I picked Grace up from the airport in Barcelona and stopped breathing for ten minutes from sheer panic and excitement. Then I forced her to walk forever with me and see the Sagrada Familia and the Beach and the Arc de Triomf and some tapas when she hadn't slept in five years and couldn't coherently participate in conversation. But that was ok because we had a few moments to rest before getting up at 5 am to go right back to the airport and fly to Portugal. Large lol. I found out that I LOVE LISBOA and have added it to the list of Places I Will Move In The Future. Basically everything about Portugal is funny. Our flight was empty but they wouldn't give us free water. We tried to swipe our ticket twice on the metro to share but were thwarted and caused a inappropriate for Sunday morning at 8 scene. We got to our hostel and had the most painful five minutes being checked in by this girl and were scared it would all be weird. But then they fed us cinnamon apple pancakes and we found out our hostel was FULL of Australians and New Zealanders of the best kind.
Our first day we spent walking over 26,000 steps (like 12 miles) in some beautiful Lisboa rain.We 
thought we'd be cool and trendy and go to a vintage market. We walked around lost in this sketchy block of rundown buildings unable to enter, until we realized we'd circled the spot several times. So we entered this vintage factory and wandered around totally unable to find the vintage market. Which I'm still unsure if it actually is real. Instead we found this glorious street with Portuguese cantinas and gourmet restaurants. We picked one and they immediately gave us free tapas. We ordered more and got a layered eggplant, honey cheese toast, sweet sausage, and fresh squeezed berry juice. By the end the restaurant was full of large Portugese families and not a single tourist. We visited the famous Jeronimos Monastery, Torre de Belem, and la Catedral Se (which took us three days to realize we'd been to that famous Cathedral). We had our first encounter with Porto at a little wine cellar in our favorite neighborhood. Porto is replacing sangria and margaritas as my favorite alcoholic taste to share. Just think wonderful, delicious, rich, fruit wine. Grace and I were immediately obsessed, and the waiter gave us our first lessons in Portuguese. Although, when I tried to learn how to ask for the check, he instead taught me how to say "Hi Handsome, you are my heart." So thanks, I'll use that interchangeably with the one Thai pick up line I remember ("Easy, Tiger"). Then just when we thought, wow gr8 introduction to Portugal, we found a
large group of people folk dancing to the sound of a piercing old
woman's voice reminiscent only of Fiddler on the Roof. We finished with dinner at a pizza place where we tried vinho verde, which isn't actually green and ordered gourmet pizzas via iPad and a woman who kept saying "see you soon." She greeted us with hello, but my Ola was so good she thought we were Portuguese. Then we came home to Andre. Oh my gosh. He's this beautiful angel who only wears stripped shirts, smiles always, and thinks Grace and I are hilarious. He gave us some great Portugal suggestions and made everything about our hostel and Lisboa a thousand times better with his Portuguese English accent. Couldn't find him on Facebook though.
Monday was trolley day. We took the trolley to Belem, home of pasteis de nata which are baby custard pies that ruin your taste buds forever. You cover them in cinnamon and powdered sugar and cry when you taste the sort of caramelized vanilla custard creme brulee bottom. They also have delicious bacalhou puffs which are kind of codfish croquetas, so I became obsessed with those too. We discovered the 12E route, which is by far the best one. The trolleys
remind me of San Francisco, and speaking of which, Lisboa has a bridge
that is exactly the Golden Gate bridge. The added rain and fog and presence of highly trendy food made me
sometimes confused where we were. We also adventured on the 28E, which
brought us through Barrio Alto. Our 12E friends would just let us stay
on and ride the route around and around, so we assumed that was a real
thing and tried to do that with the 28E too. But no. Everyone had to get off, watch the trolley pull forward three feet, wait
a few more minutes in the pouring rain, and then get back on and pay
again. 
We witnessed the flood from the trolley too. Water flowed down the streets and over the sidewalks and caused a mild panic. We got stuck behind a car accident, because since we're a trolley we couldn't exactly go around. When we were finally able to get off and unfold ourselves from trolley sitting, we stumbled upon this small wine bar with two teeny tables and the sweetest gentleman. I mean seriously. The Portuguese are wonderful. He made us literally the best paninis I've ever had. I tried to ask him how to say you're welcome in Portuguese. He really struggled to understand, because I kept saying it alternately in English and Spanish only to later learn it's "de nada," exactly the same as Spanish. But he understood some English because Grace and I wondered aloud what white Porto tastes like, and were immediately given glasses of white Porto to try. For dessert, Grace tried to purchase the menu item "Slice the Cake -1.50." She was instead given a piece of chocolate cake that she wasn't even allowed to slice.
We exclusively chose our hostel based on their advertisement of free Milkshake Monday. Grace and I looked forward it all day, but when we came home and asked dear Andre when it started, he said it had already finished. But then he told us he saved us some. When I asked what kind of milkshakes they were he said "chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, apple, you know, a bit of everything." They were definitely not milkshakes. It pretty much tasted like liquid salad, but Andre can be forgiven for that.
Monday evening was spent with our hostel friends. I only remember the names of two: Will and Dave, our favorite Australians, the rest we referred to pretty much only by Country of Origin. It was kind of a bring your own wine evening, so obviously Grace and I brought Porto, but we refused to share. We also accidentally convinced Will and Dave to buy red vinho verde based on the fact that we had enjoyed one vinho verde once and you could buy a liter for a lot less. But this one was a weird color and bubbly and tasted like balsamic vinagrette and was a horrible mistake. Anyways, after we finished the Porto, Grace went to go ask Andre about the balsamic vinagrette, and he responded by saying "you've already finished the Porto? Just the two of you?" She relayed this to our foreign friends and they go "Wait you're drinking Porto like wine?" to which we found out Porto is 19 percent alcohol. So that was an interesting fact to learn, and we have no idea how people normally drink Porto if it's not wine, but just add it to the list of things that made Portugal funny.
Tuesday we went to Sintra. In short, Sintra is the place the little girl in Les Mis sings of when she sings Castle On a Cloud. We had a beautiful, unexpected, blue sky day of castles and palaces in Sintra with our New Zealand friend, Storm. Which is ironic. We went to the Pena Palace, built only a couple hundred years ago. You take open aired buses to the top of the hill that make you feel like you're on a safari. The outside is a fairytale and better than anything Disney ever dreamed up. It's painted bright yellow, red, and blue and has domes and spires and arches. The inside is decadently ornate with painted ceilings and walls. Every room is a mural with matching carved furniture and 3D wall paneling. It's beautifully ridiculous and gives outstanding views of the other castles in the city, the beach, and Lisboa. We breaked for lunch and ate at a funny little tavern. I ate codfish soup in a breadbowl. Our waiters were all brothers and couldn't handle it when Grace and I attempted to use Portuguese. We next went to the Moorish Castle, where we got a gorgeous view of the Pena Palace Both of these castles are in the middle of these giant gardens that feel like Narnia. The rocks are covered in old, green moss and the castle in places looks like the Great Wall of China. There are several other castles and palaces in Sintra, most of which we just saw from the outside. But the little town is quaint and interesting, full of teeny, twisty streets, pretty painted houses, and of course lovely Portuguese. Already counting down the days until I can go back.
As soon as we walked into the hostel after Sintra, this sweet old woman grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen. There were dishes everywhere and I panicked thinking she was scolding me for someone's mess. BUT NO. This was Mama Odete. She has a baby shopping cart fit for an infant that she pulls around on a leash and fills with her soup ingredients. She comes whenever she wants and when she comes she makes soup. Which she gives away for free and is actually the best soup in the world. She doesn't lie. She told us stories over soup of the history of Portugal and why tea is called tea. I thought it was the most heavenly experience and thoroughly enjoyed her every word. Will said "it's like talking to someone on Tinder." Pretty much she fell in love with us more than anyone else and actually cried when we left.
Grace and I watched a movie in the hostel which had Portuguese subtitles totally unrelated to the movie. One of the hostel staff proceeded to translate the subtitles to us, drowning out the already struggling sound, and he did this for at least fifteen minutes. But that was fine because Andre offered to make us "popcorns" and kept intimating my excited "oh my gosh." Imagine THAT in a Portuguese accent and you'll also never want to leave. Grace and I shared another, unfortunately worse, bottle of Porto to which Andre also said "oh yes, you girls love Porto." And the other guy told me it was motor oil for your body and hoped I was insured. Pretty much I now still have no idea what Porto is and think the hostel thought we were extremely crazy and wild (which we really are not, we just like to laugh and smile as Mama Odete says).
Wednesday Grace and I were exhausted from previous days of walking, so we did some trolley riding and ice cream eating and general relaxing in Lisboa. We walk back into our hostel that evening to get our bag, and Mama Odete and Andre (<3) cheered and immediately said they had something for us. They pulled out a bottle of ginja (cherry liquor that if real cheap is bottled Robitussin) and poured us little cups of it. Then Mama Odete protested until he poured her one too, except he only poured her like three millimeters. So we drank cherry liquor with Mama Odete to some song about Porto by a man named Carlos. I couldn't have asked for a better end to Portugal. My only regret is Grace wouldn't film me singing Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire right next to all of the chestnuts roasting on an open street fire. Should have taken a Self Film.
Barcelona revived the dream for paradise on the Mediterranean and gave us a beautiful, sunny day on the beach. Except I somehow chose to take Grace to the only beach on the coast with giant rocks in the water. We spent the day wondering why people were struggling so much in the water until we realized that no, we couldn't enter or exit the water gracefully either. We also discovered a few dancing clubs by the beach where they play this weird game where you have to say the exact right things to be allowed in. We had to try a couple times before we gained access. The crowd was a little bit skewed to Russian businessmen, but Grace and I had a glorious time dancing together.
So Grace, obrigada a million for a most favorite week with you and cheers to Andre.
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