Elizabeth in Lisbon!!!

The weekend of March 4, I went to Lisbon with my roommates Alana, Jisenia, and Rose! It was sooo much fun. Top tier trip.

My English class family told me I would love Lisbon because it's very "vintage"; I didn't really get what they were getting at until I was there. It does feel old-fashioned in a way, pretty chill and quiet. It doesn't really seem like a Western European capital.

When we got there we dropped our bags off at the hostel and then walked to the coast.

Then we got breakfast. We're (the Elseas) not breakfast people, but being up at 4AM overrode that.

Then we walked to a flea market and saw some cool stuff on the way.

The flea market was actually like a real flea market. I thought it was going to be like the Rastro, which has some second-hand stuff but also a lot of the same stalls with the same new stuff over and over, but this was all second-hand.

After the flea market we headed to a castle. There are trams all over Lisbon. We found their nest.

The castle was Andalusian.

Views.

There were a ton of peacocks at the castle.

There were these frat bros who walked past and one of them said, "Don't spread bro, you'll hit the tree" in the most stereotypical frat bro voice, it was sooo funny. Took us out.

The girlsss.

Then I did what I do and found a Nepalese restaurant for lunch. It was so good. Rose and I shared some vegetarian stuff. We had exceptionally good food this whole time, but this was probably my favorite.

Then we headed to the docks for our sunset boat tour! This was so awesome. Definitely the best part of the day, and if Lisbon didn't have a banging aquarium, it would easily be the best part of the trip, but since they do, it's top two. Here's a giant momument at the docks. It was called Monument to Discovery, so I knew it was probably for colonization, and it was. Every time with these people.

We were walking to our boat and I was like, "Omg Maluma Baby; I hope this is our boat." (Don Juan is Maluma's next album.) And then our guide was like, "It's your lucky day."

Time for a ton of pics.

They filmed one of the Fast and Furious movies on this cliff (Liam's favorite movies).

I have a story about this one but I'm not posting it online.

Then we saw dolphins!!! This was crazy. Nowhere on the description or the reviews for this boat tour did they mention the possibility of dolphins, the word never appeared. So this was a very big surprise and very insane (as you can tell from my commentary).

After the boat tour we went to a restaurant by the docks and shared fries, a bottle of wine, and ice cream. And that was Saturday :)

We had a tiny little balcony in our hostel room, this was the view. Also our hostel was so nice. Plus we were in a four-person room by ourselves.

We got breakfast right next to our hostel. It was very good, look at the material.

Then it was time for the event of the day--the aquarium!!! This was such a good one. The Valencia aquarium is the biggest in Europe, and Lisbon is the second biggest.

They had this temporary exhibit. It was so vibey. I could've sat in here forever. I want this installed in my room.

The set up of the aquarium was super cool. The set-up was neat. They had this giant tank in the middle, and then as you walked around the aquarium it was on the inside side, and then on the outside side there were other tanks and exhibits, etc.

Puffins!

This is that giant central tank I was talking about.

Penguins!

Mermaid princesses--spot the Fresca penguin.

Otters!

Such a good aquarium. They had this gondola/cable car outside the aquarium so we did that.

The aqaurium.

Right by the aquarium there was this science center where they were having a temporary dinosaur exhibit. Rose loooves dinosaurs, so we went.

I love this video of Rose explaining the dinosaurs.

Baby!!!

More babies!!!

Me as a dinosaur. (Cringe joke idc.)

We sat and waited for this to knock over forever. (Not actually that long but it felt like it. I'm impatient.)

On the second floor they had some more exhibits. They had this room where you draw a fish and they project it on the screen. As a mermaid princess (read: aquarium veteran), I'm well-versed in this one and I love it.

We made a group turtle.

There she goes.

It's an illusion.

Then we went back to our hostel to regroup and then walked around before dinner.

We went to the pink street, which as you can see, is not that pink.

Then we hauled it up a hill to this bakery to get pastel de nata, a famous/typical Portuguese pastry.

It was very good. I had no clue what to expect; I only knew the name. It was very eggy, almost like a dessert quiche. It was good, but a little too sweet/rich for me.

Then we went to our hostel to have dinner. One reason we picked this one was because they offer dinner every night cooked by the hostel owner's mom (Mama), and the reviews are rave. It was really good, and it was cool to eat with so many other people staying in the hostel and get to talk to them. Plus the vegetarian option was better than the normal option (based on me and Rose loving our food and Alana and Jisenia not loving theirs as much), which is literally never how things have worked out for me so I appreciate it. My one complaint was that it was too long between courses. In fact, there was a dessert that we missed because we were all so exhausted and dinner was so long that we couldn't wait any more for it.

Broccoli soup.

Brussel sprouts!!! When I got up to get my food and I saw the brussies I asked, "Omg are these brussel sprouts?!?" And the woman was like "Yeah," and I could tell she expected me to say I didn't like them, and instead I gasped and said, "I LOVE brussel sprouts." And she said "Me too! :)" It was a fun moment. Anyway there's also risotto. And salad.

As I said, then we went to sleep and woke up super early the next morning to get back to Madrid. Also as I said, this was a great trip. I'm so lucky and happy that I have such great roommates. Love them.