Portugal's got mountains AND beaches?? I'm sold!

We hadn't really decided what to do on Monday, all we knew was that it would depend on the weather. We woke up at 9 feeling extremely refreshed after a full night's rest. We opened the window to see blue skies and sunshine. That meant that we could go to Cascais, a little beach town about 20 min outside of Lisboa by train. We ate breakfast in the hostel, got ready, and took the train out to Cascais. At the station we had a hard time figuring how the ticketing machine works. We didn't really act all confused, but a very nice Portuguese man saw that we were a couple of Americans staring at a machine and he coached us through the whole thing, actually basically did it all himself...without our even asking! It was so nice, proves how great the Portuguese are. We said "obregada" (Portuguese "thank you" if you're female. Males say "obregado") a thousand times. The train ride was really nice because this line was run on a cable line right alongside the ocean. We passed under this huge bridge that looks like a Golden Gate replica...how coincidental since Lisboa kind of reminds me of San Fran! Love it. We got to Cascais and detrained with the bright sun reflecting off the ocean immediately hitting our faces. We already knew that we would love this place. It's very much your typical beach town, but prettier and cuter...especially since it's Portuguese! Oh man, I'm so in love with Portugal, I can't wait to return when it's really warm out (I'm going to Lagos in April or May). We wandered the streets a bit, I bought an Indian scarf from a woman off the street (5 euro!). We saw some cute dogs and adorable children in disfraces (costumes) because Monday was Carnaval (like Mardi Gras, big in Brazil). We regretted not buying disraces for Portugal, we didn't even consider that they'd celebrate Carnaval. Then we decided to check out the beach scene. We walked along the ocean for awhile, saw some fishermen. The fishermen look just like how I'd picture cute old European fishermen would look: extremely tan and kind of wrinkley, in hats and knit sweaters and rubber boots. Hehe. After some walking we decided to tomar el sol (sunbathe). We layed out on some cement enclosures along the beach for about an hour, and man, it felt soooo good. After a bit we sat up and watched this woman play fetch with her yellow lab in the ocean. So cute! I miss my doggies. After laying out we did some more wandering. I bought a small wall hanging with the Portugal rooster on it! Yay! The decorations at my apartment next year are going to be so absurd, haha. Then we went to lunch. Since we had burned so much money on god knows what we found a cheap outdoor eatery. Our waiter was a nice, young guy, but couldn't understand much English. Most food places have menus translated into English, but this menu had a pretty poor translation. So we kept asking questions but he couln't answer them. We felt so badly, and I think that he felt badly, too. He tried! So he got his manager to come talk to us. Aw. I ordered another crabmeat sandwich. Can't get enough of 'em. After lunch we wandered a bit more, Courtney got some ice cream (appropriate on such a beautiful day), and then we headed out. We loved Cascais, but it's a beach town so there's not much to do but walk and go to the beach. And we got our fill. Cascais kind of reminded me of San Diego along the ocean meets the beachy areas of Mexico. So perfect. My dream would be to have a summer home out there! Stunning. We got back to Lisboa, stopped at the hostel, and decided to explore Lisboa on a nice day for once. We started wandering in the opposite direction than the first day and ended up in some weird, dead area. We were walking in the direction of the Golden Gate-like bridge, and Courtney remembered seeing some sort of park there, so we made that our destination. The more we walked the farther the bridge seemed to be. Oops. We walked over this one overpass and got hit by a couple water balloons by some crazy Portuguese kids standing up on one of the hilly areas. Ha, it was kind of funny. Crazy kids. It felt kind of good since the sun was pretty strong at that hour. After the balloon incident we decided to give up on our journey. Courtney wasn't feeling very well, anyways, so despite the gorgeous weather, we decided to cut the day short. Nevertheless, it felt good to walk around and see the awesome Lisboan buildings under the golden sunlight. On the way back we saw a cute old lady in a park feeding pigeons. Simple joys. We got back to the hostel and Courtney napped while I used the computer at the hostel for a long-ass time. I blogged and then learned about the new facebook feature where you can now befriend high schoolers. Ugh, I am not happy about this. Now facebook's becoming the next MySpace...Facebook is unique privelege that one must gain with age. Now it's nothing special. Stupid Mark Zuckerberg. OK, that's my facebook rant. Then Courtney woke up and went online and I looked at some weird Portuguese magazines that were kept in the main room. Let me tell you, these magazines have some pretty strange images. It's like adbusters to an extreme. Lots of weird nudity...it's not sexual, just weird. I wish I read Portuguese cuz I'd like to know what they were trying to accomplish in these magazines. If you want to check 'em out the name of them were either Umbigo or Umbiguo...I'm assuming it means Ambiguous. Then we got ready for the night, we planned to finally really go out that night since we were such bums the previous night. Before arriving at the hostel after trying to walk to the bridge we bought a cheap fifth of vodka, soda, and some food for breakfast the next day. That then meant cheap, small dinners and no wine! We walked to get food at a cheap cafeteria down the street from the hostel. We looked at the menu, which, although translated into English, we could not understand. All we knew was that it was cheap. Soon one of the cooks/waiters/servers (they're all the same at cafeterias) came out and said that he could do his best to explain. Oh man, it was a struggle. I felt bad, we were all struggling to understand. I finally got that we were at a Turkish place, which troubled Courtney a bit, but we decided that after all of that work to figure out the menu (trust me, it was an ordeal) we may as well give it a shot. Besides, you could get a wrap, fries, and a drink for under 5 euro. Quite a deal. It's funny, all of the food (except one lunch) that I had eaten in Portugal was from other countries. Whatever, Portuguese food isn't that distinct, just fish, sausage, and pastries, I guess. We got these lamb gyro-like wraps with fries and a drink. Although I typically like Turkish food, I don't eat lamb and I don't really eat french fries. It was the cheapest and easiest thing to order so I just dealt with it. The food was alright, but afterwords I felt gross from the fries. I'm really not used to food like that so my body was not too happy about it. After dinner we didn't really know what to do for the night. We decided to sit out in the main room and socialize with some of our fellow hostelmates. A bunch of people were there from the IES Granada program, they had all made food for themselves in the hostel kitchen (good idea, why didn't we think of that?). We all had really good conversation, they're all from all over, one is actually from Grand Rapids and knew some of our friends. Awesome. Their program director had told them about an awesome bar that has cabaret shows so we thought that that sounded like fun and decided to tag along. Courtney and I decided to do some pregaming so we wouldn't spend a lot of money that night. We invited people to join us but they didn't seem to interested. We found out that they weren't big drinkers...gotta represent the Big Ten party school on our own, I guess. Our pregame was so silly. Courtney got to use her rooster shot glass. But let me tell you, 2 person pregames are the most awkward thing in the world. We didn't have TV or music, so it was just taking shots in basic silence for the most part, lol. We came up with the bright idea of turning on Courtney's iPod at full volume which actually worked. It was really funny, though. What had we reduced ourselves to? Needless to say, parying's more fun in groups. Soon we got a knock on the door signaling that it was time to go. Aaaaand we were drunk...and nobody else was. That's kind of embarrassing, but like we cared. After getting a bit lost and walking up many hills and passing by many drunk people in disfraces (it's like Halloween!) we found the bar. There wasn't a cabaret, but this was honestly the coolest bar that I've ever seen. I can't even describe it. It has multiple rooms dimly lit with lots of antique kitch hanging all over the place. The seating was all of these fancy couchy things and mahogany tables. There were even waiters and they wore bow ties. We found seating in the back where there were 2 pool tables and the main bar, which was so cute and antique looking. Courtney and I went straight to the bar and looked at the huge, awesomely illustrated (think Toulousse Lautrec paintings), and intriguing. In the end Courtney got a beer and I splurged on a 7euro mojito (they looked so good!). In our drinks we got these paper peacock things, kind of like cocktail umbrellas, but peacocks. Exciting! That was definitely a big deal for our drunken selves. We sat in the awesome bar, hanging out, chatting for about an hour. My mojito was sooooooo good, and quite strong I may say. At around 1ish we decided to call it a night since we had had our share of drinks and everyone had to be up early the next day. On the way back we passed so many people in disfraces. I was kind of sad that I didn't take advantage of Carnaval, but I had an amazing night nonetheless despite its simplicity. I mean, honestly, this was the coolest bar EVER! We were in bed by 3 that night completely satisfied with our puente in Portugal. What an amazing country!!!