch time we sought out some food.  We ate at a beach front restaurant that was quite good.  We consumed a few Belgian beers and relaxed for a few hours.  A few of us headed to the beach for an attempt at more sun, while a couple others took a nap.  

For dinner, we wanted seafood, so we found a restaurant owned by a couple, the wife was from I think the Netherlands and the husband was Portuguese.  We had some more yummy wine too.  Alissa and I decided to share our dishes, so we ordered cod and chicken.  The portions were HUGE, we should have shared one dish, accompanied by the fact that neither one of us liked the food.  The chicken had a really strong cheese sauce that really overwhelmed the dish.  It also looked like one of the breasts wasn't all the way cooked.  The cod was cooked in butter, which again totally overwhelmed the dish.  So we took little bites to be polite, but weren't really satisfied.  In fact, we both felt like scraping our tongues afterwards!  We did order dessert which we all shared that was delicious, and we inhaled it.  We then found a bar near our hotel that had 'karaoke' which we were really excited about.  We went in and ordered our drinks, and were surrounded by a handful of lurking men.  Turns out karaoke in Portugal means one guy brings his equipment, and plays some sort of weird instrument and sings.  No one else sings, and you can't request songs.  It was a little weird.  

The following morning was much nicer weather-wise, so we headed to the beach to get some sun before taking the bus back to Lisbon.  

Our second night in Lisbon was fantastic.  Our hostel was owned by the nicest family ever, and it was really nice!  We had dinner in town and then went for drinks.  We found one place that had some good sangria, but I could only have one glass because it was so sweet.  We met a few new friends here and there, mostly fellow travellers like ourselves.  

Lisbon was beautiful.  I preffered Lisbon to the Algarve (the south of Portugal) because it seemed to have a bit more culture.  The south was like any other beach town anywhere, it was nice, but you didn't really feel like you were necessarily in Portugal.  Lisbon had so many neat buildings, tile everywhere, and it was super hilly which made it interesting.  It is also on the coast, so it is a port town. Sidewalks and streets were tiled, it was beautiful.  The buildings were all different colors, pastels mostly.  The language was neat, it sounded like a mixture between German, Russian and Spanish.  Our word for the trip was 'obregada' which means 'thank you.'  

The day we left, we had the morning to site see in Lisbon.  We went to Geronimo's monastery, which was AMAZING.  It didn't look like any other old religious building in other parts of Europe, especially England.  We took a cheesy little train ride around some sites which was fun.  We tried some traditional Portuguese pastries which were tasty.  We had to leave that afternoon to catch our flight, so we went back to the hostel and picked up our stuff.  We took taxis to the airport, and once we got there realized that we weren't just two hours early for our flight, but FOUR hours!  Probably mostly my fault because I thought we were leaving at four instead of six.  To be fair, no one else bothered checking!  So we sat in the airport forever before heading back to London.  

It was a great time in Portugal, and I would love to go back sometime to spend more time in Lisbon, and maybe see the chapel of bones!  It was sooo nice to meet the girls, and now I have new friends for life!