Portugal

Hi everyone, just wanted to do a quick check in and let you all know what Josh and I are up to right now. Tuesday we wrapped up our little stay in Madrid, as we are off to Portugal. Our flight home leaves from Madrid so we have four extra days at the end to enjoy in this city. We planned for Portugal to hopefully beach bum it for a couple of weeks, they are supposed to have the most amazing waters near the south coast as well as spain. So we went to the Prado muesuem and we saw lots and lots and lots of very old paintings by Goya and some other guys, good stuff maybe a little dry. After, we went to a huge park that Madrid has in the middle of the city and had a nap in the sun, do you see a pattern, we dont really do much these days After we went to our regular spot for some yummy sangria. Afterwards we picked up our large backpacks and went to the train station many hours early, you know just to be sure. At 10:45pm we boarded our train for a nine hour ride to Lisbon , Portugal. Josh and I had earlier planned how glorious our first class seats would be, now I would have to say I never want to exprience second class. Luckily I was sick with a bad cold so I took some pills and passed out for the journey and woke up in Lisbon, Portugal. It was about 8 something in the morning when we arrived with a bit of a cloudy sky but still the tempurature was quite warm. There we met a super cool austrailian guy named brett who was travelling by himself. We parted ways but hoped to see each other again. Previously the team (josh and I) had decided that we wanted to stay in really small towns to get away from tourists and really enjoy the life of the portugeseso we skipped through Lisbon on a train and went to Cascasis a smaller beach town. We went straight to our bed and breakfast where we found no one. Yes I was sick and dying and nobody was home!! An hour later our host came home to find us on the street, she didnt speak much english so we just went inside. Our b&b was more like a room inside their house but it was nice to have our own room for a while. I took a nap while Josh went and found the beach which was about 15-20 minute walk away. They say if there is one stop you have to make in Portugal it should be Sintra, a small tourist town with tiny streets, beautiful architecture, and castles! So the next morning we made our way to Sintra. I am not one to agree with stereotypes of people but what they say about Portugese drivers is sooo true! They are the most insane wild drivers you will ever come across, bus rides are now something we look much forward to. A little like a long rollar coaster ride. I mean the streets here are teeny tiny which the sharpest corners and yet they just cruise through like nothing. So we did the tourist thing and went to Sintra and it really was gorgeous. We went to all the castles which were amazing especially the gardens. We finished off our day with a trip up to the Moorish Castle which Josh was soo excited about. This trip begun with a wild ride õn the bus up to the top, these are roads that in Canada I know no one would be driving on yet here we go crusing up in the crazy bus and who do we see it is our austrailan friend brett walking up the hill. The moorish castle gave us a wonderful view of the portugese valley. We caught the bus home, this time it made me really close to losing my lunch. We went into Cascasis and had some white sangria which was still very very good and watched the sun set on the amazing beach.