Europe Day 5: 10/19/2008

Sundays are pretty quiet in Europe, and Lisbon is no exception. We were originally going to head back towards Cascais and check out Estoril but we decided to stay local instead. We went to the train station to do a test run of our trip to the train station the next day for Porto just because we didn’t know where we needed to go. This was so easy because there weren’t many people out at all. We had lunch at this huge “place” at the water where a truck was serving schwarma and pita and all kinds of good food. The weather was beautiful AGAIN and so we sat in the square, watching people rent segways while we ate our lunch. We then walked around Lisbon and decided to take one of the trolleys. This was a little tricky as we didn’t totally know what the route was but we just went with it.
One of the funniest things to date happened in the middle of this adventure. We had to get off at the end of the line for about a second and then we got back on to go the other direction, with the same driver. My mom thought it’d be cute for me to get on the trolley and she’d take a picture of me on the trolley and then get on. Well, she goes to take my picture and the trolley starts pulling away. I’m saying to Mom through the window, what are you doing? But she just stands there! So, Dad and I get off at the next stop, catch the trolley going the other way, back to Mom and there’s mom, sitting by herself at the stop, feet barely touching the ground on the chair, holding my camera. We all had a really good laugh because we couldn’t believe that had all just happened. We got on the next trolley and actually got to ride for about an hour through the narrow streets of Lisbon on this awesome trolley! Also, it rained while we were on the trolley but it stopped once we got off!
We had dinner back on the pedestrian only street near our hotel but this time at a different restaurant. I really wanted to have cod since that is one of the Portugese specialties. Dad and I both had the grilled cod (after we refused the cheese!) and man, was it salty! That’s how they preserve it, so it’s understandable but they serve it with plain boiled potatoes and steamed vegetables because they recognize that it’s salty enough by itself! But, now I can say that I have had cod in Portugal!

Pictures from our last day in Lisbon (can you figure out which one was from the "trolley incident"?)