7th stop: Lisbon, Portugal pt. 3 - Catching waves, boogie, beachposes and Praia Pequena & Praia Grande
 
Lisbon is among other things known as “cidade das sete colinas” (city of the seven hills) since it originally was was built over seven hills.

All the up and down hill roads means that biking around, like back home in CPH, isn’t really an easy option. 

Going by public transportation is all right since the transport infrastructure is pretty functional. But going to more deserted/vacant beaches outside Lisbon is troubled without a car.   

Lucky for us Sergio & João took us around in car to many places we probably wouldn’t have seen if we were by ourselves, as for instance the vacant beaches, small cities, beautiful views, local shops, clubs/bars and not to mention real Portuguese homes.
The fact that we got into conversation with them back in Barcelona at that random hostel was really a determining factor for our tremendous impression of Portugal and honestly we can’t thank them enough!
I’m currently dreaming of going back to Portugal at some point with a bunch of friends, rent a car and surfboards and work our way along the coast from north to south. Could be mad thrill! 

Praia Pequena

Praia Grande

At first I couldn't stop making a little fun (trying to be polite at the same time) of their body boards, since I surfed at "real surfboards" in Brazil and El Salvador and there has and always will be a beef going on between these two types of surfing.
But the guys were good at arguing and they're actually right in saying that you will have fun much faster from doing body boarding. When learning how to surf it's really difficult and takes a lot of time, practise and energy to "break through" and actually start catching some real waves and not just the "white wash".
And if you don’t have the time, the energy or the environment near you, body boarding is just a really good and faster way of catching some waves and actually have fun with it, which all kinds of surfing should be about: Having fun! 

The water in Portugal is freezing, not compared to DK, but you still have to wear a wetsuit when surfing. It sucks for all the dudes and girls that are watching each other surf, no wet, tanned skin to get distracted by..
I'm more into the surf shorts and top kind of thing. But at least you don't get scratches and brushes all over your body... but that's also part of the surf culture. I don't like wetsuits haha.   

Loving the beach poses!

Crowded wave

Only Brazilian and Portuguese guys knows how to do a prober ball joggle at the beach and

ONLY Brazilian and Portuguese guys stands staring and obviously admiring or hating at each other. Man, we had our laughs! 

 Our black ride that took us to so many awesome places!

Praia Pequena high tide

// there are mooore parts coming up!

7th stop: Lisbon, Portugal pt. 2 - words on confusing language challenges and general thoughts

 

The first day in Lisbon we went straight from our hostel to Praça do Comercio, located in

Baixa Pombalina in the city center of Lisbon. Situated near the Tagus River.
We were totally destroyed by the lack of sleep from the horrible night train from Madrid. We didn’t even had the energy to ask for any tourist advises we just went out and hoped we would hit the water at some point.
If a city is located near water I always head to the water, or to places located with higher altitude where you get and overview of the city, as the first thing. I use the rivers or oceans to navigate. If I get lost I would always know how to get back if I find the water. Don’t know if it makes any sense but it works for me.
  

 The Tagus River and the 25 de Abril Bridge in the far back 

 Such a beautiful first day we was greeted with

We sat there by the river and stared for a little while, trying to comprehend that we once again were in a different country and a different culture.
A new thing for me was that I understood, more or less, all the small talk going on around me.
Because my level of Portuguese isn’t fluently (yet) (and an other thing is that I learned the Brazilian Portuguese), it’s hard for me to filter the useful and useless information that passes my curious ears. Therefore it was tiring for my brain since it constantly got distracted and tried to pick up the substance of conversations around me.
A side effect was that it made the level of complexity, in all the languages I speak, quite lower. The only way out of my "languages clashes" was to stop being scared about making mistakes and just practice my way out of it. Which also is the main reason for my English writing here on the blog. 
Anyway it sounds like it was a bad thing and it was hard on me, but the truth is that I absolutely loved the language challenge!

  

Praça do Comércio / Terreiro do Paço

 Miradouro da Graça - These pictures are not from our first day, but is here just to show one of the overview points we went to. This time with João.

 

// pt. 3 beaaach time coming up!

7th stop: Lisbon, Portugal pt. 1

LISBON, you deceased us!
From home we didn’t do any research about Lisbon or Portugal in general. We just had a wish of going there. Not sure why. To be sure that we would end up there and not get distracted on our way through EU, we bought a flight ticket going from Lisbon to Copenhagen. We defined Lisbon as our last stop on the interrail. 

Sergio and João told us about their city with proudness in their voices. Every person usually has a big affection for their home city and with that in mind we tried not to expect huge things of Lisbon. It seems like more Danes has visited Lisbon this summer than before, but I personally never heard too much about this city.
I don’t know if it was the low expectations or our general love for new places that made us fall in love with Lisbon, or if the city really is as great as we heard and we felt  – but the fact is that even months after we paid our first visit, we still feel our heart beat a liittle faster when thinking of the feeling we had when we where there.  

 I personally already returned again for a week and I’m seriously considering the possibility of living in Portugal at some point in life. Not just the capital of Portugal is awesome, it seems like the whole country has beautiful things to offer. It’s not to far from DK (family and friends), it’s EU the practical stuff is so easy, they speak the world’s finest language, Portuguese, the weather and hopefully I would turn into the surferchick I always wanted to be haha.

The pictures from Lisbon/Portugal are divided into several parts because Portugal is by far the country we photographed the most.

Parque Eduardo VII

 

Meet João Coelho. He is both handsome and kind and he will absolutely hate me for writing this because that is how he is. Forever humble.

The houses in Lisbon is so full of soul and I can't stop staring at them while walking in the streets.
To me they are beautiful, warm, colorful, I even find the once that are old and totally cracked up really charming.

6th stop: Madrid, Spain.

At Tailors Hostel in Barcelona we were lucky to meet two awesome Portuguese guys, Sergio and João, whom quickly became our friends. The first night we spend hours of talking about what we needed to see and experience in the final country of our interrail trip.

Eventually they offered us a car ride from Barcelona to Madrid.
While considering, we thought “that’s exactly what interrailing is about”; meeting people from all around, expand your horizon from it, go with the flow, take chances and hopefully ‘win’ good experiences, try and follow your first intuition.

Our intuition was good and therefore we said yes. They could have stolen our kidneys, but luckily we had the best time crossing the Spanish land.  

We spent our days in Madrid walking around in the streets and parks, eating frozen yoghurt and tapas. We just had a pretty chilled time, which the few pictures probably tell.   

From Madrid we took a night train to Portugal and that trip was the last and the worst of all!
So much waiting, total lack of sleep and the fact that my seat was turned into a swimming pool full of sweat from a man who sad there before me, didn't really do any better.
But we got to Lisbon, and we fell in love at first eye glance!

5th stop: Barcelona, Catalonya pt. 2

… Besides going to the beach and seeing tourist attractions like Park Güell and La Sagrada Familia (no reason for pictures), we did a lot of walking around in the streets.
I really enjoy walking through a city instead of taking busses, subways or caps. I feel like it’s easy to loose your sense of direction and you won’t have clue where you’re at because you’re not observing your surroundings. It’s the best way to get to know a city.  

The second reason is that usually your unknown walking paths take you to the best places.
We passed small, charming alleys, walked through challenged ethnic areas, and saw beautiful graffiti pieces and street art. We also stumbled upon the famous skate spot MACBA that was pure luck for us since we haven’t done any research on specific skate spots (we totally should have done that). All this happened because we walked…
 

 You see more skateboards than bikes.. This guy is heading towards the MACBA spot.

 In love with these doors even though it's just ugly throwups

 MACBA

Though walking is great... This is what it does to your feet.... urgh 

Thaaank you Barcelona, we'll be back for sure. We owe you big time. 
Next entry shows our way from Barcelona to Madrid and the time we used there. We got an opportunity we couldn't let pass by so no train travel was needed when trying to reach our next stop on the interrail. Yay.