Lisbon, Portugal

I LOVE Portugal! On Tuesday night Sherilee, Starr and I slept in the Dublin airport, and caught our 6am flight to Lisbon. We're pretty much in love with our hostel and never want to leave. We're staying at the Travellers House and it's pretty posh I must say. It was voted in the top 10 hostels in Portugal. Not only do we love our room and the amazing breakfast and the incredibly helpful staff, but we have made some really good friends. We decided to stay an extra night in Portugal because we love it here so much. Today was a little sad because all our friends had to leave this morning and go back to school, although we will have a chance to see a couple of them when we are in Spain. Our first night here we went out to dinner at a little place called Fado Maino. It was a really neat experience. While listening to traditional live Fado music we got served dinner, a drink, and dessert all for 20 euro. On Thursday we took the tram to the train station and then took the train out to Sintra. This little town was so gorgeous, words can't even describe how beautiful it was. We first visited the Quinta da Regaleira, which is a palace and gardens. The palace had this spooky book room that looked like it had drop offs all around. I reached my hand down to see and It looked like and arm was reaching up to grab me. Of course I screamed bloody murder and it was ten times louder sounding since it was in a palace. These drop offs turned out to be mirrors in the floor, hence the mysterious hand. The gardens were amazing as well. We hiked around for a long time, it wasn't your everyday forest. Every few steps there would be a random cave to explore or a tower or some historc piece of architecture. After we finished touring the gardens we went to a recomended pastry shop for lunch called Piriquita. I got a mocha cheesecake, some egg tarts and a hot dog in a biscuit, all for 2.85 euro. We toured the town a bit more checking out the clock tower and an art museum. While we were walking to the museum Starr and I were walking ahead and we heard this whang noise. We looked behind us and Sherilee had walked into a pole! The funny part is there was a group of Portuguese guys walking right behind her and they were laughing so hard. Starr and I were pretty much dying.
Well this is just a small part of our many activities over the past few days. We have been blessed by the people God has placed in our path and the adventures he takes us on everyday. We will be taking the train to Porto tomorrow so we are a little bit sad this is our last night in Lisbon. However, we have to keep going or else we will never make it to all our destinations. I would definately recommend coming to Portugal for a fun vacation. Just picture palm trees with midevil buildings, it really is the Hawaii of Europe!