Portugal.

I have my dress. We get married in a month. And I just got back from 12 days in Portugal. Life would only be better if Brian and I were in the same place.

I can't pass up blogging about Portugal. I really wish I was a better creative writer so I could communicate how beautiful this country is! Every place we went renewed our resolve to learn the history; it would add a whole new level of appreciation. This was my second trip there; I stayed with Rita and her little yippee dog Nikita. Let's just say I was often force fed, always had a made bed, and could never find all my clothes because she would be washing one or two articles. She was sweet. After seeing Ironman 3 my first day there, we traveled from Porto to Cascais and saw everything from Roman temples to fado singers:

Castle of Sao Jorge. This Moorish castle can be seen from almost all of downtown Lisbon because it sits atop a hill that has been used as a defensive location since 200 BC. Walking up the steep streets and stairs to get to the castle was totally worth the views of the Tagus river with the Ponte 25 de Abril (modeled after the Golden Gate Bridge), and the Cristo-Rei statue (modeled after Rio de Janeiro's). The Mangalore tiles give the buildings below a distinctive European feel.

Portuguese guitar music wafted up from the courtyard below (and which we would have a video of except I deleted it). Tickets were 5 euro to get in, less with our student cards. We got to walk the battlements around almost the entire castle, climbing up onto every rampart we could to get better views. 

Senhor Vinho. Brian had heard Portuguese singer Ana Moura when he went to a fado concert last year, and we had wanted to hear it ever since.  Fado songs can be about anything, but all must have an aspect of saudade, or feeling of loss. We researched casas de fado, or restaurants that have fado singers, and decided on Senhor Vinho. We felt slightly out of place: two young kids in jeans in a historic, fancy, low-lit restaurant with multiple sets of utensils. Word from the wise: eat before and just enjoy appetizers and the fado when you go (12.50 euro a person). We had a delicious seafood soup, but we're counting that as our one fancy (and really expensive) dinner of the year. Live and learn. 

The fado started at about 9:15pm and there were four different singers accompanied by two traditional Portuguese guitarists whose instruments are more round and has twelve strings. It was haunting. Even without understanding the words (Brian assured me they were very sad), there was something about it that just made me withdraw into myself and forget everything around me. The restaurant was definitely centered around making the atmosphere just right for the music. The lights would dim when each new singer came out, and waiters would serve dishes only after a singer was done; the tall, stern hostess saw it her duty to make sure any potential noise (like the rambunctious toddler at the back table) was silenced quickly. It was a healthy dose of Portuguese culture, and I thought it was great.

traditional Portuguese guitar

Rock Climbing: About an hour outside Lisbon, on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, down a steep, densely green path, lies a rock face with several climbing routes. We went with Joao and Kate. Joao is from Lisbon and has been rock climbing for awhile; he's in the same program as Brian. It was super windy, which made climbing a little scary. I'm so glad we went though. We tried to find a path down to the water, with nothing to show for it except a scraped shin. Brian was a great climber :)

Porto: It's amazing. A 24.5 euro one way train trip three hours north brought us to a seriously magical historical city that seemed to be in a different universe. Built into a steep hill that slopes steeply into the Douro river, it seemed that around every corner was a new vista, laying out a cityscape so pristine and beautiful and historic that it couldn't possible be real.

We stayed at Porto Spot hostel and it was SO NICE. I don't know why we didn't take any pictures of it. Our roommate was Stephen from Holland. He was sleeping when we came in at 3pm to put our stuff down and at 10pm when we came to get our laptops. It was really close to the places we wanted to go. It also had free walking tours, which I liked because the tour guide told random stories about spots in Porto that I found fascinating. We got a 24 hour metro pass, but didn't use it as much as we should have to make it worth it because we loved walking around Porto and everything was so close!

Highlights:

Running around on the boardwalk by the river. If you want to see a lot of a city fast before a lot of people are out, running is the best way. It was beautiful.

The rally that was in the main square when we got there! Brian said they were saying something about not wanting to pay their loans back to Germany, which doesn't make any sense to me. The rally happened all over Portugal; we saw a poster for the rally in Evora too, about 5 hours away from Porto. It was exciting!

Francesinhas! These are from Porto originally and Brian had had one at Institute a few weeks before. You can't understand how insane they are until you try them: fried egg, steak, chorizo, and ham, sandwiched between two hearty pieces of bread, covered in melted cheese and soaking in a deep dish of beer sauce (alcohol burned off). Unbelievable. 

Fanciest McDonalds of all time. Chandaliers!! We had a hard time deciding whether to get something we have in America to see if it tasted better here, or to get something not on the American menu. We ended up getting the McBifana and a McFrosty. Delicious. 

Sunset on the Don Luis Bridge. The metro goes over the top of it. It has an amazing view. It was named after a king who actually wanted a cathedral, and so he didn't show up to the grand opening. So they took "king" out of the name of the bridge. I think I'd rather have the bridge. 

All of the amazing buildings around every corner. Azulejo churches, cathedrals, towers. Blue tiles were really popular because they were a sign of wealth back in the day. Porto has over 30 cathedrals. We climbed Torre de los Clergios for two euro and the view was breathtaking..

Azulejo church. I'm eating strawberries we got from an outdoor
market on the left. 

Brian with Torre de los Clergios on the left and the town hall spire
on the right in the main square where the rally was.

I'm the same size as the torre.

View from the torre.

Evora:A train ride back to Lisbon and then one hour inland brought us at dusk to the small station in Evora. We had toured Porto all day and were told that by walking up the street in front of us, we'd hit the main square in about fifteen minutes. We saw nobody as we trudged up the cobblestone street; it was a little eerie. We entered the city walls and eventually found our hostel, right off the main square. We ate dinner at a little local place and took a walk around the tiny cities narrow streets with quaint street lights, seeing the Roman temple by night. 

As we were walking back to the square, we found it alive, full of wildly happy Benefica (a Portuguese team) futbol fans. The game had ended victoriously,  and the city was alive again! We went running around the city walls in the morning, along the aqueduct inside the city walls, and up and down a bunch of tiny streets, randomly coming across beautiful structures.

There were free walking tours that leave at 10am from the tourist info center right off the main square. We missed it by an hour because we didn't know they were happening, so we gave ourselves our own tour. We should have run down the aqueduct a little farther because there's a place you can walk on top of it. Next time!

Cathedrals and Roman Temple. We paid two euro to just walk in the Cathedral of Evora, and I would pay the full five to see the rectory and museum too. There was another cathedral we saw as well. You can just walk around the Roman Temple. They were right near each other and it was cool to see the silhouette of the cathedral behind the temple.

Museum of Evora. I was hoping this would have most history of Evora, but instead it was loads of art and stonework with captions saying if they were Roman and what time period they were from. Not exactly teaching me anything. 

Capela dos Ossos. A chapel made of the bones of 5,000 exhumed bodies. There were plaques with poems that talked about the transience of human life. It wasn't sad to me to think that it was made of the bones of people who had once been alive. They hadn't been killed for this purpose; rather, they were chosen because they were already bones. You couldn't tell who the rich people bones were, or the fat people bones, or the beautiful people bones. And at the end of the chapel was an illuminated structure, the only aspect of the chapel not made of bones, featuring Christ on the cross. I wish that there had been more light on him, to emphasize his power over the death that literally made up the walls around him. 

Peacock garden and hostel. We came across a random garden full of peacocks. They were so beautiful! And our hostel was so nice again. Not as nice as the last one, but still so much nicer than we thought they would be. There was a cool quote on the wall. And this one had a quaint roof that we could eat breakfast from, with a view of the square on one side and a view of the city on the other.

Cascais: I had wanted to go to the beach all week; I had expected it to be hot after Brian would tell me how nice it was every day before I came. But alas, as soon as I got there, the temperature dropped to the sixties and the wind picked up, while Provo suddenly got summer. It was finally beach weather on Saturday, my last day in Portugal. After a much longer travel than necessary to get there, we arrived at Cascais, a tourist city with a small stretch of beach. I loved being near the ocean on the sand again. I can't wait to go home in a month to get married!!