Side Note and more Portugal

I really don't mind doing laundry, although I can't wait to have a nice dryer when I get back and be able to do laundry whenever I want.  It's even more frustrating when my roommate does her laundry, but sometimes she'll leave it sitting in the washer for days at a time.  Last night I finally figured it out.  I was getting ready for bed when I heard her put something in the washer and that's when I realized:  she puts things in there and doesn't wash them right then!  Like I said, she'll leave them in for days at a time or just leave her stuff hanging out on the line for days.  I was super frustrated because she has a whole other room dedicated to just clothes (yes, that could be an extra bedroom, but it has just her clothes in there) and here's me with eight months worth of clothes stuffed in one suitcase.  And not to mention I was gone all last week so I had a week's worth of dirty laundry and I'm going away this weekend again too.  Needless to say I need to do laundry.  Thankfully she did hers this morning and it wasn't a lot, but still!  I wouldn't mind if she actually did it and then hung up the laundry right afterwards, but no.  Then I came home on Saturday to find recycling that was there before I left still there along with another thing already filled.  The garbage is seriously right across the street so it's not that hard to do.  I'm pretty sure I've always taken the garbage out, at least since January.  Then she said 'oh, we have a lot of garbage'.  Well yeah!  So we both take it out since she was leaving and so was I and she said 'oh, the recyling goes in the yellow bin'.  Yes, I know that too since I always take it out.  Ok, moving on to Portugal.

The next city I went to was Coimbra, which is known for its University.  It has this old library and in a different part of the campus there is a room that future doctors take their exams in and then they have to swear an oath and all that jazz.  The University was nice, but I think we have universities just as nice back home.  There really wasn't too much to see there besides that and you couldn't take pictures in a lot of the buildings.

Lisbon was the last place I went to.  The first day I got there I did a walking tour of the three main neighborhoods, the Barrio Alto, Baixa, and Alfama.  I had my own self-guided walking tour courtesy of Rick Steves and it took most of the day.  I took a furnicular up to the Barrio Alto which was pretty cool and saw the oldest beer hall in Lisbon, although it really looked like any other bar.  The Alfama is famous for fado, a type of music that is sung in Portugal, but more specifically in Lisbon.  I visited a fado museum which was really interesting.  It told the history of it and you were able to listen to the music throughout various parts of the museum.  It was probably one of the better and more interesting museums I've been to.  The Baixa is the historic downtown part of Lisbon and where my hostel was at so I did that one last.  The walk brought you to several different plazas, one by the river Tagus, and another where a lot of African migrants from former Portugues colonies hang out at.  In one of the plazas you can find the famous ginjinha drink, a cherry liquor that tastes like cough medicine.

The furnicular

The 25th of April Bridge - looks like the Golden Gate Bridge, right?

By far the best place I visited was Sintra, a 40 minute train ride from Lisbon to the majestic forests that have five castles/palaces.  I felt like I stepped into a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale and really the one word that comes to mind to describe Sintra is magical.  The Pena Palace, the most famous, is painted in bright colors and the inside is so cozy anyone could picture themself living there.  The remains of the Moorish Castle are basically the foundations, but I felt like I was climbing the Great Wall Portuguese sytle.  The Quinta was architecturally romantic and I seriously felt like I was in some sort of Alice and Wonderland fairytale.  There was a cave with an underground passage that led to what is called the Intrinsic Well.  The cave led to the bottom of the well and then you can climb up stairs that lead to the top.  The last place I visited was my least favorite since they were doing a lot of renovations on the inside, but the outside had gardens that were pretty cool and had a whole Mexican themed garden with cactus and flowers from there.  So if you decide to go to Portugal you must visit Sintra.  I'll let the pictures speak for themself.



The Pena Palace



The Moorish Castle



The Pena Palace



The Intrinsic Well



The Quinta Palace

On the last day in Lisbon I went to the Belem area which is on the river and a little outside of the center.  They have a Maritime Museum, a monastery that has the tomb of Vasco da Gama, a discovery monument where you can go to the top of, and it supposedly has the best pastel de nata (cream cake) in Lisbon.  The cake was good, more custard like than cream, and flaky.  You could put cinnamon and powdered sugar on top too.  Overall it was a good trip and now I'm off to Madrid and Salamanca this weekend since we have next Monday off. 

Discovery Monument in Belem

Portugal

The past week I've been in Portugal for Semana Santa and I just got back last night, although I'm asking myself did I really go to Portgual since I'm pretty sure I heard just as much Spanish spoken as I did Portuguese.  The first city I went to was Porto, in the north of Portugal.  It's known for it's wine, port, hence the name.  I took a metro from the airport into the city and I had directions to the city, but after that the directions that the hostel had given were awful.  You had to go down more streets than it said and I stopped and asked this guy and he was nice enough to look on the internet for the address since I was on the street, I just couldn't find the building.  I finally found it and after I checked in I went and wandered around for a bit since it was later in the evening.  The next day I went to some churches (there will always be a church to visit in Europe) and this palace that used to be the stock exchange in Porto, but now they only have it in Lisbon.  Then I headed across the river to go to a winery.  I was walking when I saw this girl explaining to two guys about a river cruise and a winery visit for only ten euros.  I had been in line for a river cruise earlier that was for ten euros, but the time changed for it so I left.  This was even better so I got a ticket and went to find the winery.  Portugal has to be the hilliest country I have ever been to.  Every single city I visited had huge hills to climb.  So I climbed up another hill and after asking for directions I finally found the winery.  The English tour started in a half an hour so I had to wait around, but as soon as you got there they gave you a white port to try.  The port was just ok - not as good as a rioja, but definitely better than sherry.  There were a lot of people there when I first got there, but they were for the Portuguese tour so once they cleared out it was only me and two other girls from Korea until more arrived.  I found out that they had walked the Camino de Santiago, a walk in northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela.  The walk can start in various cities, from the Navarra region of Spain to a small French city on the border of France and Portugal.  I actually read a book before I left about a German man's journey on the camino.  It's supposed to be grueling and people can average anywhere from 15-30 kilometers per day.  Finally the wine tour started and it was informative albeit a little short, but after it was over we had another sample of port, this time a red one which was better than the white.  After the wine tour I went on the river cruise which was peaceful and then I just walked some more around the city.

At the winery in Porto

The next place I went to was Braga.  I had planned on going here before I found out it was the biggest place in Portugal for the Semana Santa celebrations, but really the processions were the highlight of Braga.  Otherwise it was a smaller town filled with churches and basically only churches to see.  I was able to catch the morning procession, a very short one to the Cathedral, where they held palms and they carried this funky thing that looked like a mini circus tent.  I'm not sure what the purpose of that was, but at this procession there weren't as many people.

Morning procession in Braga

The afternoon procession went throughout the main center of Braga and it had a lot more people in it along with solemn music.  The main piece was Jesus carrying the cross which several men carried.  It ended at one of the churches with a priest speaking and then they brought out Mary.  The procession continued, but it had already been an hour since it first started so I left. 

Two little boys in the procession

Besides the processions Braga had this beautiful garden filled with amazing flowers.  They didn't have any hostels in Braga so I stayed at a place that was nicer than a hostel, but not quite as nice as a hotel.  The best part:  they had tv stations in English including the BBC World News.  The highlight though was watching Glee (the Sexy Episode), the end of ultimate Cake Off and an episode of Cake Boss (he goes to Rome to make a cake).  I was in heaven.  Or English tv heaven at least.

The next day I took a side trip to Guimaraes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and overall overrated.  It was supposed to have this castle (it did) and these cable cars that went up and overlooked the city (it did), but the castle basically just the foundation and it took me forever to find the cable cars.  Actually it took me forever to find a lot of things including a map just to get around the city and lets not forget Portugal is the country of hills. 

The castle in Guimaraes