So my adventure is officially under way! On May 18^th I left Charlotte with a massive travel backpack, a smaller pack on my front, and my trusty belt bag. I landed in Lisbon around 9:30am (Lisbon is five hours ahead of the US). My plan for the entire trip is to rely solely on public transit and luckily Lisbon has a great metro station. My hostel was down by the port and right next to the train and a metro station. It was perfect. Except I couldn’t find the metro station at the airport.

                I followed the signs out and ended up at an elevator that was out of service but that appeared to be the only entrance to the metro. This was not case, I was just dumb and kept walking right past the stairs that led down to the metro. The metro itself is very efficient, but while a normal metro car is crowded at the best of times, it’s worse when you take up as much room as two people because your backpacks add so much space.

                I was able to easily navigate the metro and drop my bags off at my hostel. Since I couldn’t check in till 3pm, they left me keep my stuff in a locked room so that I wouldn’t have to lug everything throughout the city with me while I walked around and explored.

                My first order of business was finding a café to eat. I headed off in random direction and fun enough, I actually passed by the pink street, a famous street in Lisbon that is painted pink (as obvious by the name). Pink street during the day is mostly just tourist trying to get pictures, the street itself is actually home to multiple bars that don’t open till later. Come night though, the street is packed with people and the pink paint can’t even be seen.

                I found a cute little café called “The Cakery” about a block off of pink street. There was a little patio outside that was perfect for me to enjoy and mimosa and fresh croissant. The street where the café was located happened to be on route 28 of the tram system. This route is popular for the iconic Lisbon yellow tram cars that are pictured on a multitude of different merchandise.  I never ended up riding the tram, purely because I simple forgot; it was faster for me to take the metro or walk. Plus, most my routes were not on a tram line.

                I wandered from the café to a Starbucks in search of Wi-Fi. For this trip, I have yet to purchase either a sim card or an international cell plan. Verizon has a wonderfully expensive plan that is $10 per day and that was a hard pass as I need to budget better than $10 per day (that would about $600 by the end of the trip. A sim card costs anywhere from $20-$70 depending on the plan). During previous travels, I had no issue using only wi-fi. I have an app called maps.me which allows me to download a full map of whatever city or entire country I need. This allows me to use it off wi-fi. The app also shows all train/metro/bus routes which is really helpful because it will tell which metro line to use or which train I can take.

                For most of the rest of day I sat in the Starbucks trying to make a concrete plan of what to see and when. After a while I just walked around the city some more. Lisbon is a beautiful place to walk and take in the sights. There is plenty of greenry sprouting from windows and crawling up walls, there’s a variety of street art and murals, plus, being located on the water, you can walk right along the water front and enjoy the breeze. One thing for certain about Lisbon is that it’s not for those out of shape. People would always remark on the hills in Lisbon and I didn’t really take their word for it until I got there myself and starting walking around.

                Holy shit were they right. Half the time the walk is straight uphill on a narrow sidewalk made of uneven cobble stones. I was never more grateful that I didn’t bring a rolling bag until I watched multiple tourist struggle their way up hill with a suitcase big enough to fit a medium size dog. Cut through alleys between buildings are made of steep stairs. Half time you are practically walking in the road hoping you don’t get hit by the cars driving by.

                When I finally was able to check into my room back at my hostel, I promptly fell asleep. I planned to try and power through the jetlag but alas, I nap on a normal day at home so sleep won out easily. Thankfully I didn’t sleep too long as I was woken by my roommates coming back. The room I was placed in was a four-bed mixed dorm; two sets of bunkbeds, male and female. The first night it was two girls from Chicago, a guy named Stephen from Bulgaria, and me. The girls from Chicago left the next day and were replaced with two girls from the UK. Stephen stayed the same time as me, until the 23^rd.

                For the most part we didn’t really interact that much beyond initial greetings and introductions, then a brief “hi” or “hello” when we entered the room. This was honestly fine by me. Most of the people I feel that I meet and get closer too are usually the ones in the room.

                For dinner that night I continued my wandering around the city and found a small tapas place a couple blocks from the hostel. Tapas are normally meant to be shared but it was a perfect little meal to order two small dishes for myself. The food was amazing and the mojito was even better. After my meal I grabbed some food from a market. My plan was to cook/eat some meals at the hostel to save money by not eating at a restaurant every meal.

                I called a night pretty early because I was still so tired from the long flight that morning, but I made plans to visit a small town nearby the next day.

                In the morning I ate a small breakfast of random things I had grabbed from the market and then took the train to Belem, which is only a 15 minute ride away but would have been a good hour or two hour. I had two main plans for Belem, the Tower of Belem and the Jerome Monastery. I headed to the tower first because I figured the monastery would take more time and be a perfect after lunch activity. It was nice walking along the water front and watching the sail boats as they meander across the water.

                Belem tower was located about a fifteen minute walk from the train station. By the time I got there I was very much aware that despite the weather saying it was going to be a little cooler, I sweating more than I would have liked. The park was plenty crowded with tourist and people trying to sell cheaply made trinkets on blankets. The line to go into the tower was about an hour queue. It was long and did not move the entire time I was at the tower. Because of this I opted to not go inside. Some things are worth an hour queue but the tower was not one of them.

                The tower itself was little underwhelming. It sat right at the waters edge, a wooden bridge leading from the stone structure to the park. It was rather small, by my estimate about three stories tall. Compared to what you might think of a tower, it didn’t reach too high.

                I enjoyed walking around and taking in the architecture but I was soon hungry and decided to head to the monastery and find a place to eat on the way. I ended up at a little restaurant on the water that turned out to be my most expensive meal of the trip. This probably has to do with location plus the fact that I order both a sangria and then a glass of wine.

                The monastery was directly across the street from where I had lunch so I didn’t have to walk far. The architecture on the monastery was impressive, much more so than the tower. The while stone was intricately carved at the entrance. Two pillars stood tall and framed a dark wooden door. The detail was immense. A scene of the crucifixion of Christ hung above the door. There were multiple different saints and other important figures placed in 3D from the ground to the roof. Overall, it was a gorgeous building and it was too bad I didn’t get to see inside. This was another hour-long queue. The tickets were more pricey (15 euros, which isn’t too bad) and it didn’t seem worth such a long wait in the blazing sun. I was more interested in the architecture than what was inside.

                I decided to head back into Lisbon in the later afternoon. As the train pulled into the station a market outside caught my eye. I had originally planned to take a nap but I couldn’t resist the pull of the crowded tents. There were tents lined up around a local park selling things from homemade jewelry to fresh made sangria. I snagged a sangria and took a seat in the shade of a tree and sat to listen to the live music being played in the plaza. It was the perfect end to the afternoon. Of course, I could have used the nap but it was great getting to enjoy something so local that I would’ve missed had I not looked out the window.

                For dinner I went back to the plaza and ate at restaurant that was part of an indoor food market. I chose a place that made pasta from scratch and cooked the pasta in front of you. The food was once again amazing, it’s hard to have a bad meal in Europe unless you are actively seeking it out. Paired with the house wine I felt satisfied that chose the right place out of a multitude of shops.

                That night I joined a bar crawl that was hosted my hostel. I wasn’t originally planning on this but after I met some people at the bar on the hostel roof, I decided to come along. I’ve a couple bar crawls in the past with my good friends and always enjoyed them. I had been wanting to do one in Lisbon but didn’t want to go unless I met someone beforehand. Since I clicked with a group of fellow backpackers, I thought, what the hell, how often are you gonna be in Lisbon?

                The bar crawl was a lot fun and it was great just getting to go out and drink with new people and discover some more of the city. Shoutout to Claudia from London who became my wing woman for the night. She was the incredibly funny and nice and we got along fast enough that we used the bar bathroom together because the line was so long.

                The bar crawl ended up starting late and therefore, I was out much later than expected, around 4am to be exact. As I got in bed I changed my plans for the next day, turning off my 7:30am alarm and choosing to instead sleep in do a smaller day of sightseeing.