Life Abroad: Week Five

Tired Eyes 

On the way to the bus station last weekend, Casey’s uber driver in Lisbon told her: “Our eyes will be tired to see the beauty of Portugal because there is so much of it.” He could not have been more correct. 

With high expectations and one backpack, we boarded a bus to Lisbon at 11:55pm on Friday. A terrible 7 hours later, our achy joints and baggy eyelids arrived in Lisbon at 7am. The sheer exhaustion from the bus ride was cancelled out by the excitement of being in a new city with three of my closest friends. We checked into the hostel and charged our devices before heading to Mantegaria for pastel de nata: Portugese custard pies. If you know anything about my dessert preferences, these things are right up my alley: egg-y, custard-y texture with a flaky crust and a sprinkle of cinamon on top. After grabbing some ham and cheese croissants to eat, we went back to our hostel to meet our tour guide for our first event of the day: a tour of Sintra. 

Our guide, João, is the exact persona of the image in my head when I think tour guide. He was funny, talkative, and very easy to get along with- honestly, just like Aryan. Our group was made up of the 4 of us, a man from Marrakech named Alla, and a guy named Esteban about to start his Masters in Economics. Craziest coincidence: Esteban is from Bolivia and did an exchange program for 2 years in Grand Rapids at Wayland High School! How cool is that. That may have been the first sign that this weekend was going to be all types of pleasant surprises. 

We spent the majority of the day in Sintra with João, Alla, and Esteban, and it was dynamic. We went to Quinta de Regaleira, saw the tips of Pena Palace, had lunch at a humble but decevingly delicious small restaurant (Tish, Casey, and I all had Portugese steak with garlic and fries and a fried egg). Esteban told us about how much he loved Michigan and the US. He made deep dish pizza for his friends back in Bolivia when he came back home because he thought everyone should try how good it is. He told us, “Drinks on me when we get back to the hostel, because you all brought me a piece of one of my favorite places”. It was touching to hear how one person could like Michigan so much. Finally, we ended our tour visiting Cape Roca, the most Western point of Europe. This place was an actual dream and looking out at the water was one of those classic  abroad moments where you realize: my goodness, I am so lucky. And so grateful to be here right now. We ended our night getting drinks at Pink Street, the center of nightlife in Lisbon.

The next day, we woke up and Casey and I grabbed breakfast at Quase Cafe while the boys got ready (yes, Aryan brought his hair dryer to add volume to his hair. Let me repeat, we were there for 2 nights). We went to the oldest bookstore still in operation, Livraria Bertrand and then took a quick train to Belem. In Belem, we visited the Jeronimos Monastery and ate more scrumptious pastel de nata. It was then that the clouds decided to exhale their frustration and the rain came pouring down. Caught in the rain, we hurried back to the train station and back to our hostel, where we decided to spend the sweet remnants of our afternoon in the living room, reading. As I read (Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, a book all about writing and crafting a good story), a man starts playing the guitar and a girl begins singing bossa nova music. The window was cracked open so the pitter of the rain is melting with her voice and his guitar and everyone in the room is at peace. This is where we meet our two new friends, Luca and Nick, who walk up and shake our hands. That’s another thing I’ve noticed: generally, European kids are much more outgoing when it comes to meeting new people.

Luca and Nick are from Vienna and will be going to the US for an exchange semester in September (Luca at the University of Georgia and Nick at UIUC). Nick sits down by the couch that Aryan, Casey, and I are sitting on and unravels his life story. He’s studying food science and became interested in it because when he was 14, his great grandmother died and she was his main caretaker. She left him her house in a little town in Austria, but he decided to sell that house and use the money to buy a place in Italy (he did this all at the age of 14). When in Italy, he met a bunch of old and sweet nonnas who taught him how to cook real Italian food from scratch. On Sundays in Italy everyone cooks with their family, so he would make jars of pesto and fresh pasta and store them throughout the week and give them to others. Now that he’s 19, he’s studying food science and working at a fancy restaurant in Vienna as a waiter. He grinned and asked us “Will I become obese in America?”/ We told him he should be fine as long as he doesn’t get a dining hall plan with unlimited passes. A pleasant result of this conversation is that 1) we’re visiting Luca and Nick in Vienna in March and 2) they promised us they’ll come to Ann Arbor for a football game in the fall. So maybe some of you will meet them in a couple months and you will see just how friendly they are. If you ever go to Lisbon, do yourself a favor and stay at Home Lisbon Hostel because it is such an amazing and central location and you will meet friends there if you are looking for them.

We went to Time Out Market for dinner, a famous food market. Casey bid us adieu to go back to Madrid and Aryan and Tish convinced me to watch the Superbowl with them at an American bar, which was taking place from around 12-3am in Portugal. We sat next to these anti-vax girls from Miami who used air quotations when talking about “Omicron”- they only got vaccinated so they could travel to Europe. The bar was fun and Luca and Nick joined us to watch. To me it’s wild that they play/know football so well (they brought a footballl with them on their trip), but that just confirms that they will love being in the US for college football.

Monday morning I woke up (begrudgingly, because I had slept at 4am) and celebrated my Valentine’s Day by getting more pastel de natas and a bica (espresso). Although, the love from Sree that I couldn’t have was manifested to me in other ways: two separate Portugese women walked up to the plaza bench I was eating at and called me “belissimo, que linda”, the pasteleria gave me a heart-shaped chocolate along with my breakfast. I ventured to some viewpoints, walked up many hills, and mostly just took in the day with a heart of gratitude. Even if I couldn’t be with my boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, I was able to see so many other loving things in a beautiful city with the nicest people. Aryan and I spent the rest of the day walking by the water and talking but really we were quite tired so I was ready to head back to Madrid.

Portugal is an amazing country, and Lisbon and Sintra are magical cities. The people are fantastic and it’s reassuring that you can speak English and not sound like an idiot. According to João, Portugal is “like a bathroom” where you run into people from the same place as you. He also said, unlike many other cities in Europe, “Portugese people have good hearts”. Even if you look like a tourist, petty crime isn’t as common here. I really do miss it already. The flight home took less than an hour and the difference between Lisbon and Madrid was so jarring right as you walked off the plane. It’s going to be hard to top this trip, not even because of the beauty of the city, but because of the amazing people we befriended. This trip made me want to stay in hostels and solo-travel around Europe, and maybe one day I will do this. Or sometime soon during this trip- we’ll see.

My week in Madrid prior to that was delightful. On Monday we attempted to go to Fuckin Mondays, but the line was too long and the police told us to go home so we got some mid pizza at Papizza instead. On Tuesday, Casey and I went to Temple de Debod again to watch the sunset and sat back to back reading and journaling in the sunshine. On Thursday, I got acai bowls with my friend Ying who goes to Cornell and is studying abroad at IE as well. A fun fact: she went to high school with Joan! All these connections make the world feel so much smaller. I went on some runs and listened to good music and bought some sunglasses and called my parents. Mairen has been buying us bagels, so I’ve been making bagel sandwiches with eggs and cream cheese and hot sauce and they’ve been a delight to eat. I’ve been watching Suits with Casey and Hometown Cha Cha Cha on my own, and hoping to finish my book soon. Casey told the boys I was observant (thank you Casey). I try to be because I want to remember things so I can write them down in this blog, or in my journal, and think about them after it happens so I can come to some conclusion or takeaway. Also, writers and designers do have this in common (not that I am either of these things, but rather aspiring to be both). This is not me being self-indulgent, but moreso finding a takeaway from her comment. :)

Thanks for reading and happy living.

With love,

Rachel