"Hey guys, guess what?... We're in Portugal!"

In case you just wondered, 'Why is Kim putting up photos of San Francisco? Is she feeling homesick or something?' I would just like to correct you - the above picture is not from SF - it´s from our weekend trip to Lisbon, Portugal! Turns out, Lisbon randomly has a copy of the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, the city overall reminded me of San Francisco a lot - albeit a historic, Portuguese version - with a castle! (More about that later)


The weekend is a saga - a sleep-deprived, communication-struggling, deliriously-excited saga. It started off Friday morning at 3 am, so that we could take a seven-hour train ride. Yes, I was that determined to go to Portugal that I got on a train at 4:30 in the morning (see, Mom, I can be a morning person!)

Issues on the train:

• A giant group of American freshmen girls got on the train without tickets, just confirmation codes, then burst into tears when the conductor made them buy the 50-Euro ticket in cash. Seriously, the girl in front of me was crying for an hour.
• I just legitimately cannot sleep on public transportation. I think I fail as a college student - unwritten rule #1: be able to sleep anywhere.
• Some nicotine-addicted Spanish guys actually managed to open the train door while the train was leaving one of the stations so that they could finish their cigarettes. I just remember hearing a loud slam and then the conductor yelling "¡Es peligroso!" for five minutes. Actually, nevermind, I may know why I couldn´t sleep...

However, we arrived safely into Lisbon only an hour late, and had a really easy time of taking the Metro (just like BART!) to our hostel. Not only was the location fantastic (right off Lisbon´s equivalent of the Champs-Elysee), it cost us €10/night - breakfast included!

Speaking of food, Basa packed me a nice "bocadillo," as the señoras are supposed to do for weekends when you´re out of town. However, this was no little sandwich:

• 8 sweet rolls
• 3 apples
• 3 pears
• A bag of mixed nuts
• A box of cookies
• A giant candy bar
• AND 5 packages of salami/chorizo/jamón

Even sharing this with the three friends that joined me on the trip, we didn´t finish all the food in three days. But every time someone mentioned that they were hungry, I was able to offer, "You can have some meat..." I think my friends are making shirts that say "Basa is my homegirl," now. Seriously, she´s pretty much the best, most adorable substitute grandma.

Back to our adventure, we wandered around town for hours, looking at the beautiful buildings, semi-understanding everything written in Portuguese, and getting excited when we reached the Atlantic Ocean.

We got close to crashing from sleep deprivation in late afternoon, but we held out and decided to try hiking up a giant hill (again, like San Francisco) to get to the castle. Morale might have been low for a second, until we saw the view. Then, giddiness ensued.

We spent at least an hour wandering around the castle, taking a ridiculous amount of pictures and just generally being delirious. In the castle itself, we spotted lots and lots of PDA, a peacock, a cat carrying a dead pigeon, Segway security (Campus Safety SegwayMan´s Portuguese twin), and oh yeah, another SCU student!

I turned around at one point at the sound of American accents and noticed that one guy looked awfully like a guy from Santa Clara, albeit one that I only recognized by face. When I went over to check, he gasped before I even had the chance to say anything and exclaimed, "Oh, my god, SCU!" We introduced ourselves and chatted for a little while - turns out he´s studying in Madrid. I just find it funny that I´ve made a new SCU friend - abroad!

From there, we meandered back down the hill, searching for somewhere to eat that wasn´t ridiculously expensive. Then we found a restaurant sign with amazingly appealing English translations - anyone up for some "slices with things"? My friend Katie managed to avoid an allergic reaction to the pine nuts in her pesto crepe, and we sampled some deceivingly white-looking "vino verde."

We continued back to our hostel, where we made friends with some of the other residents. This was a good weekend for international relations: we made friends with people from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Brazil, Portugal (shocker), Argentina, and Malaysia!

Our Brazilian friends took us to this fantastic neighborhood called Baixa (pronounced by-shaw), where probably every young person in Lisbon was hanging out in the streets until 3am. Neither of them spoke much English, so we got a good opportunity to practice Spanish (and Portuguese, too?)

Bragging moment: one of the Brazilians told me that I could be an española, both in appearance and in speaking ability. I was pretty excited.

And so ended Day 1.