Portugal

Although November was supposed to be my no-travel month (saving up for my Christmas trip), one of my closest friends from home invited me to go to Portugal with her during the first weekend in November. I hadn't seen her since orientation and knew that our schedules wouldn't line up again until January, so I decided to break my "rule" and spend the weekend with her in Lisbon. Planning trips is my least favorite part of travel, but luckily she loves that part and already had an itinerary full of ideas when she texted me to invite me.

On Friday morning, I took a bus from Logroño to Madrid to meet Caroline. While I was waiting for the bus, I realized I didn't know which stall it would pull out of (very common here, you kind of just show up and find your bus five minutes before it leaves) so I went up to ask a girl for help. She smiled at me in the polite, slightly awkward way people smile at me here when they assume I only speak English, and she started to turn away. I asked her a question and she told me she was surprised that I was able to speak Spanish, but she was very sweet and helpful and we ended up boarding the same bus.

When we got to Madrid, I was so focused on getting to the correct metro station that I got off the bus and forgot to get my backpack from under the bus. Luckily I realized it about three minutes later and sprinted back to the bus station, where the bus driver was waiting with it (shaking his head and scowling a little). A little flustered, I made my way to the metro station and found that they had changed the entire system. I had never ridden the metro alone before and was only relying on instructions sent to me by Caroline, so I was trying not to panic as swarms of people around me were protesting the changes. I tried to get a card from one of the machines but my stop wasn't listed, and I had to ask for help twice before I finally figured it out. About once a week I have a moment where I'm grateful that I speak Spanish and realize how difficult life here would be if I didn't, and this definitely was my moment for the week. The entire metro experience was frustrating, and I almost gave up and called a cab... but the whole point of being here is to grow and push myself, so I took a deep breath and forced myself to figure out the metro. I transferred at the right stop and got on the second metro, and when I got off Caroline was there waiting for me.

We went back to her apartment to drop off my backpack, then went out to a Mexican restaurant for tacos and margaritas. The cheapest way for us to get to Portugal was an overnight bus, so we had purchased tickets for that night after dinner. When we got on the bus, Caroline gave me a Benadryl and we both slept the entire way to Portugal (I was in such a deep sleep that I didn't realize it poured for most of the night or that the baby on our bus didn't stop crying).

When we got to Lisbon, it was 6 a.m. and the metro station hadn't opened yet. We took a cab to our hostel to drop off our things and change in the bathroom (our room wasn't ready yet). We went to a wonderful breakfast place then walked around the city for a while before taking a metro to Sintra, a town near Lisbon with a beautiful palace. After seeing the palace and walking around the park for a while in the cold rain, we headed back to Lisbon, where it was sunny and warm enough to eat lunch outside by the water. Caroline had a mealworm crawl out of her bread, but other than that the food was great. We walked around the town some more and headed back to the hostel at 7 p.m. to nap for a little while before dinner.

One of the most popular things to do in Lisbon is going to see a fado show. Fado is traditional folk music that touches on themes such as love, death, and sadness (it sounds a lot like opera). We looked up the best place to listen to fado in Lisbon, then got dressed and headed out. When we got there, they asked what time our reservation was, and we felt embarrassed briefly about our oversight then said we hadn't made one. The host told us that someone was running late and if he didn't arrive in ten minutes, we could have his table. While we were waiting, we looked around and noticed that most people were in tuxedos and dresses. We looked down at our jeans and tried to act natural (many mistakes were made in this experience and we probably should have done more research, but we're learning). The host came back and told us we could have the table, and they showed us to a corner in the very back of the room - Caroline joked that they were hiding us from all the people who actually belonged there.

When we sat down, we opened our menus and read a little notice that said because the restaurant didn't charge a fee of any kind for the show, there was a minimum charge of fifty euros ($60) per guest. Since we had already caused a little bit of a scene with our presence, we decided we definitely weren't leaving and started looking at the menu. I ordered filet mignon with cream sauce and french fries, and we split a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. While we ate, three people came out and sang fado, which was very interesting to listen to, even though we couldn't understand any of the words because they were all in Portuguese. We started dinner at 8 p.m. and finished at 12:30 a.m., so we went to back to the hostel and went to bed right after dinner.

On Sunday morning, we woke up early and got breakfast before I caught a cab to the airport for my flight. I got to the Madrid airport and had four hours to kill before my bus back to Logroño, so I went to McDonalds for the first time since I had left the United States (it was amazing) then read The Sun Also Rises for a while. I boarded my bus and got home at 10 p.m. Even though we only had one full day in Portugal, it was an amazing trip and I'm so glad I went!