There is a castle on a cloud

After ten days of travel spanning three countries and four different languages, I'm back- ten shades darker, worldly-wiser (humor me), and a bit worn out. In the past ten days, I've spent over 30 hours on buses, been in the air and underground, up hills and on beaches. I've had several minor heart attacks and breathed at least as many sighs of relief. I've seen palaces and castles and explosions of color so fantastic you would think they could only exist in movies. I've seen too many sunrises and sunsets, slept too little, laughed too much, showered too little, and still somehow not repelled my trusty travel buddy.

There's so much to recount from the past ten days, but, in the wise words of the Sound of Music, "let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..." That takes us back to Friday April 16, when my interest group left for Portugal. As mentioned in an earlier post, each student in my study abroad program got to choose an interest group with a specific topic and corresponding activities and trips. Mine was called "Spain and it's Neighbors," and it's highlight was a 3-day trip to Spain's neighbor to the west, Portugal. The ride to Lisbon was nearly 7 hours (with a few rest stops on the way), which was a bit disappointing since it meant we really only had a day and a half to spend in Portugal. But as always, I happily slept the ride away.

Upon arrival in Lisbon, we checked into our (very fancy, I might add) hotel. While others wasted no time in straightening their hair and applying makeup, Laura and I set out to explore the city. (Traveling has taught me how easy it is to forget how crappy I look when I'm marveling at magnificent sights. After all, I can't match up to the beauty of Sintra or the charm of Avignon no matter how hard I try, so why bother?) Thanks to Laura's excellent research beforehand, we had a destination in mind: the Eduardo VII Park. On the way, we marveled at the cute Easter-egg-colored buildings lining the wide streets: periwinkle alongside sea green, pale yellow next to lavender. The park itself was empty (because it was an overcast day) and more stark than parks in Sevilla and Madrid, but when we had finally climbed to the end of it (Lisbon and the surrounding region is very hilly) we enjoyed an excellent view.

In Eduardo VII Park. From foreground to background: me looking fabulous, the neatly shaped greenery of the park, the Marques de Pombal Square, more of the city, and the ocean.

Our first organized activity of the day with the interest group was a lecture about the evolution of the European Union at the Universidad Nova. I learned that the European Union has 27 member states and 23 official languages, that the members of NATO have veto power while the members of the EU do not, and that I still have trouble staying awake during lectures. Uh-oh. However, by frantically taking notes, I was able to keep myself awake and actually engaged enough to enjoy the lecture.

The building at the Universidad Nova where we listened to the lecture. We all scoffed at how blah it is, but I guess we're spoiled since we have classes in Sevilla in a beautiful tobacco factory built in the 18th century. I can't wait to see how lackluster the classroom buildings in Philly will seem next year.

After the lecture, we received a tour of central Lisboa from a young lady who, like the lecturer at the university, spoke excellent English, to my surprise. (Perhaps because Portuguese is spoken by less people in the world than Spanish, the Portuguese are forced to learn English, while Spaniards can kind of get away with not knowing English.) Most of it was a blur of colorful architecture, steep hills, and streets and plazas that reminded me vaguely of Madrid, so instead of blabbing on about stuff I don't remember too well, I'll leave you with some pictures I took on the tour:

A pretty elevator built by a student of Alexandre Gustav Eiffel (Eiffel tower, ring a bell?) in the early 1900s for rich people who didn't want to walk up the hill to Barrio Alto (which literally translates to "High Neighborhood").

Overhead view of one of Lisbon's main plazas. (It's obviously quite important and yet I've already forgotten the name; seeing too many cool/important sights in too short a time does that to you.)

An example of Lisbon's vibrancy

They even have cute little brightly-colored trolleys!

Following the tour, the rest of the night was ours to do as we pleased. A couple friends and I decided to set out in search of the beach, but we were halted by two things: heavy rains, and the fact that the sandy beaches we were seeking were not in the vicinity we were in. Seeking shelter from the rain, we ducked into restaurants for snacks, where we epically failed at communicating with the waiters but made liberal use of the one Portuguese word we had picked up, "obrigada," meaning "thank you." Then we found a seaside bar where some people got drinks and sat outside, mere yards from the coast, to chat and relax. It was the next best thing to the sandy beaches we had been hoping for. Finally, we headed back towards the center of the city in search of a place to eat dinner. We peered into several restaurants and deemed them all too expensive for our poor college student budgets. In one, we were undeniably obnoxious. First we entered and headed straight to the bathrooms in the basement. Then we stood in the entryway for a while loudly contemplating the menu and debating whether it was affordable. In this time I'm pretty sure a man tried to sell me marijuana, as he was waving something that looked like a chocolate bar in my direction and making smoking gestures with his other hand. When we had finally decided to eat on the terrace of that restaurant and were seated, we discovered that the terrace prices were much higher than the indoor ones, so as soon as the waiter turned his back on us, someone suggested staying at that restaurant and moving indoors. I reminded them that, after the scene we had made, I wouldn't be surprised if the waiter spit in our food, so we ran away. After this great spectacle, we finally found a casual, affordable restaurant where I ordered some exotic-looking dessert called "manc assado" after the waiter tried to explain to me that it's made of apple. (First verbally, and when that failed, he went back to the kitchen and got an apple to show me.) Based on its appearance, I was expecting some kind of apple custard with a dough-based covering, but when I tasted it I realized the whole thing was just a roasted apple: the brown covering was the apple peel and the inside was the cooked apple! Which, in retrospect, should not have been so surprising since "manc assado" sounds a lot like "manzana asada" which means "roast apple" in Spanish. An interesting dessert and lesson in linguistics for sure.

The "manc assado"

The next morning, after stuffing ourselves at the hotel's gourmet breakfast buffet (kiwi! papaya! pastries! mini jars of jam!) we set off for Sintra, a suburb of Lisboa, by bus. When I had read the itinerary for this trip a few days ago and seen that we were taking a side trip to Sintra, I was annoyed because I considered it a waste of time to go to another city when we barely had 1.5 days in Portugal. I had never heard of Sintra (though that's not a problem in itself) and I'm a big believer in seeing one place thoroughly rather than rushing through a bunch. If only I had known... Sintra has a population smaller than Penn State, natural beauty, and my favorite palace in the world thus far. Called the Palacio Nacional da Pena, it is nestled up on a hill overlooking the town of Sintra and is considered one of the best examples of 19th century European Romanticism. In the centuries before it was made into a palace, it was the site of a small monastery, but in 1755 the Great Lisbon Earthquake reduced most of it to ruins. In the mid-1800s, King Ferninand II acquired the monastery and surrounding lands and commissioned a well-traveled German architect named Eschwege to turn it into a summer palace for the Portuguese royal family. The king and his queen intervened on some decorative matters, such as insisting on the inclusion of Medieval and Islamic elements. As a result, the palace has an almost unrealistic mixture of styles drawn from various eras and nations. The effect is indescribable and the pictures don't fully do it justice, but they're the best I can do.

We also got to go inside the palace, which was furnished the way it would have been when the palace was in use as the royal family's summer residence. In comparison with the royal palace of Madrid, there were far fewer rooms and they were tiny, but I found them refreshingly intimate, and they were certainly decorated lavishly enough that you couldn't forget that it was a royal palace. The dining room seated 18 rather than 80; instead of a porcelain room, there was a paper mache room (in which all the decorative items were made of paper mache); and we were allowed in the kitchen and bathroom, which made it more "real" to me.

After a very roller coaster-ish bus ride down the hill where the palace is located (think a regular bus on very narrow, steep streets, filled with college students sitting and others, like myself, standing) our next stop was the Belem Tower. The Belem Tower was built in 1515 as a fortress to guard the entrance to Lisbon's harbor. It was built in the Manueline style, a phrase we heard often throughout the weekend that refers to early-1500's architecture in Portugal (named after King Manuel I whose reign coincided with the development of the style). Famously, its exterior includes a sculpture of a rhinoceros that is considered to be the first sculpture of a rhino in Western European art. It is based on a rhinoceros brought to Lisbon from India in 1513.

The Belem Tower

In one of the lookouts of the tower

View from atop the tower. Note the bridge in the distance, which looks strikingly similar to the Golden Gate Bridge. Between the bridge and the hilliness, Lisbon could be San Francisco's twin.

Our next stop was the Jeronimos Monastery, also located in the Belem district of Lisbon. Also built in the Manueline style on the site of a hermitage (where Vasco da Gama spent the night in prayer before departing for India in 1497), the monastery was built in the early 1500s and was funded by riches from the Portuguese colonies in Africa and India. The exterior is white and ornately carved, and the interior looks a lot like your typical Gothic cathedral. The outstanding part, in my opinion, was vast, 2-story square cloister with intricate arches and a very green central courtyard and fountain in the middle. (The other highlight in the monastery for me: Hearing someone shout, "We are!," the first half of Penn State's slogan. Shouting back "Penn State!" like a good Nittany Lion, I turned around to meet two PSU sophomores studying abroad in Salamanca this semester. They had recognized me as a Penn Stater by my beloved PSU sweatshirt, and it turned out that I had actually met one through my friend Kristina freshman year. What are the odds!)

In the central courtyard of the beautiful cloister

A fountain in the cloister with a statue of a lion in the center. Obviously the artist had never seen a lion before.

Finally we were taken to the Pasteleria de Belem (Bakery of Belem). This was another item on the itinerary I had rolled my eyes at, although I wasn't complaining because it involved eating. Again, I was in for a surprise. While the front of the bakery was unassuming, the second we set foot inside it became clear that this was no run-of-the-mill sweet shop. The line of people waiting to purchase pastries was literally out the door. There were vast seating areas behind which were even more seating areas, all filled to capacity with people partaking in an afternoon snack. I learned that this pasteleria sells 10,000 of their famous "pasteles de Belem" per day on weekdays and 20,000 on weekends. Although we were supposed to have a reservation, something went wrong and the bakery said they didn't have a reservation for us. After seeing all the hype, I was afraid we weren't going to get to try the famous sweets, but after a 20-minute wait, we were finally seated and served. The creamy little pastries exceeded my very high expectations, and I can't wait to look up the recipe to try my hand at them. (Although the exact recipe for "pasteles de Belem" used by the Pasteleria de Belem is a well-guarded secret, lots of other places make their own version, called "pasteles de nata," which are supposedly slightly inferior.)

The famous "pastel de Belem"

After the delicious snack break, we were free for the evening. This time we started with souvenir shopping, an integral part of every trip. I was surprised to discover that the majority of the shops we went into were run by South Asian-looking, Hindi-speaking men. As a result, I was tempted to haggle prices, but restrained myself. Afterwards, we got pizza and hung out in a hotel room. We watched the Simpsons, VH1, and Saturday Night Live, and even though I have never seen them in the U.S. and I wish I hadn't seen Lady Gaga's "Telephone" music video, it felt good to watch American TV and indulge in some good old girl talk with new friends from all over the U.S.. Around 1 AM, I peaced out to pass out in my room.

On Sunday morning, after another satisfying hotel breakfast (from which most of us stole piles of food for lunch; I guarantee every hotel that CIEE students stay at hates us) we left Portugal for Sevilla. The ride back was filled with unpleasantness, from a kid sitting across from me throwing up (he had a little too much fun the previous night) to rumors that flights all over Europe were being canceled due to the volcanic activity in Iceland. Everyone was panicking because we had the week off for Feria and most people had plans to travel. As Laura and I were scheduled to fly to Barcelona the next morning, the first thing we did when we got back to Sevilla was check the Ryanair website to see if our flight was canceled. And... it looked like it was. On the "live flight tracker," our flight number read, "canceled due to volcanic activity." It'll suffice to say there were lots of expletives uttered. Not only were we not going to get to visit Barcelona and Avignon, which we'd been anticipating for weeks, but we were probably going to lose a significant chunk of money from the plane and bus tickets and hostels we'd already paid for.

But wait, I thought you said ten days of travel, three countries, etc.?

In the midst of panicking, holding back tears, and trying to figure out where to begin with canceling reservations, I received a Skype message from my dad informing me that it looked like my flight was still on. Confused, I sent him the link showing it was canceled, and he responded with a different link from Ryanair showing a list of canceled flights which did not include ours. After much head-scratching, we figured out why there was a discrepancy: the airports in northern Spain had been closed until Sunday evening, so the flight that we had found on the "live flight tracker" was the same flight on that day (Sunday). Monday's flight (ours) was indeed on! Ramya and Laura: 1; Volcano: 0.

Breathing the first of many sighs of relief, I began frantically doing last-minute research for the trip, clearing photos from Portugal from my camera to make room for new ones in Barcelona and Avignon, and packing, which was a challenge because this time we had strict size and weight limits. Ryanair has unbelievably cheap flights (ours was 20 euros round-trip) but the catch is that you have to pay more (usually more than the ticket itself) to take anything more than one piece of carry-on luggage approximately the dimensions of my backpack weighing 10 kg. I consider it a testament to my growth this semester that I was able to meet these requirements, cramming in not only all the clothing I'd need for a week, but also a towel (since we were staying at youth hostels that didn't provide them), a pair of flip-flops, an umbrella, peanut butter, and jelly. That's right, be impressed.

By the time I was done packing and Skyping with my family (who tried to convince me that maybe it wasn't a good idea to go to Barcelona in case volcanic activity made it difficult to come back and caused me to miss classes- ha!), it was nearly 2 AM. (This semester, the only times I have ever stayed up past 1 AM have been on nights before trips. It is a strange and glorious thing.) In order to catch our early morning flight to Barcelona, I had planned to wake up at 3:45 AM, so I immediately hit the sack for a good night's nap.