Spring Break '11, Parte Dos (Lisboa)

I realized that a lot of times when I write these blog posts, I use it as a means to procrastinate, as in now, when I should be doing the tons of economics homework I have. I have also noticed that, for most cities, the actual names sound a lot better than the English names for them.

Lisboa (Lisbon)
So we took a night train from Madrid leaving March 19 and arriving on March 20 at like 9ish AM at Lisboa Oriente (keep this station in mind). This was the coolest city on the trip for a few reasons. First off, when we got there, it was bright and sunny, probably the first time I've experienced it that much my entire time in Europe. Secondly, Lisboa is a coast city, therefore the beach is walking distance and is pretty visible the entire time. Thirdly, a bunch of cool things happened there.

The city of Lisboa reminded me a lot of San Fransisco in the US. If you've been there, you know what I mean. The city is very hilly, there are trams everywhere, and they even have a bridge that looks identical to the Golden Gate Bridge. Anyway, by the time we arrived it was early morning and we were really hungry. Unfortunately, in the city, since it was Sunday, everything was closed. This meant we walked around for over an hour and a half looking for food. We finally found a museum that was open and walked around there for a little while before going to a restaurant right outside of it, which ended up being the best idea ever. While we were there, a few people in our group began to talk to the bartender about stuff to do in the city. Apparently, he used to work for the local soccer ('football') team (Sporting Clube de Portugal, or Sporting for short). Coincidentally, they were playing their biggest rivals (Benfica) the next day, and he told us he'd be able to get us tickets. This was the equivalent of, from what it sounded like, going to a Yankees-Red Sox game, a Lakers-Celtics game, whatever - you get the picture. Needless to say, we were pretty excited. So the rest of the day, we kind of relaxed and walked around the city. We even walked down the coast at night, which was really, really cool. We also got to see a guy in a suit get thrown into some tables at a bar. The most ironic part of the night, to me at least, was that, earlier in the day, we were discussing the languages spoken amongst the 9 people in our group (English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi). On the way back from the bar we went to, we tried to take a shortcut, failed, and some guy gave us directions to get back. In Hindi. In Europe. Of all the languages we spoke.

The next day we went to the beach, but also called Francisco (the guy from the bar), and told him we wanted the tickets - 18 euros per person, for 8 people. For a rivalry game. 3rd floor up. On the '50 yard line'. The beach was awesome, but the highlight of the day was definitely the game. Francisco even gave me his scarf, which is basically what defines your team. The only thing that sucked about the night was that Sporting lost, 2-0. However, I do have a European soccer team that I will now follow. I also saw a guy on a motorcycle get hit by a car, sit idle for a minute, get up, shake the dude's hand, get his bike, and leave while I was at the beach.

But back to the game for a minute - the game was crazy. There were riot police, almost saw a fight break out, saw red fire in the stands (when the other team scored - their color was red, we are green), flares on the field, etc. This is normal for the soccer game. In fact, it was probably tame compared to others.

The next day, we went shopping, went to the beach again for a little while, and headed to the train station to go home (Lisboa Oriente). Our train, for some reason, left from Lisboa São Sebastião, I think. Luckily, Lisboa São Sebastião is the last stop on the line, and it stops at Lisboa Oriente before it leaves.

Overall though, Lisboa was awesome. It was a really nice city and it was really calm and relaxing. And they have my favorite football club there.

First view right when we got off the metro.

Tiny door to our hostel

This was the street in front of our hostel after they had been cleaning up for a while. Apparently a huge party had happened there last night.

Sun + 'Golden Gate Bridge'

My attempts at taking cool macro pictures at various parts of the trip -

Walking along the coast at night

The beach

Pictures from the soccer game

Benfica scoring their first goal :(

Random graffiti I saw around, kinda interesting.

Weird things about Lisboa:

Visa and Mastercard are not really accepted there.

Their metros do not have sensors on the doors, and they close within like literally 5 seconds. Two of our group got stuck outside of one and had to wait for the next one because of this.

Lots of Indian shopkeepers and Indian food in the Cascais (the city the beach was in).

Next up: Valencia