By the time I reached Portugal, I had traveled to enough
countries and felt way more excited than nervous by the fact that I was going
to be completely alone. I didn’t know a single person, didn’t know the language
(besides some words that are similar to Spanish) and honestly didn’t really
know what I wanted to do there. I am so happy I traveled to this country alone
because I learned how to figure things out for myself and got to wander around
with no specific destination.
DAY 1
I arrived in Portugal midday and took a taxi to Urban Garden
Hostel, a new hostel in Lisbon, Portugal that looked perfect for me. I walked
in to a pretty and bright space and walked up to the front desk to check in.
The hostel was run by all young people in their early 20s and they give
everyone a free beer when they check in (but I got a hard cider!). I got walked
to my room where there were 7 other beds with no other people and I put my
stuff down. Since it was a newer hostel, there weren’t as many people staying
there so in the room it was just me and this middle aged man who later showed
up who had just run a marathon.
After putting my stuff down, I wandered out into the kitchen
and met people who were staying at the hostel and some hostel workers. There
was a girl about my age or a few years older who led most of the walking tours
from the hostel, but everyone was hungry so she decided she would walk us to
one of her favorite restaurants. I met a girl named Alyson from Virginia and we
immediately became friends. There were about 5 other people in our group,
mostly hostel workers, and we all left and started walking around Lisbon. It
was beautiful. Such a nice sunny day and we sat at a table outside for
literally HOURS. Europeans really do take their time to eat and enjoy talking.
I had some good food and some drinks and we began heading back to the hostel.
We hung out at the hostel for a bit but not long after getting back, we got
hungry again. We went out to eat for lunch but had stayed so long that it was
almost dinner time by the time we got back to the hostel! So Alyson and I went
back to the square we had eaten in earlier and found an alley that had many
restaurants. It was one of those places where there are so many hosts
positioned outside the restaurant and stopping literally everyone walking by to
try to get you to come to their restaurant. We finally picked one after lots of
deliberating!
We were both pretty
hungry and found something on the menu that we could split. It was one of the
craziest and largest dishes I’ve ever seen. It was a meat/seafood platter and
so much fish, chicken, potatoes, shrimp, and random other seafood. It was
insane (I have a picture of it) and we didn’t even come close to eating
everything. We didn’t want any more seafood the whole trip after that.
We got back to the hostel and hung out with the hostel workers
and met a few more of them along with other people staying there. They set up
some drinking games in the living room and we all talked for hours. Like I’ve
said many times before, you always have the best conversations with adventurous
people who love traveling just as much as you do. They’re all so open-minded,
friendly and have a different outlook on life than most people you meet in your
day-to-day life. After hours of hanging out, I went to bed because I wanted to
roam around Lisbon the next day.
DAY 2
I will always remember how I felt this day. I had absolutely
no plans besides wandering around by myself and attempting to get lost. I had
the whole day ahead of me and I could do anything I wanted. I looked up gluten
free restaurants around the area and found one about a mile away. I began
walking and later realized that it would take longer because I would have to
walk up a big hill. Lisbon, Portugal is compared a lot to San Francisco because
it has pretty steep hills and also has a trolley that goes around the city. So
after I had climbed some of the hill, I finally found the restaurant called La
Trattoria Restaurante Italiano which was quite hidden. I walked in and it ended
up being fancy…and I was dressed in traveler’s clothes. Oops. It was a pretty
nice and intimate environment with most people in the restaurant dressed up for
dates they were on or for work meetings. The host was so nice and told me about
their gluten free pasta. He kind of hung out at my table and we talked for a
bit. He was surprised I was traveling alone and kept talking about America and
how he loves it. I got my pasta and had some wine with it and it was delicious.
Some of the best gluten free pasta I’ve ever had; I ate every last bite of it.
It was an interesting experience eating alone (it was my first time in all of
traveling) but it was really relaxing. I got to just sit, think and soak in the
environment without having to try to make small talk to anyone. I was alone and
happy about it.
I left the restaurant and saw there was a garden kind of
close by. After about a 20 minute walk, I found the garden/park called Jardim
de Estrela (it’s close enough to Spanish that I could translate it to “Jardin
de Estrella” in Spanish which means “Star Garden”, at least I’m pretty sure). I
went to this park and found a bench in the shade and just sat. For about 30
minutes. I sat and watched. I could’ve been sitting at a park anywhere in the
world…everyone is the same, doing the same thing you would do at any park. Some
people walking their dogs, some people pushing their toddlers in strollers,
some couples going for a romantic stroll by the flowers, and some kids who had
just gotten out of school who were showing off tricks on their skateboard. I
was so far from home but felt so comfortable and happy.
I finally got up and started walking to the other side of
the park and saw adorable baby ducks along the way. I found a bus stop that
happened to be where the trolley stopped also. The Lisbon trolley is a way for
people to get around the city and is very similar to the trolleys in San
Francisco. I waited a few minutes and then hopped onto one. There were SO many
people crammed onto it. I was squished and found it very humorous because I
didn’t hear a single person speak English (but heard just about every other
language). I didn’t know exactly when my stop would be because I was trying to
get to Castelo de Sao Jorge which is some castle, so I got off when google maps
showed that I was close enough. Well I don’t think it was the closest stop. I
ended up at this small park/overlook of the beautiful city. There was a small
coffee shop and a band playing some beautiful music and everyone was just
sitting around enjoying the scenery and the music. I looked out and saw the
castle but it looked way further than I thought it was and up a big hill so I
decided to not even try to get to it.
After that, I had literally no direction and my only plan
was to get lost. It is the absolutely best feeling. I wandered down so many
streets, found random churches (Church of Santa Maria Maoir Lisbon Patriarchal
Cathedral), shops, beautiful outlooks of the city, wandered past people’s
houses/apartments, and eventually made it down to the water somehow. There was
a huge square with statues, and people hanging out and sitting right on the
waterfront. The place was called Terreiro do Paco (“The Palace’s Square”) and
is where the royal palace stood for over 2 centuries until a great earthquake
in 1755 (it’s now called Praca do Comercio or “Commerce Square” since the
royals moved elsewhere). It was such a grand place (“grand” really is the best
word to describe it) and I sat by the waterfront and just soaked everything in.
I then realized it would be getting dark in about an hour so
I found a bus stop and had no idea how to get back to my hostel. I waited at
the stop and some older guy who I at first thought was really weird started
talking to me and told me which bus to take and what stop to get off at, and it
happened to be the same bus he was going on. The bus arrived and he kept
talking to me and invited me to some soccer party at a bar because there was a
huge game that night but I was sketched out. I made it back to the hostel and
grabbed some dinner, then hung out with everyone at the hostel. One of the
hostel workers knew someone having a party that night and invited Alyson and I
to tag along. We ended up at some apartment complex and climbed multiple
staircases to get to the apartment. Everyone there was about my age and
randomly, there were so many Polish people! I met so many people who were going
to whatever university it was that was closest and really had a lot of fun.
We left the party and continued to hang out at the hostel in
the common area. Two other hostel workers, Tony and Jack, were there and they
were both British and I couldn’t get over their accents. We all just had so
much fun talking and getting to know one another. I had to get to bed before
everyone else (which was still extremely late) because I was headed off to
Porto, Portugal the next morning. Just like Lisbon, I had no idea what I was
going to do in Porto but I heard it was really pretty there and I was excited
to just wander around.
DAY 3
I arrived in Porto after thinking I was going to miss the
flight there. I was planning on taking a bus to the Lisbon airport but the bus
never came. A guy around my age found out that there was some strike going on
and told me that the subway leads to the airport as well. He told me to follow
him since he was going to work and it was right by the airport. We sat next to
each other and were talking the entire time. I was stunned at how many nice and
helpful people I met in Lisbon! I really loved Lisbon and loved the people
there.
I landed in Porto and navigated the
train/subway/trolley/whatever you want to call it system. I finally found the
Tattva Design Hostel and it was beautiful. Each floor was decorated and
designed like a specific element like earth, fire, water, etc. I managed to get
talking to the hostel workers and said that I knew some Portuguese songs like
Danza Kuduro and Ai se eu te pego (both I heard on the Mediterranean Cruise I
went on summer 2012) and turns out, none of the songs used the Portugal
Portuguese dialect. One was from Brazil and the other they said used some
African Portuguese dialect. I found that pretty funny that none of those songs
actually came from Portugal.
I got shown to my room and met some Brazilian girl who was
also traveling alone. She didn’t speak much English but we decided to go get
lunch/dinner (who remembers these things) together. We walked a few blocks to a
central part of the city and found a restaurant. She also helped translate
saying that I was allergic to gluten so that was nice! One of the only gluten
free options on the menu was this huge steak with potatoes and veggies. It didn’t
taste good but I was fine since I’m used to having limited options. We went
back to the hostel and it was already getting dark by then. I was absolutely
exhausted for some reason so I decided to just get in bed and go on my
computer. I slept like a baby that night and the curtain around the bed
definitely helped. No other hostel that I stayed at had that, so people could
just walk by and see you sleeping but not at the Tattva Design Hostel! It was
great.
DAY 4
I was ready for a day of not too much walking. Exploring
really wares you out! I found the cheapest hop on-hop off bus and got on. I was
the only person on the blue bus for a few stops, then just a few people got on.
I didn’t get the memo that the “cool” and “better” bus was the red one, then
came the yellow, and the blue was last. But I enjoyed the blue and it really
showed me around the whole city! It felt nice sitting up at the top and looking
at the beautiful city. We went under a bridge, to the beautiful waterfront,
around to green parks, saw cool statues, and I almost got off by the ocean but
decided it would be too much of a hassle to wait to be dropped off in a random
location and wait around for the next bus. I rode it without getting off for
the whole loop which lasted about 2 hours. I got off in the central part of
town and walked into the closest place, McDonalds. IT WAS PACKED. McDonalds is
so popular in most countries around the world I was shocked to find out. I
chilled in there for a little bit while I decided what to do. I decided to
wander around and find a restaurant to eat dinner at. I walked up a hill and
found some cafes where many people were sitting outside and enjoying the
scenery. I got a table and it was so relaxing eating alone. I had one of the
best meals throughout all my travels at the café I ended up at. I got calamari
(without the batter of course) in this really good sauce. I never knew I would
like squid so much!
I think I just walked back to the hostel after that and hung
out until I went to bed. I didn’t really meet anyone there but it was such a
short stop and I was tired from Lisbon. I left the next day for my last country:
Spain! I was so excited to go back to my favorite city in the world: Barcelona!
Portugal was such a random country I traveled to and I had no plans at all
whatsoever. It turned out great and I really fell in love with Lisbon. Porto
was cool too but there was just something about Lisbon that got to me.
