A Portuguese Getaway

Yesterday was Dia de Andalucia, otherwise known as FOUR DAY WEEKEND! Basically everyone on my trip left Granada to explore because it was such a perfect opportunity to explore a city with a little bit more time. A group of 13 (I know, right!?) went to Lisbon (Lisboa) for 3 days and truly got to experience the city. It is a remarkable city that time has forgotten with little renovations to the old buildings and mosaic facades found throughout the city. It is extremely Mediterranean-based in regards to architecture as well as personality. The Portuguese are extremely nice and helpful, which would be nice if I could understand them. Contrary to popular (or at least our) belief, Portuguese is NOTHING like Spanish. Nothing. And on top of it, they don't pronounce anything making it even harder. Overall, it was a remarkable city to be seen with amazing people, despite the poor weather. I am going to post pictures when I have some more time this week so be on the look out, but right now I'll give you the ever-so-interesting play-by-play of my three days in Lisboa!

We left Granada at 7pm on Thursday for a 5 hour bus ride to Madrid. As you will see on the ride home, traveling outside of Granada is extremely difficult. There is an airport here, but it is extremely small and thus only flies to a few select places--which are really expensive.

Anyway, so we got into Madrid around 12am (after watching Pretty Woman in Spanish--well, I fell asleep) and headed straight to the airport before the metro closed at 1:30am. In Madrid (and maybe other cities), security shuts down for the night so the airport becomes a hostel for those waiting for their early AM flights. The 13 of us found a nice little post to call home and attempted to sleep on the cold marble floor with the bright florescent lights in our eyes. Magically, I was able to get a half hour or so of sleep, which is more than most can say. Finally, 5am rolled around and we were able to go through security and sit on actual seats at our gate until our 7:05 flight boarded. And by "boarded" I mean, take a shuttle to the plane, get off, climb up the stairs, and scramble to find seats together because there is no assigned seating (gotta love bargain flying). I was asleep before the plane even took off--quite a feat for the girl who barely slept on her 6 hour flight from Newark to Heathrow.

We arrived in Lisboa around 7:30am (gotta love the time change) and realized that we didn't have to go through customs because we were traveling to another EU country, which was extremely exciting. A side note, security here is so different. You could pick the Americans out in security in Madrid because we were the ones taking our shoes off and showing anyone and everyone our passport to prove our existence. I think one person may have actually taken a good look at my passport throughout my entire travels this weekend--an extremely interesting (and potentially scary) thought.

Anyway, so we all went bleary eyed into the world and got on a bus to get into the center of Lisbon and arrived at our hostel at around 9:15am. So, to recap the transportation methods: Granada bus to bus to Madrid to metro to Madrid airport to airplane to Lisbon to bus to hostel. Welcome to traveling from Granada.

Our hostel was awesome--a perfect first hostel. It was decorated a little out there (pictures to come), but it was clean and the people were extremely friendly. After we were all checked in (which took over an hour because there were no computers), we went on a desperate search for food in order to properly begin our day. We couldn't get into our hostel bedrooms until at least 2pm and we didn't want to lose the day, so we hit the ground running and started wandering the streets. Lisbon is truly a port city and you could see it with all of the ships on buildings and the monuments gracing the coast. As I mentioned earlier, the buildings are brightly colored or the facades are decorated with mosaic tiles--truly a remarkable view.

We ended up at a cathedral, which was incredible and it also launched the group into a discussion about religion, something I am always extremely interested in. I promise promise promise that religion post is coming up soon, especially since Friday I am going to the Sephardic Jew Museum in Cordoba. For now, just know that my friends are incredible because we all know how to joke and have a good time, yet we can launch into a serious discussion at the flip of a switch.

After the cathedral, we decided to go to the docks and see the modern part of the city. And oh is it modern. With its extremely linear architecture, I was reminded a lot of Chinese architecture, specifically the Bird's Nest (see CMU Architecture Summer Program did pay!). At the docks there was a really cool water fountain-thingy, some modern art lying around, a gondola ride, and an aquarium! I wanted to do both the gondola ride AND the aquarium, but my student budget forced me to choose one and so I took the quick, but nice, gondola ride with my friend Sara Winters (SWinters as we call her because there are an infinite amount of Sara(h)s on our trip). After that, we made our way back to the hostel for a nice hour and a half nap since we still had yet to sleep all night/day.

For dinner, we went in search of Fado. Fado is a traditional Portuguese-style of music and is very similar to Flamenco in terms of national pride. It is usually extremely sad, but since we didn't understand anything that the singers were saying, it seemed pretty upbeat to us. There were six performers throughout the meal and it was truly an amazing experience. The singers were incredible and the guitars had a voice all their own. We left happy, stuffed, and excited for bed.

Saturday was a brand new day with excited faces and walking shoes aplenty. A bunch of us had one mission and one mission only--to find the flea market. We were told that it was great and therefore we were all dying to go. We ended up splitting up because some people decided to follow one set of directions and the other group followed another. Of course, my group's directions were uphill and the wind (remnants of the really bad storm that hit Portugal/Spain on Saturday) that was going on did little to help. To our surprise, the flea market was more like a garage sale of trash, rejects, and possibly some stolen goods. We wandered down to the National Pantheon, and after playing in the wind for a little bit, we took advantage of being a student and went inside for free.

We eventually met up with everyone else and headed to Belem, a neighborhood of Lisbon about a 20-30minute tram ride out. And the reason why we went to Belem? The most amazing pastries ever. Picture this: inside--creme brulee/tapioca/pudding-like deliciousness; outside--a perfectly cooked filo dough/crust thingy; and on top? cinnamon and powdered sugar. Basically, a party in your mouth. They were INCREDIBLE. That is all I have to say.

Then, four of us (Katie, Andrew, Sarah Levy and I) went to the Berado Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art which was hands down the highlight of my trip. There were two exhibits that truly stood out. The first was a retrospective of American artist Robert Longo and his incredible charcoal drawings. I encourage everyone to Google/Wiki him and look at any of his works. He plays with light and shadow and negative space in a way that I simply have never seen before. It was truly remarkable. The second exhibit was a collection of photographs from Swiss journalist Annemarie Schwarzenbach during the 1930s. She traveled all around Europe, United States, parts of Africa, and a little bit of the Middle East. It was really interesting to have a woman's perspective during such an interesting time (she disapproved of fascism in Germany, but had nothing bad to say about that or the imperialism practiced by Portugal) and I think she truly captured what it means to be an foreigner in a strange country, something that I can obviously relate to presently. These two exhibits were hands down two of the best I have seen in a really long time and I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to see them.

Then, when everyone else bailed, the four of us continued our day and went up to Barrio Alto (Tall Neighborhood) for some world famous Portuguese Port Wine. We may have paid a little too much for it, but it was worth it for the view. We sipped our port overlooking the entire city, immersed with the idea of just how lucky we truly were. Eventually, we made our way down and had dinner with the rest of the group at the hostel (they cooked while we saw the sights) and chatted drinking ginga (another Portuguese drink) into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday we woke up and took a 40min train ride to Sintra, a suburb of Lisbon with lots of castles. We wandered around looking for a place to eat lunch and we found a really cute cafe/restaurant. Only issue--took us four hours to eat lunch. However, once again, good company helped alleviate (almost) all hunger pains and American frustration. Once we finally got out, it was already getting late--and then it started to POUR. Throughout the weekend, the weather was not horrible, but definitely not pleasant. However, I have not seen anything like what I saw Sunday in a very long time. We ran for cover into the the Palace of Juan I and had a nice (free) tour of the castle and its wet grounds. Afterward, we grabbed some coffee and made our way back to the train. There was definitely more to see, but I feel like we got an idea for the place and had a lot of fun even if we mostly just ate (note: it was a 5 euro bus ride to go all the way up to the castle--keep in mind the student budget).

When we got back to the hostel, we hung around for a bit then made our way to dinner for some good ole meat. A traditional Portuguese way to cook meat is called "churrasco" and don't ask me what it is or what it means; all I know, is that it was delicious. It was a great way to end the trip--full stomachs with smiles on our faces.

We woke up yesterday morning at 4am to catch our 7:30am flight. We landed in Madrid around 9:30am (time change!) and then had time to run up into the Madrid sunlight for lunch. We got on the bus at 2pm, got stuck in an hour's worth of traffic, got into Granada around 8pm and I was finally back home around 9pm. See what I mean?!

Okay, now that I've written an essay, it is time for bed. Keep a look out alter this week for pictures!

Hasta luego!

PORTUGUESE EDITION
poached white fish with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage
BELEM PASTRIES
port, ginga
arroz con gambas (rice with shrimp)
tomato salad
mixed meat kebab churrasco

PS-Julie Judson, how is the font?