we flew from madrid to porto, the second largest city in portugal. it's much smaller and less hustly/bustly than madrid, but i was overwhelmed by it's simple elegance and tradition.the fachadas of the buildings are almost always covered with azulejos, beautifully decorated tiles of all different colors. when we stepped out of the confusing metro, the first thing i saw was a church covered with traditional blue azulejos. awesome!
the weather was blah: overcast, rainy, cold. not my favorite... but it was fun exploring, nonetheless. i enjoyed wandering through the city, snapping pictures of cute signs and quirky graffiti. for some reason, i was extremely excited to see grammatically correct written portuguese... accents and everything! i think only i enjoyed this, being the language/grammar freak that i am.
my favorite part of porto was definitely the rio douro. the river splits the city in half and looks positively majestic after sundown. the coastline opposite us was sprinkled with various illuminated signs advertising the numerous wineries known for their famous varieites of vinho do porto. my friends and i were excited to participate in some wine tasting, but after a failed two-hour excursion along the river, up countless hills and down poorly lit streets, we were less than enthused to find out the famous solar do vinho do porto was absurdly difficult to find, nearly empty, and a little too swanky for our taste. not to mention the fact that they didn't serve the cheesecake our guidebook had promised.
the trip also presented a great opportunity for me to practice meu português falado. the first couple instances in which i opened my mouth, the responses were in english. not the best feeling in the world... but after a few more tries, i realized the portuguese are much more friendly than the spaniards when it comes to foreigners attempting to speak their language. my first few experiences en español within the first month en españa were more than unsettling, complete with plenty of snooty facial expressions.
one portuguese man was a little too nice: on our train ride from porto to lisboa, he came out of nowhere (from behind me) and began asking us where we were from and if we spoke portuguese. at first, i thought he was just being friendly, then he began joking at one of my friends had stolen his seat? he continued to pester me with questions about obama and awkward stories about his children all over the world, two of which are less than two years old? i found it particularly disturbing because he was definitely around sixty years old himself. further into the train ride, it was obvious he didn't have a ticket, since he was avoiding the train officials like the plague and chillin' in the compartment between cars. i was glad to see him leave...
once in lisboa, we were thrilled to see busy streets, people out at night and that our hostel was one of the top-ranked hostels on hostelworld.com... and rightfully so. it was cozy, comfortable and crazy colorful. the owner was an adorable portuguese woman, eager to practice her english and spoil her guests. the free breakfast, wifi, milkshakes on mondays and occasional chicken soup for dinner definitely tickled my fancy.
our adventures in lisboa were much more exciting than wandering the streets of porto. we ventured to the castelo do são jorge, a medieval castle that overlooks the entire city of lisboa, and the world famous pastry shop pastéis de belém that sells the devilishly delicious pastéis de nata, cream pastries topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon. i ate five in one sitting. we eventually made it out to sintra to visit the palácio da pena, a colorful 19th century castle reminiscent of disneyland. we picked possibly the worst day to go, leaving us with a view of the fog instead of the countryside and lisboa in the distance. i randomly saw one of my classmates from portuguese class at ucsb, who happens to be studying in lisboa for the semester and also picked the worst day to visit sintra. the next day, we visited the oceanário de lisboa (the second largest in europe!) and enjoyed the company of the fish, penguins, sea otters and tropical birds.
last but not least, we visited a brasileira, the first of the now chain cafés in which 20th century poets would congregate and compose. the most famous portuguese poet, fernando pessoa, was one of the regulars and has a statue situated in his customary seat. i was thrilled to finally pay a visit to the very place where he conjured up countless poems and the life stories of his brilliant heterônimos.sorry for the length of my entries. i always end up telling vivid stories instead of jotting down brief blurbs... thanks to those of you who made it to the end.
vou voltar com a minha irmã durante as férias da natal... mal posso esperar a voltar a porto e lisboa para ver o resto da cidade, comer mais pastéis de nata e melhorar meu português.
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