Thursday was not overly exciting, just went to work and went out at night with the internship students in our program to a couple of places in Picadilly Circus. Along the way we met some Americans from Bucknell University who are doing a summer program at the London School of Economics, so that was pretty cool. We were laughing because they were saying that they felt like they did not get to enjoy much of their time in London because they had so much class and homework (bummer…). I also discovered this night that I am hopeless at understanding Scottish accents, which will prove to be interesting when I go to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks. This poor guy and his friend were trying to talk to Amanda and I, and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I tried to convey this in the nicest way possible, which apparently he did not appreciate because he said that I was a “rubbish American”. Sorry bro…
Friday morning Amanda and I woke up early and went over to Tottenham Court Road, because we had scheduled ourselves to get haircuts at the Toni & Guy salon’s hairdressing school. This was a great idea because my bangs were in my face and SO annoying and it was only 5 pounds, but a not-so-great idea because it took a long time (3 hours!), and the Japanese guy who was cutting my hair interpreted me telling him to cut off as little as possible as four inches :/ Needless to say I’m not sure yet if I like it or if it was worth it, but I guess only time will tell.
After our haircuts we rushed over to Gatwick Airport, grabbed some McDonalds (I don’t think I’ve eaten so much McDonalds EVER in my life), and got on a plane to LISBON, Portugal! We were pleasantly surprised when they fed us on the plane, along with unlimited free drinks, coffee, and tea! As we were preparing to land over Lisbon I was completely shocked because there was a Golden Gate Bridge there! Well, it’s actually called Ponte 25 de Abril, but they look identical!
By the time Amanda and I got into the hostel and settled in it was already getting dark, so we decided to just walk around a bit to get our bearings in the neighborhood, and grab some tapas and sangria. We found this amazing viewpoint over the city, and hung out there for a while before heading to bed so we could get up early and explore the next day. We were happy to find that our beds in the hostel were more comfortable than our beds in our London flat!
Amanda and I thoroughly enjoyed our free breakfast at the hostel, and then set off to Costa de Caparica, a beach town just outside of Lisbon. We spent all morning laying in the sand, reading, and soaking up all the Vitamin D we have been so desperately lacking due to the London fog and rain. While I felt right at home and walked away with a nice sun-kissed tan, Amanda resembled a lobster… this New Hampshire girl need to learn how we do it in California!
We didn’t want to get back to the hostel until about 3pm, and we wanted to get going on seeing the rest of the city, so we took quick showers and hopped on one of those obnoxious red double-decker tourist buses. As cliché as it is, it was perfect because we got a taste of everything in a short amount of time, and it was extra perfect because the sites in Lisbon are relatively spread out. From the monastery at Belem to statues dedicated to various Portuguese historic figures, we got to see it all.
We hopped off the bus at the end of the tour in Baixa, where we sat outside in one of Lisbon’s many squares and ordered seafood paella for dinner. I made fun of Amanda because she looked like a lobster, and was eating seafood! :) But it was delicious. Paella is one of few foods I have missed since leaving Spain last summer.
Luckily for us, the Portuguese love siestas as much as the Spanish, so after dinner Amanda and I took a nap before getting ready to go out for the night. We were told by everyone we talked to about Portugal that we needed to go to Barrio Alto to experience the Portuguese discotecas, but they don't even open until after midnight so we determined that a nap would be necessary in order to survive the night. Barrio Alto was indeed lots of fun - there were loads of people everywhere, just hanging out on the street with lots of Portuguese live music. As Amanda and I were walking down the street we heard people speaking English with American accents, so of course we had to stop and talk to them. It turns out that this group were some of the US Embassy's foreign service officers and Marines, who were celebrating with one of the service officers, Rebecca, who was leaving the following week. They were all awesome, and knew all of the fun (and not sketchy) places to go so Amanda and I ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the night. We were grateful to find such awesome people to spend the night with, and on top of that we got a free ride back to the hostel from the Marine's personal driver (my tax dollars being put to good use, sweet!).
The next morning Amanda and I woke up relatively early again, and got back on the bus for the second part of our tour after a quick breakfast at the hostel. During this section of the tour we saw more of modern Lisbon, whereas the bus tour from Saturday focused on historic Lisbon. For example we got to see the facilities they built for the World Expo in 1998, which were absolutely incredible. We hopped off the bus at Se de Lisboa, which is the main cathedral in Lisbon. Since it was Sunday morning we actually sat in on a bit of the service, and listened to the Portuguese hymns (which were beautiful, by the way).
Lisbon is like San Francisco in more ways than just the fake Golden Gate Bridge - it is also built in hills, and they have trolleys going up and down the hills. Amanda and I didn't want to pay for a trolley, however, so we left from Se de Lisboa and started the hike up to the top of the hill to see the Castelo de Sao Jorge, a moorish castle and fortress. The views on the walk up were absolutely incredible, overlooking both the Tagus River and the entire city.
Castelo de Sao Jorge itself was definitely the highlight of Lisbon for me. It was absolutely incredible and beautiful. Out of all the castles I have seen so far in my life, this one is definitely my favorite. Amanda and I spent a lot of time there walking around and taking pictures and taking in the beautiful views. Robyn would have also been very impressed, because there were tons of peacocks roaming around as well! So random, but so awesome at the same time.
After descending from the top of the hill we returned to Baixa, and immediately stopped to grab gelato (which was exactly what we wanted/needed in the warm weather). We meandered around the little shops and downtown area for a bit before hanging out by a statue in one of the squares just to enjoy the nice weather for a bit more (and to people watch, obviously) before we had to get on the plane home. We encountered some strange people there, most notably a man who was very intent on selling us marajuana (after we said "no" for the millionth time, he screamed "I hate you both!!!" and ran away) and a foreigner (Italian maybe?) who wanted to take a picture with us. As a result of the latter we decided it was time to go, and got on the bus back to the airport.
The trip home was interesting, to say the least. Amanda was struggling the entire time because she was so sunburnt. As we were passing through security the guard screamed "Jesus! What happened to her? Has she ever heard of suncream?!" I thought this was all hilarious, but Amanda was not quite as amused by all of this. Then when we got on the plane I fell asleep immediately, where poor Amanda kept getting bothered by a Brazilian teenager sitting next to her who wanted to talk the entire way. To make matters worse our return flight went to Heathrow, where security back into the UK took an hour (as opposed to the 5 minutes it took in Gatwick coming back from Dublin), and by time we got on the tube to come back home they had closed parts of it down for construction, so we had to take night buses and a taxi instead. Needless to say, we were pretty miserable and exhausted when we got home at 2am (especially since in theory we should have been back at 11pm).
Getting back into the swing of work was quite difficult the next day, but I had to wake up quickly because there is a lot going on in Parliament this week since the term ends next Tuesday. After work on Monday we hung out with Zack, one of my friends from the program that left the previous week who was stopping through London on his way back to the US, and his friends. It was a lot of fun but did not help with the exhaustion factor at all. Then on Tuesday my friend Marc, who had been in Spain with Zack, also came back to London, so he met me for lunch at Parliament and then went to a pub with Amanda, Teal, and I after work. The pub we went to was awesome - it was called Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, and it was rebuilt in 1666 after the Great Fire (but it existed before that too). It is in this tiny unassuming alley off of Fleet Street, and had a fun atmosphere. Fortunately for us Marc had to get up early on Wednesday too so we actually got a full night's sleep, but I wasn't fully recovered until now.
For those of you who are paying attention, yes I started this on Wednesday night, but ended up finishing it today (on Thursday) because I got quite distracted last night talking to friends on Skype/gchat/Facebook. No complaints though, because I realize I have been quite crappy at keeping in touch with you all, and I greatly apologize for that. But today has been quite interesting at work – I got to sit in on a debate in the House of Lords, and I got to write amendments for a bill that is going through right now! I would say that’s pretty cool. Hopefully the bill passes so my words can go down eternally in British history!
Lots of exciting stuff coming up this weekend… I am going to see that midnight showing of the last Harry Potter movie tonight (I get to see it earlier than you all! Haha!), and then tomorrow morning we are heading off to Liverpool! I will try my best to wait less than a week before my next post!
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