Portugal

Hello from Portugal!

I am taking a break from walking all over the city. I am not used to the one hour time difference and I am starving. I´m going to have to make dinner pretty soon. I am hungry! My hostel is awesome. Everything feels safe and the staff is super helpful. I have many questions, and they helped me plan my weekend! It is a bit difficult because the NATO talks are going on right now so the city has a bit of chaos to it.
I have seen numerous protests against NATO, last night there was a huge parade of protesters chanting. The police are everywhere. No shenanigans here. You never know when things will be blocked off, which can be unfortunate. Today I was surprised when I was leaving Belem, they were setting up a ton of guardrails, and police were out in full force. That and it took the trolley about an hour instead of a scheduled 20 minutes...which was fun.

Today it rained. Which put a cloud over some of my plans. I had a wonderful breakfast cooked FOR ME. So I had some great scrambled eggs and toast. Tomorrow I think I will try the pancrepes with nutella. So good.
I went to Belem and saw the great big Monastery. Took the scenic walk around it, which ended up not being so scenic but I got some exercise. I then went to the contemporary art museum which was perfect timing due to a downfall of rain. They had some really neat things and some artists I recognized, which was nice. They also had some weird house exhibit. Hard to explain but it was set up pretty neat, it was kind of like a maze. Unfortunately the Warhol exhibit wasn´t quite set up yet, it looked like it would have been neat.
It was still pouring rain after I left the museum so I went to Pasteis de Belem, a famous bakery in Belem. There was a huge line out the door when I got there, so I decided to get a table and just have a waiter come to me, saved time and my patience! I ordered two of the famous custard tarts and a cappuccino. I added some powdered sugar and cinnamon to the tarts and they were to DIE for. SO good, and warm. I could have eaten 20 in one sitting. I was in heaven - no other way to describe it, guess everyone is going to have to come to Lisboa and try one...just saying.
After the rain let up I walked to the Disoveries Monument on the Tagus River. I took many pictures, sometimes I miss having a travel buddy - taking pictures of myself trying to get whatever in the background can be a challenge. I walked along the river for a while (VERY windy) and made it to the Belem Tower which was built to fortify the city. I took many pictures and walked all the way up it (by the time I got to the top I was quite dizzy. All spiral staircase!) It was neat reading about all the history since I feel like the only things about Portugal I know are based on their relations with Spain since I know a lot of Spanish history.
I did a lot of walking today. I got off the tram a bit early so that I could just walk back to my hostel. Lots of wind and rain today - hopefully tomorrow is better. I saw two FULL rainbows (no gold), but it was a huge fat rainbow and I could make out all the colors, which made me feel recharged a bit.

There is Karaoke tonight, but I don´t know if I want to subject anyone to my singing. I may check it out...I don´t want to cause an international incident.

Until next time,

Tori
XOXO