lisbon, day one

We arrived at lisbon around 10am and left the airport around 10:15am, a true accomplishment for us two! We took a taxi to our hotel since lisbon was our time to act like princesses. Why princess time? Because we were staying in one of the three five star hotels in all of lisbon, tiara park.

Dorene found a crazy cheap rate for the hotel on some hotel booking website and of course we jumped at the chance. The hotel was magical. It was super nice, especially for the fact that we were in europe, sorry scratch that, especially for the fact that we were in freaking lisbon. Our toiletries were hermes brand! Oh how we love hermes toiletries now.

Whenever dorene called downstairs, which was about eleven times a night, they answered the phone saying "hello ms. lew, this is ernesto (or whoever was talking, but we talked to ernesto a lot) how may I help you this evening?" The best part was that I got to hear dorene's "oh hi!"every time, as if she didn't know they were going to answer the call that way.

Once we got to our fabulous room, dorene took a shower while I napped in the beyond luxurious bed. Oh and while we waited for our room to be cleaned before we checked in we went on a small walk to the mall nearby and of course spent 30 minutes in the supermarket alone. I bought soccer ball shaped cheetos that ended up being some sort of a cheese and ham/meat flavor. They tasted pretty bad, more like real soccer balls than the cheeto flavor I was craving.

Okay back to the more important story, we took our time getting ready and went down to the hotel lobby. Once we got to the lobby we started looking at different bus and tour maps. Suddenly dorene basically screamed once she found a half day tour that included port wine tasting. Thanks to those three words we were sold and literally ran to the receptionist to book the tour that started in 15 minutes. We hadn't had lunch yet and didn't know if we were going to last through the four hour tour without food, especially the wine tasting part, so we ended up ordering delicious sandwiches to-go from our hotel. Apparently to-go in portuguese means wrap the sandwich up in four napkins and saran wrap, our sandwiches could have survived a hurricane.

The tour bus arrived at our hotel to pick us up about 30 seconds after our sandwiches were ready, it really was perfect timing. On our tour bus I noticed a sign that said no eating but of course that wasn't going to stop dorene and I. About five minutes later the tour guide calls us out and of course I freak out and figure we got caught for eating, turns out he was just telling us that we need to get on to another tour bus. During my freak out and food hiding process I forget my camera case on the first bus. Bye bye camera case, I'm sorry I left you.

Once we were on the right bus the first thing we did was go over the lisbon golden gate bridge. I don't know what the actual name of the bridge is but it was built by the same guy who built the golden gate bridge in san francisco, and it looks exactly the same. In fact the two bridges are known as sister bridges. You can just imagine my excitement being on the sister bridge to the golden gate knowing that my own sister could see the golden gate from her balcony at the same time.

Next to the bridge we also say a mini version of the christ the redeemer statue that is in rio. Dorene was really excited by it since she's been to rio, me not so much.

After our going over the bridge we visited the lisbon national coach museum, coach as in carriages pulled by horses. It was a really cool small museum.

Our tour guide told us about a few of them, like one which queen elizabeth used to go around when she visited lisbon 50 years ago. That wasn't the most interesting one but the only one I remember at the moment.

Next we went to some old cathedral in lisbon, no idea what it was called but we had to take a picture in front of it, after all we paid a lot for this tour.
I also took a picture next to the tomb of "the shakespeare of portugal," the tour guide made him sound very important.

After the famous cathedral we stopped off at the tower of belem. Belem is the old city/part of lisbon right next to the mouth of some river, I wanna say the tigris river and the ocean.

We also stopped at this "in honor of portuguese navigators" statue by the shore which had a really cool world map made out of different kinds of stone on the floor which screamed photo opportunity. Below is a picture of dorene and I's feet pointing to paris.
And here's me pointing to the fabulous los angeles.

At this stop I decided to do my part of the pose in front of the sister bridge. I was bbming (a sort of texting system with blackberries) with my sister at the time and I told her all about it and sent her the picture I took. She was going to the park that day and thought it would be fun if she took the same photo, I made her copy my pose. How many sisters can say that they took the same picture in front of the two sister bridges on the very same day?! I'm still too excited about it, just wish my picture was as cute as hers. 

After all of our belem visits, we were dropped off at some random narrow street that we walked up. 

There our tour guide took us into a random huge tourist shop where our biggest lisbon disappointment occurred, disappointment being the understatement of the year. As I mentioned before, the main selling point of our half-day tour was the line "port vine tasting included." Turns out, our wine tasting consisted of half a shot of cheap port wine in a plastic cup, in a tourist shop, in the middle of nowhere. 

The cheap port wine was a little too cheap and sweet for me, so sadly I only had one sip and gave my remaining three sips to dorene. Obviously, we felt the need to take a picture with the wine we had to truly capture the level of disappointment. I probably should not have smiled in order to capture our true feelings.

Once our now semi-lame tour was over, our tour bus driver dropped everyone off at their respective hotels. It was then our tour guide asked me if I were portuguese. I pretty much laughed/stared at her in shock wondering if she was kidding. She told me "your eyes, they look portuguese." This then explained why she stared directly at me while giving the portuguese version of her tour. 

I must say though, the 34 euros we spent was almost worth it when we overheard our tour guide talking to another lady about the number of brothers and sisters she had. The lady told the tour guide that she had 12 brothers and sisters. Our tour guide responded by saying "well that makes sense. There was no television back then." And with that, me and dorene almost choked on our own spit trying not to laugh too loudly. 

That night we decided to go out to what we were told was the happening part of lisbon. Our taxi driver just dropped us off on a random street where we discovered the happening part wasn't very happening. After walking around and getting lost, as usual, we stumbled across the oldest elevator in lisbon, designed by gustave eiffel, the same person who designed the eiffel tower.

After about 400 stairs, 35 restaurants, and 3 h&ms, we came across this random restaurant with a menu only in portuguese. Luckily I was complaining loudly how I didn't understand anything, when a brazilian english speaker offered to help me out. She told me there was chicken on the menu, so we decided to go in. It turns out that she was traveling across europe alone and asked if she could eat with us. Needing a portuguese translator, I couldn't say no. After much translation and discussion between her and the waiter, I ended up ordering a specialty fish with potatoes. 

My fish had way too many spines and was taking a bath in olive oil, and sadly, the potatoes weren't doing it for me, but hey, I gave lisbon fish a try. That night dorene and I also had our first super bock, the best (and only) portuguese beer. I ordered super bock green which basically meant super bock with lime, non-beer lover me even liked it. At the end of our meal we said goodbye and wished her a safe trip back home. 

We then took a taxi back to our princess lair where we had sweet golden dreams in our 450 thread-count sheets reeking of hermes d'orange vert soap. Again, "oh lisbon, you were so good to us."