Lisbon loves you!

Monday, August 22nd Checkout from Equitypoint was at 10 AM, so we were up an at ‘em at 9 in the morning. Breakfast was continental downstairs, and everyone was sitting at a long table in the kitchen (where we’d sat the night before). I sat down and was drinking coffee when I heard a really American sounding accent from two girls next to me. I asked them where they were from, and they turned out to be Canadian!!! From Toronto! I love Canadians. Take two on the Lisbon to Madrid night train was at 10:30 PM, so after breakfast, we had all day to explore the capital. What an amazing impromptu visit. Lisbon is on the coast, so the ocean view coupled with its old architecture and winding, steep cobblestone roads makes for a killer combination. We asked the guy at the hostel where we should be sure to visit, and he circled places on a map for us, numbering them in importance. We headed down to the coast, walked through the shopping district, ate lunch, and went to go see the Lisbon castle, Castelo de S.Jorge, a national monument that was an old citadel (versus a palace). It was built by the Moors in the mid-11th century and is now open to visitors for an entry fee and is home to an active archaeological site. Laura and I were the only ones who wanted to see the castle enough to pay the entry fee (3.50 euro, we got the student discount), and it was worth it. The view was gorgeous. After dinner, we had a couple of hours to kill before having to be at the train station. We decided to do a picnic on this beautiful street that ran down the center of the city (and actually reminded me a lot of upper east side Manhattan). We went back to the hostel and called a cab around 9 PM, boarded the night train, and left at 10:30 PM. Once on the train (our first night train!!! Of 3…), Molly and I watched Pride & Prejudice on my ipod touch….so good. The four of us were seated near the cart end, so there was a corridor where a bunch of guys were standing (seemed like total hooligans). They were drinking beer and smoking every time the train stopped. At one point they motioned to us to join them, but we were like “as if” and continued watching the movie. Haha!! But when the movie was over, curiosity got the best of us. I started thinking about how people meet on trains in Europe and how maybe we were being too judgmental. After all, Europeans drink beer like water. Maybe they were just having a friendly drink. So, we started up a conversation with them, refusing any drink and stating the pretense that we just wanted to say hi. There were four guys, and all of them were German. Three of them had sub-par English, so the conversation was really slow and kind of awkward. Then, the one on the end started talking to us – Mitch! His English was wonderful and next thing you know, the three of us were talking about ideology and how he had been speaking English for 8 years and loved the practice. Unfortunately, he wasn’t staying in Madrid, so we went our separate ways when the train stopped, but we are all facebook friends now. ☺