Day 79: Going Home

The Airbnb itself was a poorly designed and under developed in its recent attempts of renovation. I could tell that the lady had put effort in trying to make the house homey but the lack of working lights, appliances, overall aesthetic, and simple broken things like the doors and showers made poor first impressions. The house was also creepy with a long hallway that directed you straight from the entrance to a bathroom at the end of the hallway with a kitchen on the left and a living room on the right. A back room with another set of bathroom on either side added to the effect of creepiness. Because my travel buddy was sick, my friends were leaving at 3am and I was going to leave the house at 10am. However I didn't get much sleep because I actually thought I was going to be chopped up into small bits by an axe-murderer and no one would know where I was because I was in the middle of nowhere in Portugal. I'm happy that it was an irrational fear because I made it out okay. I made it to my flight from Portugal to Madrid with no problems but getting to Madrid's airport to Madrid's bus stop definitely had its challenges. I ended up getting on a train after asking multiple people who wouldn't give me a straight answer and hoped that it was the right train. I had a small window of time to make it to my bus so if I happened to get on the wrong train, I would miss my  bus and then have to stay in Madrid for an extra night somehow. Luckily it was the right train and I made it onto my bus. My final thoughts on Madrid: I would love to live here, so much to do, need to go back because I barely even saw it, this is completely off topic but I saw the same guy who was on my Morocco trip after I just told another person who was going on the same trip to Morocco.
Final thoughts on Portugal: loved the touristy parts, favorite part was up the side of the hills with cute tourist restaurants and stores, lots of shopping, bad pickpockets, would love to go back again. 

Day 78: Portugal Day 3

Today's goal was to try and get away from the touristy area as much as possible but somehow we didn't get that far by metro and ended up getting a different angle of the bridge and city. We got lost on the way trying to find the touristy area and ended up walking for an hour in circles. We finally found a tuk(little motorcycle thing that was converted to hold multiple people in the form of a horse and carriage style) to make up for lost time of actually being lost. I tried to grab some photos while we were in it but they weren't that good since we were almost constantly moving. I will never pay to do the tuk ever again but I was glad I did it once. I was embarrassed that I looked like such a tourist. Speaking of tourists, we fount the pick pocketer again. Brittanay Kav was trying to talk to the pick pocketer but she was pretty quick to play it off. Britt yelled "hey" to warn the victim but the girl turned around to act like the "Hey" was for her and came running to us to act like she knew us. Britt asked her if it was a busy day at work and she acted like she knew nothing. The pick pocketer then pretended like her phone was ringing as a way to get out of the awkward conversation. The bombing of Paris also happened today. It was extremely sad and you could tell the whole country was mourning. The candles, posters, and colors on the building were everywhere. It was crazy how quick Lisbon pulled it all together but the terrorist attacks feel more real to me here in Europe. 

Day 77: Portugal Day 2

I survived the creepy airbnb. I walked all day in the tourist areas. Lisbon is basically a valley with a flat middle at the bottom of the slopes. The bottom has a lot of plazas, government buildings, shopping streets, and coastal walking paths along the beach. On one slope, we visited the Castello de S. Jorge built by the Moors in the mid 11th century. The purpose of the castle was to house military troops unlike most castles which were used for residence. The hills were very steep and I was pretty much drenched in sweat by the time I got there. That is one reason why I couldn't live in Lisbon. But the hilly slopes were my favorite part of walking around today. There were shops, restaurants, and beautiful views overlooking the whole city which were priceless. The other slope had restaurants and shops on the other side but we mostly focused on the side with the castle and the plazas at the bottom. We finished a long day of walking with a nice sunset by the beach. It was so relaxing.