First trip to Europe! Lisbon in Portugal :)
Where do I start! My first trip to Europe and its made me want to go back for more!
My friend Vanushi (Nushi) is on the International Board of Amnesty International which unfortuantely means she has to travel to different parts of the world several times a year and this time happened to be Lisbon. She asked if Kate and I would like to meet her there and well, why not! So the trip started about 11.30pm Friday nite when Kate arrived from a 2 hour train trip from where she lives in Norwich. Flatmates Kim, Brad and I met her at the Sheperds Bush station and Kim was only too happy to carry Kate's bag. We'd been at the Walkabout and had consumed a few beers so it made the walk home rather easy :)
We finally got to bed about 1.15am but I had to set my alarm for 2.45am in order for us to take 2 buses and a train to get to the Gatwick Airport. Neither of us were happy when the alarm went off and somehow set off from my house at 3.15am on our journey. The first bus was alrite but the second bus arrived about 15mins later than I expected and by the time we got to Victoria Train station, we had missed the train by literally 30 seconds! Next one was half an hour away and we started stressing we might miss the flight and poor Nushi would be at Lisbon Airport wondering where we were!! We managed to book in ok and had a slight break in the shopping area and then realised our gate was a 20min walk away. You know how in the movies they run through the crowd saying sorry, excuse me, coming through.... well that was us! Ducking in between all these people! Kate even took her shoes off, my trust jandels seemed to handle it though. We got to the gate and there about another 10 people to board, good thing we did run! But we don't plan on doing that again.
We finally landed in Lisbon and waited around the baggage claim area for Nushi, very cool seeing her after a few months! We took the bus into the centre of town and after being given conflicting directions we finally found out hotel, about 10meteres from where the bus had dropped us off! For 15 euro a nite, we had a nice little room that was opposite one of the main squares.
We spent the rest of the day wondering around the city, admiring the buildings and paved streets. We found this cafe for lunch where the waitress realised we were relatively new to the city so gave us a few pointers, like not to leave valuable stuff showing at all because pickpockets were everywhere! After finally finding a minimart to get some water, we decided we needed a siesta about 5pm. I woke up at one point and realised it was getting dark, looked at the time to see it was 10pm! We all had barely slept the nite before so I guess a nap was well needed. Woke the others up and we went to this nite club called Lux, which Kate had found in the Lonely Planet, big ups to the Lonely Planet for our accommodation too! We ended up meeting an english guy of all people, typical to go away from London and actually meet some british people! He gave us some tips on what to do while in Lisbon, seeing as were we only there for a few days.
After finally leaving the hotel around midday on Sunday, we bought tickets for the hop-on/hop-off buses that goes around Lisbon. This went around the outskirts of the main city and all 3 of us were snap happy, taking at every opportunity! We visited a big castle, drove under a massive archway and saw the outside of a bull fighting ring. Unfortunately the bull fighting was only on Thursdays so we didnt get to see that.
After finishing the tour, we decided we wanted a nice porteguese dinner. We walked around the backstreets for awhile and came across this little restaurant that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere! But it was playing the soccer World Cup game between Portugal and the Netherlands. We saw the first goal being scored there and after eating decided to go down to the waterfront to watch the rest of the game there. What a crowd! Its like the viaduct back home but every restaurant had a massive tv screen outside and there were hundreds of people watching. Awesome being in such an enthusiastic crowd! I recorded the Portugese reaction when they won the game, people running around everywhere with their massive flags, singing their country songs, very cool being there! We ordered more jugs of sangria and danced the nite away, they played a mix of english dance songs and portuguese.
Monday morning we went on a Walking Tour of Lisbon (www.insidelisbon.com/EN/en_passeios_lisbon_walk) which was awesome. It covered right in the centre of Lisbon for 4 hours and we met travellers from the States and England. We passed a restaurant that is one of the original places to make periperi chicken, the chicken sold at Nando's restaurants, so we decided to go there for lunch. Was very tasty and a jug of sangria went down nicely!
There were also all these cows around the city, not real ones, painted in all these different styles, this one is my fave:
My friend Vanushi (Nushi) is on the International Board of Amnesty International which unfortuantely means she has to travel to different parts of the world several times a year and this time happened to be Lisbon. She asked if Kate and I would like to meet her there and well, why not! So the trip started about 11.30pm Friday nite when Kate arrived from a 2 hour train trip from where she lives in Norwich. Flatmates Kim, Brad and I met her at the Sheperds Bush station and Kim was only too happy to carry Kate's bag. We'd been at the Walkabout and had consumed a few beers so it made the walk home rather easy :)
We finally got to bed about 1.15am but I had to set my alarm for 2.45am in order for us to take 2 buses and a train to get to the Gatwick Airport. Neither of us were happy when the alarm went off and somehow set off from my house at 3.15am on our journey. The first bus was alrite but the second bus arrived about 15mins later than I expected and by the time we got to Victoria Train station, we had missed the train by literally 30 seconds! Next one was half an hour away and we started stressing we might miss the flight and poor Nushi would be at Lisbon Airport wondering where we were!! We managed to book in ok and had a slight break in the shopping area and then realised our gate was a 20min walk away. You know how in the movies they run through the crowd saying sorry, excuse me, coming through.... well that was us! Ducking in between all these people! Kate even took her shoes off, my trust jandels seemed to handle it though. We got to the gate and there about another 10 people to board, good thing we did run! But we don't plan on doing that again.
We finally landed in Lisbon and waited around the baggage claim area for Nushi, very cool seeing her after a few months! We took the bus into the centre of town and after being given conflicting directions we finally found out hotel, about 10meteres from where the bus had dropped us off! For 15 euro a nite, we had a nice little room that was opposite one of the main squares.We spent the rest of the day wondering around the city, admiring the buildings and paved streets. We found this cafe for lunch where the waitress realised we were relatively new to the city so gave us a few pointers, like not to leave valuable stuff showing at all because pickpockets were everywhere! After finally finding a minimart to get some water, we decided we needed a siesta about 5pm. I woke up at one point and realised it was getting dark, looked at the time to see it was 10pm! We all had barely slept the nite before so I guess a nap was well needed. Woke the others up and we went to this nite club called Lux, which Kate had found in the Lonely Planet, big ups to the Lonely Planet for our accommodation too! We ended up meeting an english guy of all people, typical to go away from London and actually meet some british people! He gave us some tips on what to do while in Lisbon, seeing as were we only there for a few days.
After finally leaving the hotel around midday on Sunday, we bought tickets for the hop-on/hop-off buses that goes around Lisbon. This went around the outskirts of the main city and all 3 of us were snap happy, taking at every opportunity! We visited a big castle, drove under a massive archway and saw the outside of a bull fighting ring. Unfortunately the bull fighting was only on Thursdays so we didnt get to see that.
After finishing the tour, we decided we wanted a nice porteguese dinner. We walked around the backstreets for awhile and came across this little restaurant that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere! But it was playing the soccer World Cup game between Portugal and the Netherlands. We saw the first goal being scored there and after eating decided to go down to the waterfront to watch the rest of the game there. What a crowd! Its like the viaduct back home but every restaurant had a massive tv screen outside and there were hundreds of people watching. Awesome being in such an enthusiastic crowd! I recorded the Portugese reaction when they won the game, people running around everywhere with their massive flags, singing their country songs, very cool being there! We ordered more jugs of sangria and danced the nite away, they played a mix of english dance songs and portuguese.
Monday morning we went on a Walking Tour of Lisbon (www.insidelisbon.com/EN/en_passeios_lisbon_walk) which was awesome. It covered right in the centre of Lisbon for 4 hours and we met travellers from the States and England. We passed a restaurant that is one of the original places to make periperi chicken, the chicken sold at Nando's restaurants, so we decided to go there for lunch. Was very tasty and a jug of sangria went down nicely!
There were also all these cows around the city, not real ones, painted in all these different styles, this one is my fave:
Our little trip had suddenly come to an end, so Kate and I packed our bags and went back to the airport. Vanushi is still there with her conference, no doubt she's had more sangria!
Speaking of sangria, I'm going to Spain next week for Running with the Bulls in Pamplona! I'm going with my flatmate Brad and some of his friends, going to be a crazy week! This is the tour I'm doing: http://www.backpacker.co.uk/pamplona8day.htm cant wait! Will be many more photos to put up after that week.
Here are all my photos from Lisbon:
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2104793638
And in other news, I'm going to be old on Saturday, a quarter of a century old! Woah! I'm sure I just had my 21st a few weeks ago.....
Hope all is well in your part of the world!
Adios amigos! Until I return from Spain xoxo
posted by bef at
12:24 PM
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