Day 2

Hello!

We ended up spending last night at the hostel with other travelers; a couple of Australians, an Austrian, and two people from France. We sure did laugh a lot with the Australian guys - those two have got stories to tell! We stayed out until 9:30pm or so before heading to our room as it got pretty cool on the patio with a strong breeze. We reviewed our Rough Guides ´Europe on a Budget´ book for Lisbon and picked out a couple of things to do.

We spent a few hours this morning touring around Castle of St. Jorge. We managed to get in for half the regular price because I had my International Youth Card and Jeff used his student card (BONUS! We´ll definitely be pulling those out as often as we can). The castle was pretty neat with all the turrets and walkways. It was also very hot! It was kind of like being in an easy-bake oven but with a lot of stairs. At one point Jeff had us climb down a steep staircase of 149 stairs just to turn around and climb back up again! Needless to say we were sweaty and if I won´t be sad if I don´t see another staircase again for awhile... too bad all of Lisbon is made up of hills! lol

We´re becoming a bit more familiar with our surroundings and have a number or graffiti landmarks to let us know we´re on the right track. There´s a lot of graffiti and although some of it is cute it does distract a bit from the beautiful old buildings (even the decrepit looking ones).

On our way back to our hostel for lunch we stopped at a store across the way and pointed to what we wanted and paid... I´m getting a tiny bit better with my Portugese; I can now say, ´Quanto e´... (how much?) and ´Brigada´ (thank you). It isn´t much of anything but it´s polite. We ended up with two deep fried something-or-others that tasted pretty good! One had some type of fish in it and the other was a mystery meat to us. Jeff also had half a bag of chips... a great diet we´ve had so far! lol Tonight we´re having dinner that the hostel puts on. We should have had it last night but we couldn´t wait until 9pm to eat but we´ll manage tonight!

Jeff and I may check out a nearby church this afternoon and locate the bus stop as tomorrow morning we´ll be heading off to Lagos. It´s kind of hard to believe we´re already leaving our first place! It´s also hard to believe how much can become unpacked in a day and a half... now to repack it. Good thing it´s only a backpack´s worth of stuff.

The weather is hot and absolutely gorgeous so I´m going to go enjoy it! Ciao!