Lisboa, Portugal: Portugal Take 2

After a Bla Bla Car from Mérida with Portuguese and Brazilian guys that drove from Madrid and picked me up along the way I was in Lisboa. I arrived at 1am Portuguese time (2am in Spain), incredibly tired and with no accommodation. I found the address of a hostel and walked in at 1:30am, I grabbed a bed for 2 nights.

Why do I always show up in cities and walk into hostels without booking online? Many reasons!
1. It keeps my plans fully flexible; you never know who you will meet on your journey there.
2. I will usually have a forum post on CS so people can contact me last minute to offer accommodation and their time.
3. It can be exciting not knowing if you have a place to sleep that night.
4. I get looked after by the staff. If you book a certain dorm online for a certain price they would have already arranged the bed you will be sleeping in before you arrived. It will usually be exactly what you booked. When I walk in and start up a conversation so many times I will pay the lowest price for the highest priced dorm (e.g. I will pay a 10 bed dorm price and get a 4 bed dorm and on rare occasions a private room).

I will apologise now because I didn't carry my camera around much in Lisbon. It truly is a beautiful city but I can't show it.

On this occasion I didn't get offered a couch before I walked into the hostel but I had messages from 3 people offering a tour/meet up. After a good sleep I decided to get lost in city without a map to discover the hidden parts.

That night I met up a Turkish girl volunteering in Lisbon, Merve. We tried some Portuguese cherry wine from a street stand. We received a chocolate cup about the size of a shot glass, they fill it up twice with the cup being eaten after the 2nd time. This was followed by a big tour around Lisbon then a visit to a bar for a shot (of something?) in a glass made of ice.

The next day the hostel was fully booked out for the weekend. I decided to store my luggage and meet up with a German girl for lunch hoping my accommodation problem would sort itself out... it did! After a ridiculously huge, cheap and tasty lunch I was off to my new hosts' place, a Portuguese/Brazilian family. It was mum, dad, grandma and 4 kids, plus another Couchsurfer from Korea. We ate like kings in this house.

The Korean guy and I were off to explore the town of Sintra the following day. It is a very old little town to the north of Lisbon, famous for a castle of the Moors and many other ancient monuments. It is very nice but packed with tourists. We decided to go on a massive hike outside of town.

The following morning I was off again but not quite as planned. When I searched Bla Bla Car for a ride south I saw a ride north for 27 Euro... back to Vigo. So I was heading 500km in the opposite direction to visit a friend. Except after I made my decision it turned out the Bla Bla Car was full so instead of 27 Euro 5 hour point to point it was 2 metro rides in Lisbon followed by a highspeed train to Porto, a metro ride in Porto followed by a 3 hour bus ride and finishing with a city bus ride in Vigo. So 47 Euro and 11 hours later I was once again at Olalla's home, 1000km away from where I expected to end the day.

Lessons Learnt:
Keep your plans completely flexible and do what you want.
I love Spanish culture.
If a city doesn't quite life you the experience you want then leaving early isn't a bad thing.

Porto, Portugal: A Short Visit to Portugal

After an amazing weekend with Olalla and a 2 hour bus ride I was in Porto, the 2nd largest city in Portugal. Porto is probably most famous for Port wine, although Nandos and Oporto chicken restaurants would be up there. I decided to head straight to a cafe/bar to enjoy a coffee and use WiFi to find a hostel for the night. I walked up to the counter and that's when I realised I didn't know how to speak Portuguese. Do I speak Spanish, feeling like a douche bag using a language that belongs to neither of us, knowing it is similar, order in English, or point? I didn't even know please or thank you in this language. That is poor form for someone that claims to be a traveller. As it turns out, to my surprise, the Portuguese speak really good English.

I found the address of a hostel and booked in person before meeting up with Taylor, an American girl temporarily living in Porto to improve her Portuguese. She took me on a quick tour of the city, a restaurant for dinner then a Moroccan bar for a couple of drinks. I was buggered so I called it an early night.

The next day I joined my first ever official tour. In many large cities you can find "free" tours, at the end you tip what you want (5 Euro is the norm). The group composed of a Korean girl, 8 Frenchies and I. It lasted about 2 hours and was very informative. The most intriguing thing learnt was Pedro, the first king of Brazil returned to Portugal to defeat his brother with the support of the Portuguese. After winning he said his heart will always remain in Portugal. When he died in Brazil years later that is exactly what happened. His heart was cut out and sent to Porto, where it still remains in a church, with his body still in Brazil... Overall it was a good and very informative tour but probably my first and last official tour. A personal tour from a local is not as informative but much more fun.

After the tour I enjoy a Francesinha (Little Frenchie), an enormous toasted sandwich that Porto is famous for. It contains thick slices steak, ham and chorizo on two pieces of toast with the entire thing coated in a layer of cheese and topped with an awesome sauce... a must have for a visit to Porto!

That night I ended up drinking with a couple from Lisbon before joining a pub crawl that passed through one of the bars. So many French in Porto. The night involved drinking, speaking Frenglish and a lot of dancing with French girls.

The next day I woke up feeling bit dusty. Over breakfast I had to make the decision of booking one more night, heading south to Lisbon or east to Salamanca to make better use of my Spanish. After few texts it was north back to Vigo to visit Olalla... I was expecting to see her again when I left but I thought I would last longer then 2 days!

Lessons Learnt:
Meeting locals that you want to meet is surprisingly harder in larger cities.
Study a few basic words and sentences before visiting any country.
Be willing to completely change your plans to visit someone or do something you want.
Portuguese people speak much better English than French and Spanish people.