I’m moving to Lisbon (one day)

Everyone should visit Lisbon at some point in their lives!  It’s a beautiful, charming city and I don’t know why it hasn’t ever received much attention.

The view from my hotel.

I can say that now, having been there, but the main reason I went to Lisbon was to see Anthony, client extraordinaire, and generally awesome person.  Anthony has been working in both Washington, DC and Lisbon for a long time now, and since I met him 6 years ago, he has always been going back and forth between the two places.  Anthony has great taste so I figured if he liked it there, I would too.   But even if I didn’t, it’d be fun to see him.  It made sense to stop both in London and in Lisbon for a respite before India and SE Asia.  

I got to Lisbon in the aftermath of the "red shit" evening.  It was July 4th and I was wearing all black.  It was the first 4th of July that I hadn’t been in the States for. :(

That Sunday was a wasted day.  I arrived at the hotel that Anthony had so generously booked for me, and spent the day napping and watching MTV and VH1 (which are AWESOME in Europe because they actually play ONLY music videos!!)

My super awesome room!!

Monday was better.  I was getting ready in the morning when a high school friend of Tomas’ (friend I stayed with in Chile) who had moved to Lisbon messaged me online.  Andrea and I had touched base briefly a few weeks before I’d come, and that morning she asked if I wanted to get together.  Sure!  I told her I needed to get some summer clothing to deal with the 98 degree weather outside.

We met at the metro station close to my hotel and went to a small indoor shopping mall where we found most of the things that I’d wanted: a new bathing suit, a long sun dress, and sunglasses (4th pair so far...)  We talked about Lisbon over a light lunch, about things to do, places to go, and side trips to make.  We agreed to go to Sintra together on Friday.

That night, I met Anthony for drinks first at the Ritz and then he took me to a crazy bar that he owns.  The crazy bar had thousands of things collected items hanging from the ceilings, in cases on the walls, or on shelves: anything from model airplanes to old hats.  We had Pimms to help combat the sweltering heat.  (Listen up, Americans, you need to try one!  So good!)  Anthony had one of his employees, Helena, meet us at the second bar and by the end of our drink, she and I had set up a dinner date for Wednesday.

So far, the social calendar was looking full which was a good thing because I wasn’t going to be meeting anyone in my hotel.  

Tuesday morning, Andrea messaged me again and said she wanted to take me to a restaurant so I could try fresh sardines.  Hmmm, sardines?  I agreed because I thought I needed to stop being a wuss even though all I could think about were the little sardine filets that come in tin cans and I thought “How am I going to eat them if they’re so small?”

Turns out sardines are actually pretty big.  They’re about 7-8 inches long, 3 inches wide, and about 1 0r 2 inches in depth.  Andrea taught me how to properly take apart a fish, but the heads grossed me out so she took them off for me.  So much for not being a wuss...  After lunch, Andrea showed me her apartment which was a top floor unit and had NO AIR CONDITIONING!  How miserable!  Afterwards, to combat the sweat that had formed on our temples, we went to a cafe to get iced coffees.

That night I had dinner with Anthony’s family out at the beach.  His sister-in-law picked me up at the hotel with her son and daughter in tow, and we drove the 20 minutes south until we reached a restaurant on the beach.  Anthony pointed out a fish that I had to have as my entree and I laughed to myself over the fact that I was eating only fish all day (but at least this time I would know how to properly eat it...) There were 9 of us at the table and it was really great to feel like part of the family as we discussed everything from Anthony’s theory on relationships to the new Millennium series movies.  I got dropped off back at the hotel around 1am.

Wednesday day, Andrea and I got together again and Anthony’s employee Helena and I had dinner that evening. Helena and I discussed my lack of job and all of the things that I should probably not worry about right now, so I won’t even write about it on here!  The dinner was lovely, though.

Some new Portuguese friend's: Xico and co.

Thursday: great day!  I spent the afternoon lazily walking around downtown Lisbon looking at the buildings, poking around into shops, and sitting at a cafe drinking coffee.  I started imagining myself living there for maybe a year or two... as long as I learned Portuguese.  Maybe Anthony would hire me?

That night, Anthony’s nephew Xico had invited me to go to a music festival, Optimus Alive, with him.  I didn’t know him or his friends, but saw some photos on Facebook of them all and they looked nice enough.  And cute.  So I agreed.  Around 6pm, Xico’s friend picked me up and we drove to the area where the show was and waited for the others.  About an hour later, we had a group of about 12 together and were walking into the huge festival grounds.

Kasabian

There were three tents and about 20 bands or acts on the bill for the night.  We went back and forth all night between the different tents, seeing some awesome sets by Kasabian, Alice in Chains, and Faith No More.  At one point, I ran to the bathrooms only to return to no one standing where I was told they’d be waiting for me.  I freaked out a bit, partially because I couldn’t speak Portuguese and partially because one of Xico’s friends who had told me he thought George W. Bush was the best president the Unites States had ever had was holding onto my expensive SLR camera.  Before completely losing it, I decided to go back to the last tent we had been at and I found them there.  After a quick spaz-out on the George W lover, I was over it.

Pena Palace.

Friday was my last day in Lisbon.  As planned, Andrea and I went to Sintra, a town inland from Lisbon where there is a famous palace, Castelo de Pena. She and I took the train ride up and spent a couple hours exploring the castle.  It felt nice to actually go see something instead of just shopping or aimlessly wandering.  I took a ton of photos are the ones shown are just a couple so if you want to see more, let me know.  It was really an amazing building and grounds.

That night, I met up with my Aunt, her husband Eddie, my cousins Kara and Dana, and Eddie’s son and daughter-in-law for dinner.  It had turned out that they were all on a family vacation at a beach north of Lisbon for the same week I was there, so once we realized that, we made sure that we’d have a night to get together and this was it!  Last night in Lisbon with family -- what a great way to spend it!

Cousins!

We had an amazing dinner where I was asked to tell some of the things I’d seen and done thus far, but I was just as interested to hear about Kara’s new apartment and Dana’s new career aspirations.  Afterwards, the “kids” went out to Barrio Alto, a hilly area in Lisbon with lots of clubs and bars along it and with tons of people walking about.  We had one drink but decided that we should all head in early so we could get our flights home (and back to London) and the morning.  Obrigada, Portugal!