Again, we came to Portugal with no idea of what to expect. It was just another obscure country that no one really talks about. And, as it turns out, its not very easy to get there by train. We later learned that the reason for only one train between Madrid and Lisbon is because Portugal had been under dictator rule well into the 20th century which caused them to stay disconnected from the rest of Europe with limited railroads in and out of the country.
We were staying with some couch surfers in a suburb of Lisbon in the city of Cascais (which in Portuguese is pronounced cash-caish). Maybe it was our love of the beach or perhaps because we hadn’t seen the coast in months, but as soon as we arrived in Cascais we felt at home and, despite our exhaustion, went straight to the beach. We had a couple of hours to kill until our hosts could pick us up so Randy went exploring the beach and found some cool shells.
We learned a lot about Portugal in the first few hours with our hosts. We found the Portuguese language fascinating and not Latin sounding at all. We always thought it sounded like a weird version of Spanish, but in fact it sounded to us like Russian. We also learned that Brazilian Portuguese is much softer and sounds “prettier” which, after watching a Brazilian soccer player being interviewed, I agree. Brazilian Portuguese actually sounds Latin and (not surprisingly) there are quite a few Brazilians in Portugal so I heard it spoken a few times.
Our hosts were very kind and well-traveled couple, Vania and Tiago, and we all got along famously. Tiago had actually worked in Los Angeles for a couple of years as a film editor, until he got sick of it and moved back to Portugal. They are now planning to move and study in Australia for a couple of years. So if we ever get down under we will have to visit them there. On our first day in town they drove us to some popular tourist points right away. One of those tourist attractions was the furthest point West in Europe, getting us the closest to home that we would ever be on this trip. After a little sightseeing, we ate traditional Portuguese food for lunch at a small restaurant (without tourists). Our meal was served family style, with a variety of meat and cooked veggies on a large plate. It was here I tried blood sausage for the first time and was pleasantly surprised when it was rather tasty. After lunch we did a little more sightseeing in the town on Sintra where an old Moorish castle, town, and monastery are still in use. Here we tried a popular Portuguese pastry which was like an egg custard filled filo dough covered in sugar. I could not for the life of me remember the name of this pastry but it was delicious. It was not the Pasteis de Nata, which is a famous Portuguese pastry, which we were supposed to try in Belém, but sadly never made it. The basic rule to finding food in Portugal is to look for the busiest restaurant (most often with a line out the door). This pastry shop in Sintra was the best place to go for these pastries because they were always busy so your pastry was hot and fresh and therefore, well worth the wait.
The next couple of days Randy and I were on our own to explore Lisbon. Lisbon is not a large city really, but everything felt spread out (like Los Angeles), there were a lot of hills, and we spent those first two days without a map. So we got lost most of the time, couldn’t find a tourist office (despite directions from several people on different occasions), and we were out of money so we could only ride the metro when we absolutely had to. Despite our setbacks and a little bit of rain we managed to see most of the city. On our second day of sightseeing we spent a good amount of time at the seaside so Randy could get pictures of the amazing cloudy sky. While he was crouching to get a shot, the Channel 1 news reporter walked up to him for an interview. They asked him why he was out shooting pictures in bad weather. He was on the Portuguese news later that night. (Check out the clip if you can http://tv2.rtp.pt/noticias/?t=Mau-tempo-alerta-laranja-em-parte-do-pais.rtp&headline=20&visual=9&article=390018&tm=8 and wait for Randy at the end) They said something like "Californian likes bad weather"
Our last day there the weather finally cleared up so we spent a day at the beach in Cascais. We were supposed to walk up the coast to Belém but we never made it. There was a good swell that day which attracted a lot of surfers. Randy walked out onto the jetty and started photographing the surfers. Before we knew it, a couple of hours had past and we were still there taking pictures. One of the surfers (a Brazilian) with very limited English wanted Randy to take pictures of him surfing and e-mail them to him. So we stayed on the jetty for the rest of the day. And as the tide got higher the waves came up higher and higher on the jetty, eventually catching us off guard and getting our bags all wet. We attempted to dry things in the sun but the damage was done and most things were soggy and/or ruined. So as the day went on we ended up moving closer inland. And as the day came to an end I had to pull Randy away from the surfers because we had to meet our hosts in Lisbon for dinner. So we walked along the boardwalk until it ended in another little town on the way to Lisbon.
We enjoyed our last night out bar hopping with our hosts and their friend. The next day we packed our bags and headed out for another long train ride and a mostly sleepless night to Paris.
