Lisbon – The Jewel in Portugal’s Crown

Nic and I arrived at the excellent Poets hostel in Lisbon at about 6pm, still tired from the lack of sleep in Lagos and hungry for a feed. After checking in we went out into the streets of Lisbon and found a decent place to eat that wasn’t too expensive. It was immediately clear that Lisbon is a city with soul, the place seethes with culture, art and beautiful architecture. Little streets wind their way up and down Lisbon’s streets, tagged with graffiti and adorned with street art are dirty and grungy, but safe. Nic and I found ourselves walking down the main shopping strip at about 8pm on that Saturday night, and I was approached about 6 times in 5 minutes to be asked if I wanted Hashish. She blamed it on my new (awesome) hat, saying it makes me look like a tourist. I felt the fact that I was wearing Havianas and a wifebeater might have given that away even without the hat.

We got back to the hostel and Nic had a short nap, whereas I had discovered that the WiFi at Poets was the best we’d had at any hostel, so I downloaded a few things that I needed for my computer, before nodding off for a kip. We woke up at 11:30pm and after a short debate about whether we could be assed going out, got ourselves ready and started on the Sangria. After polishing off the Sangria, we were out into the Lisbon night, arriving at Lux at about 1:30am and finding that it wasn’t exactly pumping. We walked around the club, reportedly part owned by John Malkovich, and I was very impressed with both the layout and the quality. As the night wore on, the club quickly filled and by 4am it was absolutely jamming. Unfortunately the quality of music was particularly poor, but as I was partying in Lisbon, with Nic and a few German girls I had met that night, I ignored the shithouse music and just had a good time. Nic and I made our exit at 5:30am and got a taxi back to the hostel, deciding when we got there that we wanted some ham and cheese sandwiches which resulted in drunken cooking. Always a messy exercise.

We got out and about the next day at about 1pm, walking around town and looking at some of the areas we’d not gone through the previous day. I got some more credit for my stupid Spanish Vodafone, which proved to be a 1hour mission, but at least I had credit again. We then walked up to the top of the hill and went into the Castle. It was a pretty cool castle, however the entrance was not terribly well signposted and we ended up walking the long way around it before finding how to get in. It had a great vantage point out over Lisbon and the harbor, although the haziness limited how far you could see. We got back to the hostel and still hadn’t heard from the girls who we’d met in Lagos, who were apparently going to be at our hostel in Lisbon that night, so Nic decided to take a snooze. By 10:30pm we still hadn’t heard anything and we were both wrecked from the last three days so Nic and I made the decision to have a quiet one and stay in. About 5 minutes later there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to see Megan, one of the girls. They’d missed their bus and had to catch a later train, and were keen to go out due to it being Annabel’s birthday the next day. We went out at about 11:45pm, searching for somewhere to eat. On a Sunday night in Lisbon, this is not a particularly easy exercise. Eventually the girls met up with some of their other friends and we found a place to eat, but with neither Nic nor I being hungry, it all seemed like it had become too much of a production, so we said our goodbyes and happy birthdays and made our way home.

The next morning we had to drag our asses out of bed and get to the Lisbon airport. It all worked out pretty easy, and we were saying farewell and thank you to Portugal after an awesome week within her borders. I did have a 6 hour stopover in Madrid to look forward to and after the debacle that was the last time I was at Madrid airport, I was not exactly filled with hope that things would go smoothly. Nic only had a three hour stopover so I said goodbye to her as she went through security. I probably wouldn’t see her again until Melbourne in May, which is sad because we travel really well together, with a balance of downtime, sightseeing and partying. I’m sure we’ll be back to our old habits for her birthday in May.