Lisboa, Eu Te Amo

Jonathan and I headed out Tuesday morning for our brief, but wonderful stay in Lisbon.  We initially decided to go to Lisbon to see Arcade Fire.  Unfortunately, the concert was canceled due to a NATO conference being held in Lisbon, which was a major disappointment for us.  We already had our bus tickets and hotel reservations so we quickly decided to continue on with our trip! We took an 8 hour bus ride from Pontevedra to Lisbon.  It was long, though nice to be able to see other parts of Portugal.  From what we saw, it appears as though much of Portugal seems very economically depressed.  Though Lisbon is an absolutely enchanting city. 

We arrived around 8pm on Tuesday evening.  We quickly found out hotel, changed and then headed out to dinner.  We went to Bico do Sapato, a Japanese Infusion Restaurant on the water, which is partly owned by John Malkovich (insert "Being John Malkovich" restautant joke here).  The bottom level of the restaurant is more formal, while the top level hosts a sushi bar.  Jonathan loves sushi and wanted to take advantage of being able to eat something other than Gallego style food (going into Pontevedra for Chinese is a major outing for us).  I have tried sushi before, though never sashimi (for those of you who know me well, I'm very particular about the textures of the food I eat - raw fish doesn't seem like a sensation I'd like in my mouth), but I decided to go for it and actually, I liked it!  With our bellies full and happy we hit the hay.

The next day we woke up and headed to a cafe for some coffee and pastries (FYI Spanish coffee > Portuguese coffee).  After that we went to the Lisbon Botanical Gardens. 

We then headed over to Belem, the port area of the city, which also holds all of these monuments to exploration.  Here's a picture of Jonathan being thrilled to be there in front of an homage to Vasco Da Gama.  I can't wait to have 12 year old children who make this same face on family vacations:

We then headed to the Monument of Discoveries, a gift to Portugal from South Africa, thanking Mr. Da Gama for rounding the Cape of Good Hope (hopefully they have buyers remorse - there are probably better things S. Africa could have spent their money on).  Hey!  Here's me at the Cape of Good Hope from summer of 2006! 

But anyways, here's the monument.  We went to the top, which gave us an awesome view of the city.

We also checked out the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, a monastery. 

Here's Jonathan, being an asshole while I'm trying to take nice pictures.

We then went to the Oceanarium, the most amazing aquarium I have ever been to.  It is designed with one main tank in the center with smaller tanks around the outside.  You travel through the building in circles around the main tank, checking out the smaller tanks.  Awesome.  I took way too many pictures of blurry sharks, but here's the highlight reel:

We then quickly rested our feet, changed, and headed out for dinner.  We went to Cafe de Sao Bento, this steakhouse Jonathan found in the NY Times (we obviously have to take advantage of the abundance of beef eaten in Lisbon - a warm up to our glorious two months of Malbec and meat this coming February when we go to Argentina).  It was absolutely delicious.  We both had the Sao Bento Prime Ribs - epic (Gallego iron deficiency no more :).  We then took a cab (note that this cab driver pretended to be lost and took us for a 10 euro cab ride.  damn him.  We used the subway the whole time we were there.  We were unable to find this club on our maps, so we took a cab.  Just our luck) to a fado club, Sr. Fado.  We sat, listened to live music and had some drinks.  Fado is a Portuguese folk style, characterized by mournful songs about the sea.  Here's a link of a more famous singer, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFgctURyGp4&feature=fvst 

Our second day we headed to Alfama, the older district of Lisbon for breakfast and to, ya know, take in the oldness.

We then hopped on a bus to Evora, which is about 1 1/2 hours outside of Lisbon.

We then went to the Church of Saint Francis, our main reason for going to Evora.  This church contains the Chapel of Bones.  This Chapel was built by Franciscan monks during the counter-reformation to denote the transience of life.  The entrance of the chapel reads "we bones, lying here bare, are awaiting yours".  This chapel is made entirely out of human bones, held together by cement.

We then went back into Lisbon and had an awesome dinner at an Indian restaurant and went for a walk through the city.  There was a concert in protest of the NATO conference the next day going on in the middle of Barrio Alto, the area we stayed in.

We then just barely caught our bus back to Galicia this morning.  I wanted to leave a half hour early, get there nice and early and have some breakfast (I get anxious when traveling.  I get worried when I have to catch flights or buses and always like to be there nice and early so I can wait nice and relaxed).  Jonathan wanted to sleep longer.  We ended up leaving when Jonathan wanted.  There were problems with the subway system so we arrived at the bus station 10 minutes later than we had planned, just as our bus pulled up. Needless to say, not only did I get Jonathan to admit that he was wrong, but from now we get to arrive at airports and bus stations nice and early like I want.  This has always been a source of conflict when we travel together and I'm just glad that this experience has allowed us to clear this problem up :).