Libertade! Libertade!

Okay, I feel like I have been neglecting my own blog a bit so I am going to make more of an effort to get back to it. I think it was just that I didn´t have anything nice to say about Lagos... so I thought, well... best just to not say anything then.

But anyway we are out of Lagos now and far from Lucian (the old, growling, chain smoking Frenchman... though he remains ingrained in both of our minds, forever) and are currently in the heart of Lisbon, which we absolutely adore. We have already extended our stay, and are actually thinking of extending it even further since we are having difficulty finding board in our next destinations (Cacares, Merida or Toledo, all in Spain). Those places were maybes anyway... and we don´t feel much like leaving, so we might just stay longer.

Everyone still speaks with Poish and Doish, thought it sounds a bit fancier.

Today is the first hot and sunny day we have experienced in Portugal. We woke up late today, still a bit drunk and very hung over as we were out partying with some new Belgium pals of ours until about 4am. Our only goal for the day when we woke up was to go eat McDonalds, and this was easily accomplished so now I feel like I can do anything if I set my mind to it. We then proceeded to lounge around some statues and fountains and bask in the heat of the sun which we so dearly missed.

Since we arrived on Wednesday we have been getting tons of exercise which makes up for the previous weeks of lazing about in Spain and Lagos (I call it Lazy Lagos). It´s extremely hilly here so when you go out for a nice little fitness walk, you really get a good bang for your buck. Our hostel is pretty downtown. We are very close to Marques de Pombal and just off of Avenida da Liberdade which is one of the big, major streets connecting to everything. On our first day here we strolled down Liberdade and Michael chanted "Libertade! Libertade!" from Scarface. (To his surprise and embarassment the street was spelt Liberdade and not Libertade. Silly Michael.) It´s so good to be back in a big city where there is always something going on. We just discovered the Bairro Alto bar district last night, which is basically like a huge neighborhood street party among some great little bars. Everyone seems to bring their drinks out into the street no problem, and we love this.

We are likely going to take a day trip to Sintra in the next couple of days... also Cascais looks awesome so I think we will check that out as well.

Right then.