First two days in Lisbon have come and gone. They both have been rainy and cold days, but at what seem to be the eleventh hour, the sun came out. Too bad it was already 6pm, but all is well. On the brighter side, my map reading skills have improved, but not my Portuguese.
My first two days here were I say eventful. I spent the first day doing a city tour where you can hop on and off. If you do not hop and off, it is about 90 minutes for each tour, so I spent literally my whole day getting a glance of Lisbon, and stopping at some of the sites. The city itself is a mix of history and modern (I saw a Starbucks), therefore it can give the city kind of dirty look. However, I think this maybe due to everything in the states always being refurbished. I guess that was the biggest surprise for me, but I still loved the culture even if does have a Starbucks. There is everything to see from parks, churches, ocean, monuments, and much more. Like I said, I only got a taste, but can not wait to go back to some of the places. Side note: You literally can see it all at once. I saw in a half a mile or so radius the following in this order: Ritz Carlton, Business Center, Residents, Prison…yea
Today was even colder, and rainer. I ate my usual pastry breakfast, which I am glad I do not have in the states. I maybe 800 pounds if that was the case. Anyways, after Breakfast I went to the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian which is one of their biggest museums here. It is filled with art and artifacts ranging from Italian, Persian, Asian and a lot more. I decided to take the audio tour because a lot of the explanations for the art were in shockingly Portuguese! They did have some English, but I like to know what was going on.
After that I went to see the aquarium or what they call it Oceanario de Lisboa. I got to say one of the best I have been to, and you are able to sort of interact with some of the animals. I think it was some penguin or some cold bird was flying over us, you were able to feed the otters, and see the turtles. I got to say it was definitely worth the walk over. I tried to take some pictures of the animals, but they moved so fast, and without the flash, they looked kind of blurry. Apparently sea creatures are not fond of flashes.
My body is still trying to adjust to the time difference. I think by the time I do, I will be going home. Tomorrow I am off to Porto for a few days to do some more exploring. Apparently there are two trains to get there literally called the slow train or fast train…I do not know why you would call it that, but alright.
Until next time….
