remember that time we have not updated our blog for over a week?

greetings, avid blog readers. we would like to issue a formal apology for our lack of blogging activity lately. i guess we have just been having SO MUCH FUN that time has literally escaped us. after our days in porto with toby, we packed up and got on a train to lisbon for the weekend. we checked into a hostel that was a little slice of heaven. the lisbon poet´s hostel was fabulous, and it really made our experience there great. it was painted bright colours, had big beanbag chairs in the lounge, and we got a 6 bed dorm room to ourselves all weekend, which was a huge perk. we spent our first evening in lisbon at this little restaurant we found up the street from the hostel, where i possibly had the best meal of the whole trip. from what we gathered, and from what the waiter told us, it was a collection of portugese, italian and english food... but we are pretty sure it was italian. kate and i dipped into the rose wine, after a week long hiatus since our south of france experience, and we had a great first night on the town. on friday we ventured out to the district of belem, where we visited the exploration monument, the tower of belem, which is a UNESCO world heritage site (a theme on this trip, we are slowly realizing), and had a great picnic lunch in a park in the sunshine. crossing the street, we ended up inside this beautiful monastary, and took a moment to enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. we have been spending a lot of time in churches so far, and this one was a highlight. we headed back to our hostel and hooked up with jonathan and laura sousa, friends of mine from our summer cottage who happened to be visiting relatives in lisbon while we were there. laura is studying in madrid this semester, and jonathan, her brother, came to visit. what luck! jonathan, who had been to lisbon before, led us on an adventure up every single stair in lisbon, and we ended up at the st. jorge castle, overlooking the city. it had great views, and we took some beautiful photos. that night we
met up with our german host, toby, who was visiting lisbon that weekend with his exchange friends for a traditional portugese dinner at a beer hall. we knew it would be good because we had to wait to get in, and it proved to be worth it. our hostel is conveniently located in the nightlife district, and we just had to see for ourselves... it was part of the cultural experience, right? katherine introduced toby to the jagerbomb, apparently a canadian specialty, and we ended up having a fantastic night in the streets of lisboa... we were almost locals. saturday was our best day in lisbon, as we ventured out of the city and toward the palacial town of sintra. we are so glad we did this! the views were spectacular, and the palace community so beautiful. we wish we could share our photos. while kate and katherine explored the palace, jonathan, laura and i also hiked to the moorish castle, which was fantastic. the terrain was rough, and laura sprained her ankle, but was a real trooper and didn´t really tell us how much pain she was in until that evening. after we got home from sintra, we split up for the night, and i went out for dinner with jonathan and laura and their relatives just outside of lisbon´s city center. they are portugese, and they had warned me that there would not be much english spoken, but it was great, and really fun to meet their family. katherine and kate went out with toby and his exchange friends for an authentic sushi boat experience (?), and eventually ended up in a cool area on the water with lots of bars lining the harbour. sunday was really a very lazy day, we had to pack up and check out but we were not leaving for spain until the evening, so we wandered around the city and visited a park we found on our first night in the day time which was a highlight. lisbon was certainly a great destination for us, and we were really sad to leave, but looked forward to our night train to spain....
sarah