Portugal - Lisbon pt1

Arrived at 7:00am and wandered around Lisbon airport for a while trying to find the Aerobus to take me to Lisboa where my hostel was waiting. I found out later that Portugal boasts the best price to quality ratio for hostels all across the WORLD. Put simply, this is the best youth hostel I have ever stayed in.

I couldn't check in until 2:00pm so I opted to do a walking tour around Alfama which is a kind of old(ish), really hilly neighbourhood that looks out over Lisbon. It gives a really beautiful view of all the houses, the slopes, the river and the winding streets. The walking tour guide was a fun and eccentric fellow who was pretty cool. His approach was to give us the 'local' angle as he grew up in the area so he gave us some nice tips and stories. Turns out Portugal as a country has been bullied a lot.

       

 One of the tips was how to find a good place for dinner. My aim was to find a place that didn't have an obvious English menu thinking it would be more traditional. Found one, went in, and BAM! The guy whips out an English menu. I order the codfish with cream sauce (Codfish is a big deal here). It's pretty good!

Next day I went around Bairro Alto which is kind of the hill on the other side to Alfama which is where all the bars and nightlife are. During the day it's nice but mostly like any other area but at night the streets are full of people drinking whatever from humorously large plastic cups. Got super drunk. Forget many things. Literally spend the entire next day sleeping and moaning.

I'll do another post super soon about the rest of Lisbon before I go up to Porto.

P.S. Am filled with crushing guilt at ability to speak only English and no other European language. It seems like everyone here can speak English really well and it makes me feel lazy.