Lisbon, Portugal- Day 1

This weekend I made a journey to Portugal not knowing what to expect. It was not exactly at the top of my list of places to visit in Europe. Words cannot express how wonderful it was. There is so much to write that I have decided to split it up into 3 entries, one for each day.

When we landed it was beautiful weather, sunny, clear skies and about 78 degrees. We took a bus from the airport to our hostel, Living Lounge. When I think of "hostel" the picture that comes to mind does not resemble this place one bit. It was gorgeous, so clean, just wonderful, better than some hotels I have stayed in. We put our stuff down and headed out to explore the city.

The first adventure was to walk to "Cais do Sodre". We found it and then took a street trolley down the road towards the Belem Tower. On the trolley you pay through a machine and there is no attendant or anyone checking tickets. So my friend Jeannie says," I the ride home I think we will save the 2 euros and not buy tickets." A few minutes later 3 officials get on-board and start checking tickets. Some other foreigners had a problem so the officials took their passports and wrote them a ticket. From that point we knew we always be buying a ticket.

The first stop was at a Monastery built in the 16th century with a combination of late-baroque and the Renaissance styles. It was quite beautiful. Then we headed across the road towards the Tagus River. On the river is a monument dedicated on the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator to acknowledge Portugal's discoveries throughout the world. Now looking out onto the river there is a bridge that looks identical to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, it is the sister bridge. It was commissioned to be built during the reign of a dictator in 1965, and is now named "Ponte 25 de Abril" (Bridge of April 25) which marked the day that ended dictatorship in Portugal in 1974. After admiring the bridge we headed down the river to the Belem tower. Torre de Belém was built in the 16th century to provide protection for the city and has been used for other things over the years. It is now a monument and we were planning on going up in the tower. When we got to the door there was a sign that said "Closed - workers on strike". So we were not able to go on top of it. After a few hours we decided to head back. This journey turned out to take much longer than expected.

First we waited for about 45 minutes for the trolley that would take us back, and it never showed up. So I asked a bus driver if his bus would also take us back and he said yes. So we got on and sat in Portuguese traffic for almost an hour. It turns out there was a fire that caused the traffic. In the meanwhile we were standing on a bus with no room to move at all. There was no air conditioning so we were dripping in sweat. We were so thankful to get off.

After Jill and I headed up to the Basílica da Estrela, the first church in the world to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When we arrived we could not just look inside because they had just started mass. So we decided to go to mass and this way we would also be able to see the church. Well it was in Portuguese so knew what was going on, but did not know the words that were being said. It was interesting. During the sign of peace we picked up on how to say peace in Portuguese and so we said it to the others around us. Following mass we headed back to the hostel for dinner. The cooked us a wonderful meal and we met new friends, some from the U.S., others from Ireland, and some from France. This would soon become the closing of our eventful yet ejoyable first day in Lisbon.

Portugal here I come...

So toady I am headed off to Lisbon, Portugal. It was not at the top of list of places to visit in Europe, but we found some good deals and we figured why not. I will be there for the weekend. It looks like it will be beautiful, about 70 degrees sunny with clear skies.

Cooking Spanish Style

On Sunday our Program Director, Patricia hosted a cooking class at her house. We learned how to make a few typical Spanish dishes. The first is tortilla espanola, this is a must in Spanish culture. It contains onions, potatoes, and eggs (more of an omelette than a tortilla as we know it). It seems simple to make, but it is a bit difficult and the process is lengthy. Secondly, we made espinacas con piñones y pasas (spinach with pine nuts and raisins). This also took quite a while to make. This was may favorite dish out of all the ones we made. And of course we had to make the wonderful beverage to accompany our meal... Sangria. We put in a lot of fruit, as well as red wine, and an interesting twist, cinnamon. It was wonderful. For desert we made arroz con leche (Spanish rice pudding). This was extremely interesting to make beacue the milk, rice, cinnamon, and condensed milk is boiled with the peel of a lemon. I could only eat a little of this desert because I am not a big fan of milk. It was such a wonderful day in which we had another opportunity to enter into the culture. (Pictures of me will be coming soon.) Maybe I can try to make some of these things when I return because I have the recipies.

Restaurante más antiguo del mundo

That is correct; I ate in the oldest restaurant in the world. The Guinness Book of World Records has given this title to this restaurant. It was founded in 1725 in the heart of Madrid and given the name Casa Botin. It is said that the famous Spanish artist, Goya, washed dishes before he made it big as a painter. Hemingway ate at here and claimed to be the best. I went with my friends Jessica and Kondi and we had a wonderful dinner. I ate one of their specialties, cordero, roasted baby lamb. It was spectacular, so rich with flavor. I am not sure it was the best meal I have ever had, but it certainly was historic. Also the service in this restaurant was the best that I have encountered in all of Spain, top notch. After we were finished eating and just prior to us departing the waiter asked if we would like to see the original wood burning oven, which is still used today. So he showed us to the kitchen and we were able to go inside and see it. This restaurant was small, but quite charming.

Museo del Prado

Madrid is well known for its Prado Museum, which features one of the world's finest collections of European art. It contains over 1,300 paintings as well as other pieces that range from the 12th-19th centuries. Most of the artist are Spanish, some of the most famous include: Goya, El Greco, and Diego Velázquez.

This weekend I had two friends visit from DC, Jessica and Kondi. On Sunday I took them to the Prado (there is not an entrance fee on Sunday afternoons, always nice for college students). I was suprised by the amount of paintings and the wonderful quality in which they remained. I was a great experience to see some the world's finest paintings. I have seen some them in books like Las Meninas by Velázquez (the picture to the left). We were not able to see all of the paintings because we did not have much time, but I do have a good idea of what I would like to go back to see. Of course we were not allowed to take pictures, but I still enjoyed it.

Cuaresma begins

So yesterday kicked off the Lenten season, also known as Cuaresma in Spanish. I have decided that a my Lenten sacrifice I will not be speaking English, except with my family because they do not know Spanish. This is quite a challenge since my firends here are from the U.S. and we usually speak English. I did good job yesterday so I hope that I can continue with it.

There is not much else that is exciting. I have been doing a lot of work for my classes. I have a lot of reading espcially for my Economics class. I have started to put together a dictionary of important economic terms in Spanish. For example GDP, Gross Domestic Product is PIB in Spanish, Producto Interior Bruto. Also I cannot believe that I have been here for over a month already. Time just flew by me. I am finishing the third week of class out of 12 weeks... Yeah 25% completed.

Segovia- Aqueduct and Castle

I went on a day adventure on Friday to Segovia. It is about 1.5 hours outside of Madrid. The trip began with us going to the train station and finding out that the ticket price had doubled since the night before. So we decicded to take a bus instead which left from the other side of town. We got on the Renfe Cercanias (it is a mix between metro and commuter rail). The line we went on goes in a loop, but we did not know that the direction we were headed was a lot longer than the other direction so we passed through deserted areas that probably were not even in Madrid. So we arrived in Segovia and our first stop was the aqueducts. They were absolutely marvelous. These aqueducts were built by the Romans at the end of the first century and do not have mortar or braces holding them together. They reach up 11o feet off the ground... just amazing. There was a road that used to go through it, but it is closed because the air polution was harming the aqueduct. I think this is one of the oldest thing I have seen.

After we headed to the Cathedral which was built in 1525 and is in gothic style. I was not my favorite. I decided that I would like these types of cathedrals a lot more if they did not have the gates every where. It looks like a prison inside. Other than that it was similar to the one in Toledo.

Next we headed to Alcazar. It was built on a Roman temple and expanded several times. It was later used as prison for 2 centuries and then a royal artillery school, in which there was a fire that gutted the place in 1862. It was immediately reconstructed. The silhouette is believed to have been a
model for the Walt Disney logo. This castle was neat... not too extravegant. There was also a huge museum about the school with all kinds of knights and weapons and stuff. The best part was that we got to climb 159 stairs to the top of the tower. There were so many great views. I would just like to say that Spain is so diverse in its landscape. On one side of the castle there are hills with lots of pine trees and directly on the other side there are cliff and cayons and desert type of vegetation.

Segovia was our best day trip yet.