Thanksgiving Vacation 2011: Lisbon, Portugal.

So my alarm goes off at 7:15 AM and I "jump" out of bed. I slept pretty well, considering the eight hour time difference. I was down in the lobby of the hotel by eight, where I sat and waited until by brother and his wife came down. I waited until 8:20 and then walked to the front desk and asked if they had checked in last night. The answer was "no". Great. They got stuck in London and I had no idea when they'd show up. So I was forced to pay the 20 Euro for one day's access to the Internet, as that was the only way I could contact them. Our phones don't work outside the US.

Back up in my room, I booted my laptop and logged into Facebook, and sure enough there were messages for me saying that their flight was canceled and they would be arriving in the morning around 11 AM. This was good news, but now I had three hours to kill until they showed up. So after eating breakfast at the hotel, which wasn't very good, especially for 10 Euros, I asked the people at the front desk where I could walk to for some photo opportunities. They gave me a map of the city and showed me two places near by, one was a museum, which was closed, and the other was a park that had good views on a clear day. It was not clear and had rained during the night.

I was now on my own, walking down the streets of a foreign city, trying not to look like a tourist, which was pretty hard since I was the only tourist. Everyone else on the streets was walking somewhere with a purpose - not looking at maps of taking photos. The area around the museum wasn't very interesting. A pond with ducks, some statues and a homeless man. Then I walked to a park, called the Eduardo VII Park. This place did have a great view towards the harbor, and even though it was cloudy, I was still able to get some good photos of the city. Plus, there were a few other tourists there, but not many. I did some more walking, and around 10:30 I decided I'd better head back to the hotel.

It took me exactly 30 minutes to get to the hotel, and I walked in right a 11 AM and there they were, my brother and his wife checking in at the front desk! They made it. After a short turnaround, we headed out, as there wasn't much time left to see the whole city. Our main destination was St. George's Castle, the biggest landmark in the city, sitting high on a hill near the harbor. Our first adventure was finding the metro station and buying tickets. Finding the station was easy - just a few blocks away. But I took longer to figure out where and how to buy a day-pass for the metro. The kiosks didn't have instructions in English. When we thought we got the passes, we tried to use them at the metro entrance and were rejected. Turns out we bought train passes. So we tried again and this time we got the correct tickets and proceeded to the metro. It took two metro lines and less than 10 minutes to get to the castle stop.

We spent some time wandering around this historic district of Lisbon. Down by the harbor we saw a cruise ship, so we knew there would be small crowd at the castle. We opted to walk up the steep streets leading to the castle, and even though it was cold, I got quite warm. Once we bought our tickets, we entered the castle and found a spot that had a great view of the city. I took many photos and even a short movie. Then when the Sun came out, I took more photos, this time with better light. Eventually we entered the main castle. There really isn't much to see in the castle, but what was fun was climbing all the stairs and exploring the various lookout posts, which provided ever better views of the city. One thing we noticed is that there weren't many safety rails in some places. You could walk across a walkway with no railing and if you fall it was a good 100 feet below. There were also many cats walking around, one of which was sleeping surrounded by bird feathers. He must have had a very filling lunch.

Eventually we realized that we needed lunch too. There was a small cafe where I bought a sandwich and water. We ate outside, where brightly colored, and very brave peacocks were looking for a free handout. This was a new experience for me. After lunch we continued to explore the castle, making our way to an archaeological site where they were excavating ancient ruins. Not much to see, really, so we walked around some more until we got tired of the castle and headed back down the hill. We took a different path down to explore the city, not getting lost, but not really knowing where we would end up.

We soon found ourselves near a church that looked ruined, one we saw from the castle. So our next goal was to get in this church. There was no direct route, so we walked up the street, up some steps and back down the next block before we found the entrance. It was only 3 Euros so we paid and went in. The courtyard was open, with arches above, and various statues along the walls. There was also a museum inside, which had some artifacts from the area, and a model of what the church used to look like. I believe the name of this church is The Carmo Church (or  perhaps Convent).

After leaving the church, we wandered the increasingly crowded streets some more. It also began to rain some, but not too hard. We now were thinking about dinner, and knew there was a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in Lisbon, but we had no idea where. I asked one man at a magazine booth and he just gave me a blank stare. None of the restaurants looked inviting, plus, we were in the tourist part of the city, and it was also early, way too early for the locals to eat. We decided to head back to the hotel, take a short break and find a place to eat there or nearby. It was getting dark, and we didn't want to get stuck in one of the "bad" parts of the town where there were "troublesome youths".

After a short break at the hotel, we looked for a place to eat there, and there wasn't. So we asked the nice woman at the front desk where eat, and she gave us directions to a Portuguese restaurant. Well, her directions were hard to follow, as are the streets and hard to read street names. It doesn't help that all three of us can't read without glasses, especially in the dark. We finally found our way and entered the restaurant. It was close to 8 PM and we were still the first ones there. We sat at our table and the waiter immediately brought us  appetizers and bread. Well, in Europe they tend to do this and only charge you if you eat the food. So we left it alone.

Before eating, I needed a beer. So I asked about beer and my only choice as big or small. Okay, I'll take a big. I still don't know what the name of the beer was, and it wasn't much better than your typical fuzzy yellow American beer. However, he also brought us a free shot of Port wine, which is the wine Portugal is famous for. The wine was very sweet and had a different taste than most wines. On another day I would have bought a glass, but today it was just beer. We each ordered something different, I forget what I got, chicken I think, which came with vegetables and some kind of potato chips. The food was good, but nothing special. After a full day of walking, any food would have tasted good. After we finished, the waiter gave us a dessert menu and pointed to the specialties. I opted for the fruit and ice cream dessert and wasn't disappointed. It was huge, with lots of fruit and soft ice cream. However, after the ice cream melted, it became a big plate of brown goo. I had my fill and we were ready to leave when another waiter brought us a different Port wine to try - this one was a red wine. I didn't like it as much as the first. We got our bill and made sure we weren't overcharged, which we weren't.

The walk back to the hotel took half the time as we took the direct route, not the roundabout one to get there. Well, this was the end of our Lisbon trip. We had a flight to Madrid the next day, so we went to bed to get as much rest as possible. The one major concern we had was that the general strike that they had been talking about in Portugal was going to happen. The strike was on Thursday, the day we were traveling back from Madrid to Lisbon, and all airports were going to be shut down. We knew we had to find a way back to catch our flights home, but we'd worry about that the next day.