Slept terribly, got off the train at 8am and grabbed a bus which took us right to the hostel. Got there at 8:30am so we were too early to check in so left our bags in the luggage room and spent hours alternating between reading, napping and coffee.
The hostel, "Jardim de Santos Hostel" was the nicest hostel we visited on the entire trip, very laid back arty atmosphere, comfy beds, super fast wifi and amazing staff.
Had lunch from this cool little place that gave us bread, cheese, pate, mimosa and cheesey butter on entry and our first taste at the amazingness that is Portugese food, which is essentially meat with fries, rice and/or egg... heaven. Had a huge steak done with rosemary and coated in flat chips and an egg.
Spent the afternoon doing the same things we spent the morning doing before going to another little Portugese place which also had the amazing free entrees and then pork in a cream and olive sauce with rice.
Early bed for Macky and I while Lewis stayed up working.
Slept in til 12. Lewis again spent the whole day working while Macky and I chilled out until 3:30 when we went for a walk up to Praca Luis de Camoes for a free walking tour. Guide didn´t show up so we had a quick saunter around before heading back to the hostel.
Cooked a stir fry for dinner then plugged Lewis´ laptop into the TV and watched some Gormsby and Archer, which in hindsight may have horrified the rest of the hostel.
Caught up on my journal/blog and spent a while befriending Carla, the owner of the hostel, who is very helpful as well as being pretty cool and an interesting insight into how it would be to run a hostel.
The next morning we headed out for an 11am walking tour, run by an Austrian guy called Uwe, called "See Lisbon or die!". Starting at Praca Luis de Camoes we were given a quick overview of the city and its destruction by Earthquake in 1755 and then shown that the mosaic tiles lining the square actually make a huge sequence of penises before we headed down the hill into the city center. As we walked through we were given a bit more history about the rebuilding of the city and the restrictions placed upon it. We then headed through the Lisbon Arc de Triumphe and to a big statue of the king from the time of the earthquake, who apparently got a statue for being completely useless. It was here that I was tapped on the shoulder and turned around to a creepy looking guy in an overcoat with his hands held out, offering me sunglasses in one and hash in the other then running off when I refused. Apparently this is a common thing in Lisbon as the American couple next to me said they had been offered cocaine in this manner several times.
From here we walked up the other side of Lisbon and got to 2 big churches. One of the churches is the church of the patron saint of Lisbon and of finding husbands and they celebrate by having a month long party every July for singles to meet so that women can find their husbands and ending in a big marriage ceremony. We then headed up a series of steep, winding streets and stairs which apparently are the best route to take in the annual "get from the castle on the hill to the water through a course of your choice" bike race and ended up at a beautiful garden/lookout under the castle.
After the tour we headed on to "Lisbon's best burger place" for what were admittedly amazing burgers for a very late lunch before heading back to the hostel for another evening of Lewis working and Macky and I chilling out.
Woke up at about 6am to say farewell's to Macky, who was flying to meet up with Jo in Prague before taking her to Paris then spent the day doing very little, watching movies on the TV, talking more with Carla, updating this and reading while Lewis worked.
At 7 I left to go find a pub to watch the Chelsea vs Bayern Leverkusen game and found a magical place that was showing all 4 games on different TVs, sold cheap beer and did decent cheap food. Lewis joined me at half time for dinner and we had a couple of beers and enjoyed the 2-0 win.
The next morning was spent with yet more bumming and Lewis working until 2 when Lewis left to the airport for his flight to Liverpool. Lazed around some more then at 7:30 I grabbed my bags and, following the advice of Macky and Lewis, got a $10 cab to the airport, terrified the whole time by the drivers awful abuse of the steering wheel and accelerator.
Checked in fine then during the security check had to empty out my bag and the security guard took my sunscreen and (I didn't notice until after) my headphones. Disaster as my backup pair were these bright purple monstrosities I got from a Spanish train and were awful quality.
Had maccas airport dinner then headed to the gate for me 10pm flight, only to find it was delayed slightly. Slightly which turned out to mean the plane hadn't even left Barcelona and so we ended up leaving at 12:45am.
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