Lisbon, Portugal

So I wrote this blog about a week ago, but have not been able to post it yet. So here's a post from a early last week, and I will update soon about my trip to Rome!

All semester I’ve been participating in a communication interest group (which I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned in my blog before) – and this past weekend our group was taken to Lisbon, Portugal. We were supposed to meet with someone working at a news agency in Lisbon, but unfortunately he had to cancel. So instead we met with a Portuguese communication professor, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Early Friday morning my interest group met to start our 5-hour bus journey to Lisbon. There is only a 1-hour time difference in Portugal, so we arrived at the hotel around 230pm, and were on our own for lunch. After lunch was our visit to the university in Lisbon, where the professor spoke to us about current communications in Portugal. A lot of it was statistics (slightly boring) but we did learn a few things:

• Portugal, just like everyone else, is experiencing an economic crisis right now.
• TV is the most important medium of communication in Lisbon
• Although the country is behind European Union standards (Portuguese people have not yet embraced current communication mediums to their full extent), they are slowly catching up.

After the university visit, we met with a young Portuguese woman who gave us a quick tour of the city. She brought us down the main drag with lots of shops, to an old outdoor elevator where we got a great view of the city.

Lisbon is actually quite hilly, and we walked around one neighborhood called Barrio Alto (that’s the Spanish translation, which literally means tall neighborhood). It was full of trendy boutiques and lots of bars – apparently it’s a popular place for young people. Although we wanted to see the nightlife of Lisbon, we were too tired from the journey to go out Friday night.

Saturday morning we went outside the city a bit to small town called Sintra, where we climbed up to a beautiful castle (I can’t even remember how many different types of architecture were incorporated, but it was upwards of 5 different styles). It was actually quite small although it appeared to be big from the exterior, I suppose due to the many facades. Once again, there was a great view from the castle. It seems every city I visit in Europe there is something to climb with a view of the city.

We left Sintra to see the Torre de Belem, a tower that played an important role in the Age of Discoveries, which was right on the water. There wasn’t much to see other than the building and the view, but that was pretty enough.

We also visited an old church connected to a monastery (which is no longer in use) close to the water, followed by a stop in a pastry shop! Our interest group paid for a pastry and a coffee, both of which were delicious.

Midnight on Saturday marked my friend Kelly’s 21^st birthday, who was also on the trip to Lisbon, so in our free time after the tours we went shopping for a bit, another quick dinner, and then we got ready to celebrate. It was fun to be in a hotel so that we could all hang out, and we ended up in the Lisbon Hard Rock Café of all places… I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t make it to Barrio Alto because I heard it was a lot of fun, but we were able to dance to American music in Hard Rock, which was what the birthday girl wanted.

Sunday we didn’t have any time to explore since our bus left at 10am, but Lisbon was a beautiful city and all the people were very friendly. Nearly everyone there spoke fluent English since it’s a requirement to study English in school. I loved that most of the buildings were painted bright colors – it made the city quite vibrant. I hope to come back to Lisbon at some point in my life because there’s a lot more I’d like to explore.

This week is the Feria in Sevilla – a big festival to celebrate spring, so we have the week off. I had plans to travel to Italy on Tuesday but unfortunately my flight to Milan was cancelled due to the ash cloud from the volcanic eruption in Iceland. After much frustration and searching for new flights, my friends and I were able to book a flight to Rome on Friday (it was the first one we could find). So our although we can no longer see Milan or Venice, we’ll still have nearly 4 days in Rome. Italy was the number one place I wanted to visit while I’m abroad so I’m really bummed I won’t be able to see more of the country, but compared to other travelers I’m quite lucky. I have a lot of friends who had been traveling before the volcano erupted and are now stuck in other countries with nearly no way to get home. All of Europe is a mess right now.

Although I’m not in Italy, at least I’m able to enjoy the Feria, which began Monday night. The Feria grounds extend around the outer edge of the city, but luckily, fairly close to my apartment. The ‘alumbrado’ marked the beginning of the Feria Monday night at midnight, which is the lighting of the main entrance.

Inside the grounds, there are hundreds of ‘casetas’ - or tents - which families can rent. During the week, friends and family members can visit the tent to eat, drink, and dance flamenco. It’s quite a production and seeing all of the casetas together is actually quite amazing. Many women wear flamenco dresses and men dress up in suits, despite the heat. Some of my friends’ senoras have even lent their students flamenco dresses to wear, but those of us who don’t have dresses simply wear flowers in our hair instead. Walking through the Feria is fun in itself, seeing the outfits and the horse drawn carriages in addition to carnival rides! It feels like the whole city is there celebrating.

I’m actually quite happy that I was able to see more of the Feria, because if I had left for Milan as planned I would have missed all but Monday night. I will explain in my next post why my original trip to Italy has been cut short.

So now I have a few more days in Sevilla to enjoy the sun and the Feria, before I’m off to Rome for the weekend. Once I’m back from that trip, I’ll only have 3 weeks left in Spain before I go home! I can’t believe how quickly my semester is going (I apologize if I’ve written that too many times, but it’s true!).