Recap of Lisboa, Portugal

In short, Lisbon is an absolutely beautiful city. It is located right on the coast of Portugal, (a nice change of pace from the rest of my travels, being so close to the ocean). On Wednesday I took full advantage of this; taking the train to Carcavello beach and swiming on the other side of the Atlantic! It was a bit frigid, but definitely worth it (for story purposes of course). Because it is right on the water, the weather was not nearly as hot as Seville, which was very very refreshing.

Carcavelo beach - 20 minutes by train from Lisbon (Cais do Sodre)

Thursday was another beautiful day, and again I took a train, with two Australians I met, to a small town called Sintra. Sean, George, and I had a great day trip walking around the palace which, "In the 184os, Ferdinand de Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the Germanic husband of Queen Maria the II, built. It is described as an immense, almost farcical castle, combining all the luxurious elements of previous ornate and gothic masterpieces."

Visitors will feel as though they have entered a Moorish palace, the kind of which fairy tales are made.

See what they mean?

The place was spectacular. It is located in the center of a large park which has paths running throughout, small ponds / waterfalls, and amazing views of the town.

The hostel was like most other hostels, except free internet, free breakfast, and two good-sized kitchens (loved that aspect). I stayed in most nights and had some good conversations about traveling with George and Sean. It is looking more and more like my next backpacking trip will be to Australia, although it would have to be during the winter (our summer). Maybe you all will be reading this blog again a few months from now... we will see.

The remaining days in Lisbon were quite low-key. Sean and George both left and I was running out of energy. Traveling takes a lot out of you, and as my friend Jeffrey Kane puts it, "Traveling and vacationing are two completely different things." Traveling involves work, moving from location to location and having to be constantly thinking about what to see during your short stay in the city. Vacationing is, well, a vacation. I prefer traveling at this point in my life.

I went to a free concert one night which was called, "Festival de bandas de Lisboa". It was much different than I thought - more of an orchestra than a small band, which is what I was picturing in my head. The crowd was mostly older folks, locals I would say, but it was great nonetheless. My last day entailed going to a few museums, an outdoor market, and catching an unexpected parade.

Some really cool stuff I saw at the contemporary modern art museum. Here is one picture that I found extremely odd, but very interesting.

So much going on in this painting. I cannot remember the name of the artist, but I wrote it down somewhere. I will have to post it later if anyone is interested. Then there was this video... two videos actually. Ana Mendieta was the artist. Maybe some of you have heard of her before...

...body tracks and sweating blood were the names of two of her works. She has a fascination with blood, is what I gathered by those two pieces. Feel free to look her up on youtube if any of you are interested in seeing some graphic and rather taboo artwork.

I also visited an Egyptian artifacts museum, which was extremely cool. Alright that is Lisbon in a nutshell. Here are a few pictures that I will leave you with before ending this post.

The main street in Lisbon - "Rua Augusto"

Praca do Comercio - where the free music concert was located.

I obviously did not take this photo. This is the statue in Lisbon which is very similar to the famous statue of Jesus Christ which is located in Rio De Janiero, Brazil. They also have a bridge that looks very similar to the Golden Gate...interesting.

Well, I am in Barcelona at this very moment and very tired tonight. It took me 20 hours to get from my Lisbon hostel to my hostel in Barcelona. Another long night train, but I made it! Only two weeks left on this European expedition. More updates coming soon. Ciao for now.