Biosciences Bonn: I’m Lisbon’ Life

After another early morning, we safely made it to Lisbon or Lisboa in Portuguese! This time, we did not have anyone greeting us at the terminal, but nonetheless, we were all just as excited to continue the next chapter of our Spring Break! We caught a bus from the airport to our hostel; on the way there, we saw a lot of Lisbon. I know I say this about every new city I visit, but trust me on this one; Lisbon was probably the prettiest city that I had been to yet! The architecture on all of the buildings was so intricate and there were very nicely maintained monuments everywhere! We got off at the stop that our hostel was supposed to be at, but after circling the building several times, we were still unable to find it! We asked a few people and almost called the hostel, but we found that the entrance to the hostel was inside of a convenient store! The hostel was extremely homely, and the staff was very nice. I found out that this hostel had actually been ranked as one of the top 3 hostels for the past 3-4 years in a row! Somehow, this hostel was really nice, yet it did not cost a fortune to stay there! After checking in, we made our way south through the city and to the coast. Again, all of the architecture everywhere was astonishing! Many pictures were taken! The beach wasn’t too big at all, but it was something, and the ocean looked relaxing! Afterwards, we made our way over to El Castelo de São Jorge. The journey to the castle was mostly uphill, so it was pretty tiring! Once we made it to the castle though, the views of the city were something else! For the Game of Thrones fans reading, the aerial view of Lisbon reminded me of King’s Landing! Next, we regrouped at the hostel and found our 8^th companion, Raju, who had just flown in from London to join us! We continued our journey in Lisbon by traveling to the area of Belem! We found the Jerónimos Monastery, which was one of the biggest that I had ever seen; we walked through the Belem Garden and made our way to the Monument to the Discoveries! The monument was massive, and the designs on the side were very intricate! It was also near the Rio Tejo, so I spent a few minutes and just relaxed by the water. We continued our journey by heading towards the Torre de Belém; on the way there, Raju and I found a small little public exercising machine area, so of course, we had some fun and tried each machine out! Finally, we made it to the Belém Tower; it was close to sunset, but the tower was still very nice to see. There was also a young musician who played the violin for us; he even played the Game of Thrones opening song; I guess you could say I was Lisbon’ Life Like the Lannisters? On our way back, we stopped by the Belém Pastries bakery to try out the infamous egg tarts; YES, THEY WERE SUPER LECKER! That night, I ordered clams and a tuna dish; it was definitely something that I hadn’t tried before, but I survived and actually enjoyed it! The next morning, I had breakfast provided by the hostel; I suppose that another reason as to why this hostel was ranked so high was that it had complimentary breakfast that consisted of grilled ham and cheese sandwich as well as nutella waffles! After breakfast, we met up with our tour guide, João, who took us on a day trip around Sintra! He was an extremely outgoing and cool guy! He would always have a story for every stop, and he would always ask us to get a groupie (group selfie) together! Our first stop was the Boca do Inferno; this one was a close second to the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. Still, it was a lovely sight to see. We made our way over to the Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of central Europe! I guess this was as close to Texas as I was going to get for a while. João then took us to another location that allowed us to look over the entirety of Colares, Sintra, and even to Lisbon! I’m not sure where it was, but it was a great location to visit! Next stop: Praia da Adraga! This was a small beach on the west coast of Portugal; this beach was actually very empty, which made our experience there all the better. The waves came crashing in, but it was a very pretty view. Michael and Kyle were feeling adventurous and decided to dip their feet into the water; well, their feet weren’t the only things that got wet. The waves rose high enough that parts of their pants were also drenched! We threw a frisbee around for a little bit longer at the beach before heading out to our final stop: Quinta da Regaleira! This consisted of a royal palace, chapel, and a luxurious park featuring lakes, grottoes, wells, benches, and fountains. We walked past a pretty man-made waterfall and into a man-made cave; there were several spiders just chilling on the ceiling of the cave, and I do not mess with spiders whatsoever! EWW! At one point, João had us all place our hands on each other’s shoulders, close our eyes, and travel through the cave together! I was scared I would fall trip or hit my head, but fortunately, we all made it through in one piece. We made our way over to the royal palace also known as “The Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire,” which contained 5 floors and had a façade that was characterized by gargoyles, capitals, pinnacles, and an impressive octagonal tower. We saw this one lady who was practicing her singing; it was a little freaky because of her facial expressions, but she was also singing very prettily! After this, we made our way back to Lisbon; all of us were extremely exhausted. I even took a little power nap before heading out for dinner; when I woke up though, I found myself to be extremely weak and somewhat sick. I figured that it was just because I hadn’t eaten much that day. For dinner, we had Italian food, which was pretty tasty! However, even after eating a meal, I still felt extremely sick; when we got back to the hostel, I took a shower and went to bed immediately. Falling asleep wasn’t easy, but it ended up happening; I woke up briefly around midnight to hear that our other friend, Kenneth, who happened to be in Lisbon as well was headed to our hostel. The rest of the night was filled with intermittent sleep where I could not sleep peacefully and my stomach did not settle well whatsoever. I think at one point in the night, I found that Kenneth had made it to our hostel and had partied a bit; for some reason, Kenneth stayed on the bean bag in the girls’ room, and his friend stayed in our room on Michael’s bed……which led me to my next question: where was Michael……he showed up around 5:30AM; just in time for our taxi to take us off to the airport. That morning was rather frantic, and I was so weak that I really didn’t know how I was going to make it Barcelona in one piece.