Olá Portugal

Portugal so far has been absolutely incredible. Lisbon is a smaller city than we expected, and a really beautiful mix of a Spanish/Mediterranean vibe with old Roman streets and structures. Just to start, below is the beautiful view from the rooftop of our hostel. At the top of the hill is a castle...yes, our 20 euro/night hostel has a view of a castle. Not too shabby!

 One of the most popular things to do in Lisbon is to take the tram to all of the different tourist sites. This tram in itself is a tourist attraction. Its extremely old fashioned, doesn't fit many people, and took us literally ages to find the stop nearest to our hostel. The funny part is that it actually ended up being a 5 minute walk away, yet took us at least 30 minutes to locate.

We got off the tram whenever something beautiful struck our eye, such as the view over the rooftops of Lisbon at this "miradouro", or viewing point. 

We found a Portuguese man who hand paints gorgeous canvases of scenes in Lisbon, most of them featuring the iconic yellow tram. We all bought smaller canvases of various Lisbon scenes for 7.50 euro each.

One thing we quickly learned is that Lisbon is hilly. Extremely hilly. Rome was built on 7 hills? Lisbon was built on thousands. I think we're all going to have calves of steel by the end of this trip if we don't figure out how to successfully catch the tram going uphill in the near future.

This statue is featured in the square closest to our hostel, Rossio Square.

Decorative ceramic tiles are found all over Lisbon, decking out walls, floors, and even sidewalks.

That evening, our hostel hosted a 6 euro pub crawl with unlimited wine, beer, and cover fees. It was mostly fun just meeting people from different parts of the world. We met quite a few people from Belgium, Austria, Scotland, and Germany. It's pretty disappointing when we think about how well they speak English and how not so well I speak any other foreign language in comparison. Very jealous! 

Overall, our first full day in Lisbon was a great success and we are super excited to spend another few days in this gorgeous city!