Our stint in Spain and Portugal is coming to an end. We’ve spent about a week working our way East to West to see Barcelona, Madrid, Cuenca and Lisbon. Each city has a completely different feel. The culture, the people and the architecture are greatly contrasting. While Madrid is a large crowded city like New York, Barcelona is a more rambling accumulation of neighborhoods and history, and Lisbon is a world unto itself that we much prefer and are lucky to have scheduled as many days here as we did. Our beach front hostel in a relaxed non-metropolitan setting gave us the perfect jumping off point to explore the downtown area of Lisbon. Much of Portugal reminds me of California, stucco houses, palm trees, warm weather, a slower pace than the Spanish cities we visited. Food here is relatively cheap which is nice and I hear the seafood’s good, so I plan to investigate tomorrow before we leave. We spent a lot of time wandering the Alfama district of Lisbon. Its a beautiful maze of old houses built up on top of a hill over looking the city at the top of which is a Castle. Its wonderful for photographing and wandering without care. The views of the ocean are lovely as well. All in all I’ve really enjoyed Lisbon, but I can’t wait to get to Switzerland in a couple days. Madrid and Barcelona were nice enough places, but I felt overwhelmed by their mass. The one major downfall to liking Portugal so much is having no idea how to speak the language. We’re figured out how to say thank you, which is moderately helpful, but I haven’t learned a simple word for hello. in Spain I’d become comfortable enough with my Sesame Street basics to order “Doce agua” at a restaurant, fortunately the waitress knew better than to bring me the twelve glasses of water that I had asked for. I guess I’m not as comfortable as I thought.
PS. we’re in Switzerland now looking out our hostel window at Jungfrau, the top of Europe (highest point in the swiss alps, i think) and watching the snow fall. Free wireless internet at this AWESOME backpackers villa among other cool well thought out doodads… more to come soon!
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