Kiana and I woke before the rest of our compatriots and made a free breakfast of toasted nutella and jam sandwiches. After breakfast we caught the walking tour part two into the other side of Lisbon. This tour took us to fewer buildings and more statues. While they were both good, I preferred the first one. The highlight of today’s tour took us to a manmade lookout platform where we could see most of Lisbon’s city center. The tour let us off near the tram stop for Belem, another area of Lisbon, and Kiana and I hopped the first tram we could for Belem. The area is famous for these little custard-filled pastries supposedly invented by monks that lived in the monastery up the road. Being the dedicated tourists that we are, Kiana and I tried the pastries, delicious, and visited the cathedral, beautiful. After the cathedral, we visited the free modern art museum across the street and took a walk along the water. We finished our trip to Belem with a walk past the president’s mansion on our way back to the center of Lisbon.
That afternoon Kiana and I had felafel near the hostel and it was delicious. I don’t think I’ve ever had it before, but I would gladly have it again. With our stomachs full of felafel, Kiana and I explored one of the old churches badly burned in the quake and then returned to the hostel for a siesta. When we got back to the hostel, the police were there talking to one of the guests. I later found out the guest had left home in Sweden without telling her parents and come to Lisbon for an impromptu vacation. When her parents found out, they called Interpol and 20 hours after she left home, the police had found her and were returning her home to Sweden. After that whole ordeal, we had a communal dinner at the hostel and planned our pubcrawl for the night. The 8 or so of us went to Barro Alto, the bar district of Lisbon and went from pub to pub drinking cheap beer and talking with the locals. At the end of the night we found ourselves in a basement night club dancing to techno with the local Lisbians (this may not be the proper name for people from Lisbon).
