After dancing the night away the night before, we got up at Joao's apartment at a decent hour and hopped in the car with him.  He told us he had to drive to Sintra (about 45 mins outside of Lisbon) to visit his uncle.  The drive was amazing and we stopped along the cliffs for some great pictures!

the gorgeous coast- reminded me of half-moon bay a bit

Joao's uncle's house is the house with the blue shudders (top left), kind of hard to see

On the balcony of Joao's uncle's house.

On the drive on the way back we stopped at Cabo da Roca- the most western point of Europe

Also on the way back to lisbon we stopped in a city called Bleim for these AMAZING pasteries...Pastéis de Belém- a creamy eggy custard with a crispy flaky crust, sprinkled with powerdered sugar and cinimmon... YUMMMMM

That night Joao dropped us off at a tram stop where we were to meet yet another host- who's name still remains somewhat of a mystery.  This really nice mystery man named something like "Muchacho" lol picked us up and walked us back to his appartment.  Due to the raging the night before and the long day at Sintra, Alex and I were exhausted and explained that we were planning to go strait to bed.  He showed us to our rooms and we instantly passed out!  We woke up early with plans to explore Lisbon!  We walked around the whole city and then decided to walk (for more than an hour due to a little mis-calculation of distance) in order to see this famed "Belem Tower."  After this treacherous walk...we finally found this cool but super tiny castle...I thought it was a joke...

 After a very long day, we returned to Munchindo's house to cook dinner and went out for a little bit.  We ended up meeting with our previous host Joao again! fun fun!  Our last day in Lisbon was spent in Sintra, the same city Joao drove us through.  We weren't able to see the famous Pena Palace which was def worth the trip back to the city- Alex and I like to call it the technicolored castle

Its hard to tell but the castle is seriously on the very tipy-top of this forest-y city

 

pretty sweet

 After spending all day in Sintra, we returned back to Muchasa's (yes I'm changing his name every time).  We packed up our stuff and planned our day trip to Lagos on our way to Albufeira! 

Super cool looking train station in Lisbon- the next pic is Alex giving me a funny look because we are of course over an hour early for our train...but HEY we had time to eat breakfast and chase around some ugly pigeons lol

Goodbye Lisbon...hello BEACHES and TAN LINES!!! : )

LISBON!

Alex and I hopped aboard our train after saying fare well to Ricardo and we were off to Lisbon.  We arrived at around 21h and Joao, our next host was quick to find us at the train station! He drove us back to his apartment where we met two of his friends.  They were eager to prove to us that Lisbon was much better than Porto haha it was funny.  We all sat around talking and sharing Youtube videos and music.  Alex and I had bought Joao a bottle of Porto wine from the Sandeman winery and which we all shared.  At around midnight we all piled into his friend's car and headed out to a lively part of Lisbon called Birra Alto.

The crowded small streets of Birra Alto lined with cool smaller bars

 At around 2h they decided it was time to go to the club for some dancing! : )

In line at club LUX, one of the best in Lisbon

Alex, Joao, and I inside the club

 

In the parking lot of the club at around 6h...yes that is the sun rising hahaha

And that concludes our first hours of Lisbon...I'm running off to teach, but the tale of Lisbon has just begun so stay tuned!! : )

xoxoxo to my friends and family!!

Porto

Alex and I decided to couch surf for our entire stay in Portgual... a genius idea if I do say so myself.  She organized our hosts for Porto and Lisbon and I organized our hosts for Albufeira.  Alex tells me our host Mike offered to pick us up from the airport, the only catch is we don't have his phone number and he doesn't have ours either...ya woops! We land in Porto at 23:55 and head out to the street level after seeing no signs of our host in the arrival section.  With an hour already gone by, and still no signs of our host, we are thinking something went wrong. 

Plan B is looking very intriguing - the Porto soccer team had just landed dressed in suits and their tour bus was waiting for them directly across from us ; ) 

In the end Mike, our host, found us and our first night/wee hours of the morning were not spent sleeping in the airport!  He took us on a little drive through the city and pointed out all the "must-sees," from the car windows.  We got back to his lovely apartment and shared some great conversations over a bottle of port-wine. It had to have been about 5am before we finally went to sleep. We slept in a little the next morning and he offered to drive us to our next host's house.  Mike was only able to host us for our first night because he was taking off to Lisbon. 

Mike dropped us off at Ricardo's house(our next host). He was really nice but apologized that he couldn't spend the day with us because he was busy with work.  However, he gave us the phone number of Fernando- another couch surfing host who was currently hosting 4 Russian women.  We all met up in the center of Porto and Fernando gave us a tour of the city, while cracking sexest women jokes...i laughed at them all...he was silly. 

 

Cool markets on our walking tour- it was rainy so we took cover here for a moment

a beautiful church with the typical blue tile seen through out Portugal

Fernando then invited us over for dinner to cook with the other women.

alex, me, the four russians, and Fernando!...ricardo joined in soon after!

Ricardo then took Alex and I dancing allll night/ morning at a very cool club!

We woke up the next day with the sun shining and decided to head out to see more of the town and of course go wine tasting to Porto's famous wineries. 

kind of hard to tell but this is a tiny famous book store.  The winding staircase was an inspiration for the Harry Potter book/ film.

The different wineries all lined up along the water

gorgeous view!

First stop- Sandeman Winery : )

Second stop- Croft winery

Port sure is strong stuff..and with a little buzz going we happily sauntered the streets back to Ricardo's  apartment in order to pack our stuff and take a train that evening to our next destination- Lisbon!

Porto je t'aime : )

im back!!

Time to share my amazing 2 weeks spent in Portugal and Germany!!

Portugal -February 17th-27th.

I definitely (a word I will never be able to spell with out the help of spell check) left a piece of my heart in Portugal.  I don't know whether it was the people, the layout of the cities, our fabulous couch-surfing hosts, my amazing travel buddy and partner in crime Alex, or just the "je ne sais quoi", but when you connect with a certain country and culture you just know it!

Nice- 17h: arrival at the Nice airport for 18:15h flight.  If you know me then you know I will always be at least an extra half an hour early for any kind of scheduled departure.  I HATE being stressed about making connections.  For my flight over from the US I was (proudly) THE 1st person in the terminal.  I am quite content to be ridiculously early. I'd much rather sit and read a magazine rather than awkwardly run down the halls of an airport with my baggage (not a cute look!).  In fact, I have taken extreme measures to make my timely arrival happen.  In Brussels I actually lied to my friend and told him my flight back to Nice was an hour earlier, so as to ensure he'd take me to the airport with extra time to spare- a little white lie never hurt anyone ; )

     With all of this being said, I discovered a big problem a mere 2 days before my flight departed from Nice. Typical.  I bought my tickets from Nice to Paris and then from Paris to Porto, Portugal.  I knew I was flying into the Paris- Beavais airport and had to be in the Paris- Orly airport for my flight to Porto. I assumed I had enough time and that there would be ample means of transportation for the airport transfer.  WRONG...Kristen have you forgotten where you are?! this is France, home of the inconveniences!  I would definitely (thanks again spell check!) miss the bus to the airport which left me with one train option.  I had exactly 55 mins from the moment my plane landed to get from Beavais to the center of Paris (average estimated time 45mins). Kristen is not happy....I boarded my plane in Nice and strategically placed myself in the second row.  I tried to sleep but the stress is KILLING me and I think I replayed a vision of myself missing the connection over and over in my head. About an hour later my plane landed right on time in Beavais.  It was go time...I put in the earbuds of my ipod and found Eminem's "loose yourself"-

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity

To seize everything you ever wanted- one moment

Would you capture it or just let it slip?"

The doors are open to the plane and I am the third person off the plane! I am seriously running with my 50 pound bag that I magically made fit in that ridiculously small carry-on luggage cage thingy after a rude attendant lady was confident my bag exceeded the limits...

I am passing people left and right and I only stop for mere seconds stop to buy my RER ticket which will take me on the metro to get into Paris. def no time to help the useless tourists figure out the system hahaha

Im on the RER and all is seeming to go exactly to plan down to the minute.  I get off at the Gare Du Nord train station with exactly 4 mins to find my train.  I'm underground and start sprinting up stairs to reach the 3rd floor to where the trains are located.  With a quick glance I find my train on the bulletin which reads platform 22. Naturally this one had to be separated from all the other platforms, which took me another minute to figure out.  Buuut I manage to locate the platform and I hopped on the train through the first car door.  With a sigh of relief, I put my bag overhead and the doors literally closed 2 mins later. Oh My Goodness...Portugal here I come!!!!!!

I find Alex in the Orly airport and all is well!