LISBON
• Flight was the worst ever, and I don't mind flying but even my knuckles were pretty white on this one!
• We stayed in hands down the best hostel yet, they had everything you wanted and it had so much atmosphere, and a curtain around your bed! For us that's pretty luxurious.
• The city is very beautiful, it's hilly and has plenty of history and amazing buildings to look at, and it has a lot of graffiti that the council has commissioned, so it's quality art to enjoy for free.
• Due to lack of time we crammed a lot in: a walking tour, a visit to the beach town Cascais where we rode bikes along the coast, took the famous (and old) Tram 28 which goes up some seriously hilly streets, went to the oldest bookshop in the world, sat on the famous Fernando Passo statue, and found out that Nandos is not Portugese, there are no Nandos in Portugal, and peri peri chicken is South African....
• Some Portugese history:
~ in 1904 the Portugese king was shot a street away from our hostel.
~ a dictator called Salazar ruled from 1933 until his death in 1970. His name was borrowed by J.K Rowling in the Harry potter books after she taught in Porto.
~Portugal was neutral during WWII which is why many of the buildings date back to the last century and earlier.
~ Portugal was not so neutral to the huge earthquake that destroyed Lisbon in 1755, killing 10,000 people and causing Portugal to lose a lot of its power having to spend so much money rebuilding the city.
LAGOS
Before I even talk about the town, I just want to tell you about the best part of the whole trip that happened. We were sitting at a cafe in Lagos and Joni burped so loudly that the man sitting at the next table turned with a horrible disgusted look on his face, so awful that Joni had to apologise, I seriously haven't laughed so hard in a long time, I think I pulled a stomach muscle. So good.
• Lagos is a bit of a beach by day, party by night type of place, so that's what we did!
• The beaches were great and had real actual sand, and I swum in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever.
• Had a steak for the first time since I left Perth!
• Trying to get back to Lisbon we had to be at the train station for our 10am train. Of course we went out the night before so we were all very hungover. No train until 1. We had to wait at the cafe station for 3 hours. It was so bad the only thing we could do was laugh. Then Joni did the burp thing and it was sort of okay.
MADRID
We did some very Spanish things here in the capital:
• Ate tapas! My favourite is Patatas Bravas.
• Drank Sangria.
• Ate Paella. The hostel does 1 euro Paella, and it was really delicious. The average price in a restaurant is 8-9 euros. Hehe.
• Drank in bars, as the Spanish are famous for.
• We also went to some museums, looked at some amazing buildings including the royal palace and the statue of independence, and really enjoyed the atmosphere of Madrid.
• Went to a bull fight:
I'd decided to a bull fight a few weeks before and didn't really think about what I was going to see, so it was a bit of a shock when I was actually there! The big Toro stadium was about half full, and we got pretty good seats for only 7 euros. The first (of five) bulls came out, and there were 5-6 matadors with a pink cloak teasing the bull, then running behind the barrier when it charged. You could tell the bull wasn't quite right, it was uncoordinated and couldn't see properly. We heard that before they come out the bulls have injections in there testicles to make them angry, they have newspaper put in there ears and Vaseline in their eyes, so it's not really a fair fight. So once the bull is angry and frustrated a horse and rider comes out, and the bull charges it. When this first happened I started crying (!) and hid behind Joni as I didn't realize the cloak the horse was wearing was really thick rubber and the horns weren't hurting it. In fact the horses were fine which goes to show how strong horses are. They then take the horse away and the matadors each take turns in throwing sticks into its back. Then all but one matador leaves, and the remaining matador with the red cloak really riles up the bull, then finally gets a long sword in through it's neck and all the way in. A sign of a good matador is if he can get the sword in in one go and the bull sits down (dies) only a few moments later. The first bull took a really long time to die and I think it was embarrassing for the matadors, but the fourth matador got him to die almost straight away and the crowd went wild, he did a lap and people threw hats at him like he was a king. So it's obviously a really big deal for the Spanish locals, we saw some old Spanish men cheering and yelling instructions at the matadors passionately. So basically it's horrible and you see the same thing 5 times over, but it's funny how quickly you get used to the cruelty. At first I wanted to leave and was quite upset, but by the third I was sort of used to it. The key is to watch the matadors (who wear great glittery costumes and do a lot of hip thrusting and 'olay') rather than the bull. So in the end I'm glad we went, it's another one of those things we'll never go again, but it's very brutal and it really shouldn't be allowed. Poor bulls.
So am in San Sebastian now, the last Spanish city we are visiting. In my whole trip I will have spent the most time in Spain, 22 nights all up! Fine with me. So I have 2 weeks left until I'll be back in England: San Seb, Bordeaux, Lucerne and Munich. Am currently sewing myself an Oktoberfest costume! We'll see how that goes... So 2 weeks left, and I'm definately ready to get back to a normal way of living!
X
No comments:
Post a Comment