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europe places to go

lisbon, portugal – ’08

this is a story of two people trying to be clever and then failing…miserably…

we thought it might be funny on this trip to bring fanny packs back into style because we’re so cool we can restart fashion trends… or because we’re so cool that we can make fun of people who wear fanny packs…

well, lesson learned: keep reading for the rest

the fanny pack is on and ready to make a statement!

also, please disregard my horrible long shorts fashion phase in this post…see told you we’re cool!

so off we went to portugal to work with orphans and run a summer camp. halfway through the trip, we had some resting time in lisbon. jared was mistaken as portuguese throughout the trip which we figured was due to his incredible ability to tan! this is what a few days at the beach will do to him!

before the halfway point lisbon trip though, jared and i got to have a little sneak peek at the city only a few days in with the orphans because i got sick. the funny thing was that i was leading this trip because of all my travel experience and of course i’m the one who has to go to the hospital 2 days in and leave everyone to fend for themselves! our translator (who also had a job as a stunt driver randomly enough) took us to a hospital where she used to work.  jared was driving the rental van through the tiny streets and crazy traffic while i was rolled into a ball in the back. she wasn’t very good about giving directions in a timely manner so it was a slightly scary drive. the directions usually consisted of  ‘follow dat car!!’ or ‘left…i mean right!’ so jared was a little stressed while i winced with every bump in the road.

we finally  made it to the hospital and they examined me a bit, then the doctor spoke with our translator for 5-6 minutes which was a bit worrisome to me, but then she turned to me and said ‘you have a bladder infection’. oh…that’s ALL he said?? ok… i was pretty sure this was my problem because i definitely did not drink enough water on the flights over, that was partly because the airline wouldn’t give us water at all and i refused to purchase water on a flight. ridiculous of them, ridiculous of me…pride might be a good title for this entire blog post, i’ll be honest.

so he gave me a bunch of stuff written in portuguese, a shot in the back for pain, some antibiotics and some sort of weird cleanse drink.

apparently europe doesn’t like to hand out water either and i had a tough time getting them to fill this water bottle up for me so i could drink my nasty mystery drink. they look at you like you’re crazy if you want tap water (instead of water with gas for purchase). man that is one thing i am so thankful of here in the states…they just GIVE YOU WATER at restaurants…like for free!!

so then i was all good, we went back to the camp (blog post in the future on the camp) and then came back to lisbon halfway through the trip.

portugal has some interesting things going on with their real estate and they have to make sure that there isn’t some living relative somewhere that could take over a property before they sell it again or some strange rule like that so there are tons of places that would be beautiful but are all boarded up empty.

ahh, more long shorts…what’s wrong with me?!

the beaches were beautiful! tops optional yikes!

loved the random banksy style art

except this one above was creepy…it was on the outside of a travel agency

there’s a big obsession with roosters here because legend has it that some dead rooster miraculously proved the innocence of a man who was sentenced to death for allegedly stealing silver. he said the roasted rooster would get up and crow to prove he was innocent, and he did. now it’s a popular symbol there, random.

mocktography for the win!

this just reminded us of our former governator, hee hee

love the upcycling going on here!

sometimes the graffiti didn’t really make sense to us…

had to indulge in a yummy treat called pasteis de belem, which is kind of like a flan type of custard but crispy on the top like creme brulee but not as sweet. it was good but not amazeballs like we were lead to believe.

recognize this skyline from two different continents? the ‘golden gate bridge’ and the ‘christ of hope statue’ from rio de janero (this one is called christ of peace)

yes, this says urinal…and yes, there is someone currently using it…

yes, they don’t believe in guard rails here…

and yes, jared and i are NOT tour people…we like to explore and take fun pictures, it was not our vote to take a tour of a castle 🙂

but we did have a fake tea party overlooking the city which made it worth it

so we met up with some of the group for lunch in the town center and this is where the fanny pack comes back into play. i was holding on to my camera bag really well because i’d been robbed before (story to come) while traveling and so i had warned everyone to be super careful and watch out for gypsies. i think i even warned people more than a few times about this. well so as much as i was paying attention to my camera bag, i didn’t care about the fanny pack too much, it was more for the fashion statement and didn’t have much in it. well, we were approached by gypsies while we were eating and while a couple of them were getting really close to us demanding (not asking) for money, their partner in crime (apparently) took advantage of us being distracted and nabbed my fanny pack!!! i didn’t realize it until we got up to leave and then i was laughing about how stupid i was for warning everyone else when i’m the one who gets robbed!! (see: pride)

then i stopped laughing because i realized what i did have in there…3 things: chapstick, the cell phone we were loaned while we were working there, and my antibiotics

so the rest of our ‘down time’ in lisbon was spent hunting down a pharmacy open on a weekend so i could convince someone that i needed to finish a round of antibiotics without a prescription, fun times…but i did think that the gypsy would at least be sorely disappointed with her loot 🙂

we also enjoyed trying to find coffee in a full sized mug (another difficult thing to do in europe – they like their little coffee drinks) and watching as jared and another guy in the group got offered to buy drugs multiple times. we were never quite sure if it was because they were tourists or because they had beards because portuguese men didn’t have beards at the time. my hubby is so shady with his beard!

 good times…