Greetings from Portugal!

Hey everybody,
I'm in a hostel in Lisbon right now, and figured it was time for an update. I was going to try to put up some pictures, but it looks like my card reader isn't working, so you'll have to wait till I get back to Paris and buy a new one for some visuals. It's been a whirlwind of events since I last wrote, but I'll try and fill you in. Sorry I think it's kinda long, but its interesting and you get a prize if you get to the end ;)

Tuesday - I went to Foyer Masséna after last writing and met up with Stef (from U of I, on the last night of her 2 week visit), Antonia (U of I, and my paris program IPP), Laura (U of I & IPP), Yoko (Laura's tunisian girlfriend, Sorbonne), Jordan (U of I, IPP), & another french boy whose name I forgot. We had some wine and chatted away in an interesting mix of french and english. It was great to see Antonia and Stef again. Laura came back to U of I for christmas break, but I hadnt seen Antonia since October, and Stef moved to Bloomington too, so I'd only seen her once since September. It was cool to meet Yoko too, I'd heard a lot about her and she seems fun.

Antonia, Stef, and me then left for a bar called the Frog and the Princess (because it was on the Rue de Princesse), and met up with 3 other IPP girls and some of their french friends. It was a pub that was really chill, but pretty heavy with english speakers for Paris, which was good for Stef (no french), and a nice transition for me. I tried speaking mostly french, and I'm pretty surprised at my proficiency, it's better than I thought. Me and Antonia got into a cool conversation with a couple french boys about some differences between America and France. Apparently a lot of French think of Americans as snotty and rich, which is definitely the way a lot of Americans see French. I'm sure I'll learn a lot more about french perspectives of Americans the longer I'm in Paris hehe.

Then getting home from the bar was quite an adventure! The Metro stops running at like 1:30, so you have to take the night buses. Antonia and Stef were going back to Antonia's host family's, so I had to make my way home alone in a new city, kinda boozy, in the cold. Sounds awesome huh? Antonia pointed me in the right direction and I headed off, and promptly passed the first street I was supposed to turn on. They were on a bus and saw me walking, so they got off and we walked together to Chatelet, a point where we could both catch buses straight home. We crossed the Seine and passed Notre Dame and the city buildings surrounding Sainte Chapelle, it was an unusual way to see the famous Parisian sights, but it made the cold walk much more pleasant to know I live in frickin Paris! I got home safe and slept soundly with my coat as a blanket (I really have to go buy a comforter hehe).

Wednesday - I woke up an hour late after improperly setting my alarm. I was supposed to catch a flight to Lisbon from Charles De Gaulle at 2:05, but I got lost trying to find the right ATM in Paris, then got on the wrong RER train and had to get off and wait 40 minutes for another. So I showed up for the flight 10 minutes late quite miffed. I found a new flight online for the morning, and went home to finish buying the ticket.
I stopped at a grocery store on the way home and searched for my cheapest options for a meal, knowing I'd just wasted a 40 euro flight. I also haven’t figured out my dorm's kitchen facilities yet, so I went with crackers, mozarella, sardines, salami, and a big box of apple juice for 9,04 total. Paris is expensive :( I ate a bit and went to the computer lab to finish buying my tickets and to try getting a hold of Margaret (my friend in Lisbon).
They turned out to be impossible to purchase online and I spent 5 hours dealing with 3 different companies and both of my banks, on different websites, on the phone (skype), and in multiple languages to no avail. I really wanted to get this one flight, because it was early and cheap. Fortunately I discovered I could text Margaret so she didn't have to wait for me at the airport.
I gave up at around 11pm (23H00), and went to bed.

Thursday - got up at 5:00, called a cab (too early for Metro), and got to Orly airport. I successfully bought my ticket and got through security by 6:30. The flight was supposed to leave at 7:30, but it was snowing so bad that we got really delayed. We boarded the plane at 8:30, deboarded at 10:30, and reboarded again before finally leaving at 12:30. There was a really nice excentrically-dressed lady sitting next to me on the plane who kept cracking jokes about the airline. She was from Brazil, but spoke great French. She gave me a coin from Brazil as a souvenir and I gave her an American quarter. And guess what. Her name was Lena! What are the odds?
I made it to Lisbon and it was beautifully sunny and waited for a bus next to a palm tree :) How wonderful! Margaret had already left for our next destination of Lagos in the south, so I made my way to the Oriente train station (beautiful! wait till you see pics), and left for Lagos at 17H20. You don't realize how amazing language is till you don't have it. I know next to nothing in portuguese, and it was quite difficult to make sure I was on the right track, but gestures, smiles and thank yous (obrigada) can go a long way hehe.

I had to transfer trains in Tunes (toon-esh). Portuguese is so funny, they have like 4 letters that make a sh sound. I asked this older couple to make sure it was the right stop. It turned out they were French. They'd lived in Paris, and decided to retire to Lagos where life's slower and nature's beautiful :) It sounded like a european version of my parents with their Michigan house, so cute! I had a nice chat with them and I knew I was going the right way.
Margaret met me at the train station in Lagos, we walked to the hostel and made pasta for dinner. Then we went to a bar called the 3 monkeys with a couple Canadians and a couple Americans and played pool with a British guy and a Portuguese guy. Hostel towns are awesomely international!

Friday - Me and Margaret went for breakfast at this great little place for 3euro a plate, and a latte for 1,50! Portugal is a hell of a lot cheaper than Paris. We decided to check out the surfing situation, at the suggestion of one of the Canadians. Lagos is a major surfing town, and summer is apparently awesome insanity because people come from all over to surf. It's kinda like San Juan del Sur in Nicaragua. But in europe! Mid-winter you wouldn't expect you could surf, but Portugal is warm still, about 60 degrees farenheit most days.
So we were a little late to surf and decided to wait till the next day. We waffled a bit about doing it, thinking about the cold and the cost (45 euro). But they give you a wet suit, it costs a lot less than the $250 to get a lesson in hawaii, and how often do you get a chance to surf off the coast of Portugal? We bought our reservations and went to wander the town. It's a lovely little town, windey streets, ocean air, loads of shops and restaurants spilling out onto the streets. We went to the grocery store and got some snacks and a box of generic wine for 1,80 and went to the beach for a picnic. It was lovely, and this adorable stray dog chilled with us for a bit. They have really cute and well-fed strays here, its definitely no Nicaragua hehe.

Lagos used to be a big slave-trade port way back in the day so we saw a couple of the historic fort buildings too. We went home, I took a french placement exam for IPP, and we passed out for a bit. When I got up Margaret was asking for a seafood restaurant suggestion. The hostel owner's this New Zealander with dreds named Jaimie, and his girlfriend Allie is from Jersey and works at a bar in town. They told us about a cheap, delicious restaurant they love, and I guess we got a little confused on directions, cuz we definitely ended up at the wrong place.
We wandered across the river and behind the marina, past the end of the sidewalks and streetlights, past 2 roofless, tagged-up buildings, and found this shed-looking building that was actually a really nice restaurant. It was more expensive than we'd been looking for, but we got a couple soups and a Bream fish to split so it wasn't bad. Word of advice for those planning to visit Portugal: if you're poor, don't eat the bread and dip they bring out pre-meal. Margaret was wise enough to ask how much it was before we did, and he's like "not expensive, 4-5 euros." Sneaky devil.
Picking our fish was interesting. He insisted on bringing the fish out so we could examine them, and Margaret was against it, but I figured why not. So he comes out with this basket of like 8 recently deceased fish on a bed of lettuce, and I picked a 60 gram one while Margaret tried not to freak out. hehe, she wasn't raised to calmly continue eating cereal next to a dad fileting bluegills en masse.

The food turned out to be exquisite! The fish did still have its eyes and extremely long teeth, but it tasted damn good, and that's what’s most important in my book. We went back to the hostel and got ready to go out with Allie. I'm glad we came in winter because it's mostly workers who know the town in and out and know everyone else around. We got the inside scoop, and got to barhop with someone who knows like everyone in town.
Margaret went to bed rather early cuz she's got a cold and wasn't feeling so well. A bartender was kind enough to pour her a shot of honey rum for free, insisting it'd help hehe. I think it just knocked her out. I continued on with Allie and a few other friends of hers we picked up along the way. It was a blast! I talked with this Irish guy for a while who was from some town like 20 minutes from Cashel, so that was cool, he said to shoot an email if I ever go back there. The Brazilian guy from pool the night before was working at the last bar we went to, and we got to chill with some of his friends, real locals. Thanks to his translation the portuguese wasn't such a barrier :)

Saturday - Margaret got up to surf, but I'd only gotten to bed a couple hours earlier, so I stayed in bed. I got up at about noon and went to the surf store to see if there was a way I could meet her there. A couple british surfer guys who'd gotten up late and hungover as well were about to go, so I hitched a ride with them. It ended up being a whole adventure to get to the beach.
We went to the other side of the river in town to pick up one guy's sister who was visiting, and we ended up sitting down for breakfast. We absorbed another hilarious british guy who was drunk already, and the group of like 6 of us total eventually got in the cars. We went to a few friends’ places to pick up more boards, and finally I made it to the beach.
It was beautiful! There were these colorful rocky cliff faces and a huge stretch of sand. The water was decently warm, though the wetsuit helped. The waves were a blast! I’m no surfing expert, having done it only once in Nicaragua with the bro, but even if you don’t get up on the waves they’re fun. Margaret had been out all day and she’d gotten pretty decent at it. I was actually glad I wasn’t out all day, it was cold after a while. By 4:30 I was frozen, she was exhausted, and we left to get back and catch our 6:15 bus to Lisbon. We got a ride back in a van that was rigged up like an apartment. My seat was the bed, and there was a stove and shelves, and a mirror. The driver said he travels a lot to find good waves. The surfer culture is so funny, it’s like this international network I never really saw before Nica. Chicago definitely isn’t known for its surfing.

So me and Margaret made it to our bus, spent a few hours on the road, and arrived safely in Lisbon at this awesome hostel. It’s only 13 euro a night, it’s in a great location, and its beautiful! It’s really technologically savvy too. They had a projector playing music videos in the main room, and a row of computers for us. Every bed has a light and a plug. But the best part: our keys are wristbands with sensors on them, so you wave your wrist in front of the front door, the room door, and our locker doors to get in. How cool!
We went to McDonalds for dinner since nothing else around was open still at 11:30 when we got in. It's interesting to see a staple American business like that in a completely different context. The one here sells liquor, a wide variety of soups, a sandwich called the New York Crispy, a mcdonalds version of a staple onion-heavy portuguese sandwich I forgot the name of, and salads of much higher quality than in the states. It came with a little bottle of olive oil for dressing hehe. The staple big mac and fries was my dinner of choice, and it tasted great, I think the meat was higher quality.
Other updates: I guess Portugal is really close to legalizing gay marriage, so I'm hoping to see some celebrating in the streets soon while we're here. My back's been hurting a lot since surfing, and I really hope it'll be fine by tomorrow. I thought I lost my camera on the bus earlier, but it turns out it was in a pocket I didn't check. I'm glad I've managed to not lose anything yet! (knock on wood)
Alright, its late, so I’m gonna hit the hay. Tomorrow we get to explore Lisbon (Leesh-boah), yay!

Oh right, the prize. I’m picking up postcards as souvenirs from all the places I go, so you should email me your address and I’ll send you one! lenagreynolds@gmail.com It’s not really an exclusive prize, you might get one even if you didn’t read the whole blog, if I like you ;)

Peace out homeslice
and Boa Noite!