lisboa

so on friday afternoon zaid and i had a flight to lisbon! zaid turns to me on the plane and goes "katherine, you know the only thing i know about lisbon?" and at the same time both of us go "that they speak portuguese!" so obv zaid and i were going to this place with NO idea what to expect, but it turned out wonderfully.
one of my friends gave me a recommendation to stay at the travellers house hostel in lisbon, which has been consistently ranked as one of the top hostels IN THE WORLD for the past few years. so ture. such a great place. we get to the hostel after a long bus ride (we of course opt for the cheaper bus that makes stops everywhere and we're standing up for 40 min) and everyone was just so nice! they give us a tour of the place, which has a tv room, free internet, a lounge area, kitchen, dining room, a book shelf with lots of travel guides and a shelf where you can exchange books and a dorm fridge that has soda, water, and beer. they also explain about the events they do everynight, and that night happened to be a tradtional portuguese dinner. one of the guys also sat use down and put a map in front of us and said these are the places you should go. and wrote stuff down and circled and everything. he was great. then we saw our room, which had nice comfy beds, and a place to store your stuff and lock it up! obv i'm impressed with the hostel. legit, go to lisbon and stay here. totes worth it.
so anyways, then i walk around the city a bit while zaid is napping, buy some stuff, admire all the pottery (i am my mothers child) and then chill for a bit. that night i do the traditional portuegues dinner dealio which had chorizo, cheese, bread, smoked ham, butter, olives, and red wine... only 4 euro! it was really good, and the guy cooked the chorizo on this little pottery pig, it was pretty cool. hung out the rest of the night.
the next day did some sightseeing, went to castel sao jorge, a flea market, wandered around the alfama district which is the oldest part of the city, then went up to some ruins of an old monastery, did some shopping, napped a little, then zaid i went to this restaurant that the hostel recommended. it was traditional portugeuese food and apparently portugal missed the memo that europeans eat small portions, cause the amount of food we got at this place was insane! NO ONE could finish it! we got a rice, fish and shrimp dish and when we sat down we got a calamari salad thing (that wasn't bad!) and some fried cod fritters or something... we also got free after dinner drinks that i guess are typically portugeuse, it was cherry flavored. i wasn't a huge fan. hung out with people the rest of the night in the hostel.
the next morning we woke up and checked out and then went over to belem where they have monuments to the explorers (since this is really where it all started) and then a monastery and, the best part, the BEST PASTRIES YOU WILL EVER EAT. they are called pasteis or something and are basically just custard creams, but they were SO GOOD. SO GOOD. then that marked the end of our time in portugal. it was sad leaving!
it is legit one of my fav cities, i would highly advise everyone to go there. everyone we met was super nice!
here are some photos:
that is the castel sao jorge on the hill up there:
a lot of the houses are covered in tile: i thought it was cool!
one of the views from the top of the castel:
i just like this shot: saw it when we were wandering around the alfama district!
another view of the hill the castel was on, just from a different side, so on a diff hill!
the ruins of the monastery:
the monument to explorers:
so good: and it brought me back to samantha brown. love the travel channel. when i told the guy at the hostel i did know about this place i think he was happy i knew SOMETHING about the city haha. go me.