Bye Lisbon, Bye Nine

Hi Family!

Currently waiting in the airport for my flight to Florence, so let’s backtrack again to our last day in Lisbon. Sorry for getting behind, but there was just so much to do! I didn’t want to be on my phone when I could be present.

So we started the morning off in our favorite cafe, funny how after a few days you can find yourself saying things like “favorite cafe.” Guess it doesn’t take long to settle in when you’re in such a warm, friendly city.

We went to the Feria de Ladra which is this huge flea market that happens twice a week. It blocks an entire street by the church. It ranges from touristy knick knacks, to garage sale items, to high quality boutique dresses and tiles. I got two wonderful harem pants, since I’ve literally worn holes into the current pairs I have after 8 years. Probably should have stopped wearing them years ago, but I couldn’t let go since we don’t have those in LA lol.

It was my last day with Jes, which sucked but at least we got to explore the market together before she had to go. Thankfully Jihan could have cared less about our glassy eyes and promises of future adventures and pulled through taking photographs for the day. Hence why the style is different and why they are heavily filtered. But it’s good to switch it up every now and then!!!

After saying bye to Jes, we wandered the streets of the Plaza one last time. We gave Jihan the grand tour, aka parroting the tour and facts that Jes had told us on the first day.

The best part of being in the plaza during this time was that Portugal was playing Uruguay!! See that huge screen in the background? That’s been put up and dedicated to the World Cup football games. The plaza was packed with people screaming and cheering. People were dressed in national flags and jerseys. It was quite the show.

Halfway through the game we had to drop Nayyirah off and leave as well to catch our train to Salamanca. Every single Uber driver had the game on the radio, so don’t worry that we missed out. What was even funnier was after a whole first half of not scoring, Portugal managed to score while we were in the car. The sports narrator was singing and all of a sudden there was cheers all throughout the streets, and cars started honking in celebration. Even our Uber driver couldn’t help but fist pump and give a little cheer. Mom and I were just laughing as we watched the whole spectacle.

Anyways the cousins parted ways, Mom cried, and me? Well, I just couldn’t help but be excited to be returning to my second home away from home after four years.

Much love,

Aisha 

Cascais

Good Afternoon,

Lucky you guys, I have a three hour wait before we are leaving for our train so we are just hanging around and working, well mom is working and I’m writing this second blog post.

Portugal is famous for their tiles. Tiled walls, tiled floors, tiled everything. And if you think it’s easy to walk on tiles you have another thing coming, I almost slipped right onto my butt once or twice. So it is only appropriate that we visited a tile museum. Having three art junkies in the group my mom, Jes, and I were waaayyyy too excited. 

Not sure why the lighting made my pants so bright but I feel like I have a rather holy glow...must have earned it after traveling with my family for four days in a row lol.

Aren’t the tiles so pretty!!

Randomly in this tile museum there was this gilded church. It was very ostentatious, and over the top, and rather spectacular to stare at. However my favorite part was this HUMAN that was considered a decoration??? I really want to know who that was? They either most have been the world’s biggest saint or sinner to get a permanent seat in church hahah.

Look who I found amongst the other non-tile exhibits in the tile museum? This picture was too funny not to take, no matter how embarrassed my mother was. I think Nayyirah added quite a lovely flair to the piece don’t you?

After the tile museum we went to the beach town of Cascais. Well, we attempted to go to the beach town of Cascias to roam around and find the Boca Do Inferno. But nope, as our luck would have it, the one beach day we planned Portugal decided to rain! I didn’t even know this city was capable of that!! Seriously though, after clear skies and 90 degree weather all morning, how crazy was it that we got rained on that very afternoon.

But you should know that I am always a good sport and therefore a little rain (more like a full on downpour) did not stop me from taking pictures and skipping down the street with lots of laughs.

When we finally made it back to Lisbon, we changed into drier clothes, got into our matching sassy tops from LA, and had a good old fashioned movie night at the hotel. It’s fun having an international friend, but it sure does making saying goodbye hard. 

I’ll update you on my last day in Lisbon tomorrow.

Miss you all.

Xx, Carolyn

Moorish Castle, Pena Palace, and Sintra National Palace

Good Morning Friends!!!

So I’m currently waiting for my laundry to wash, and we had a little mishap adventure which you’ll just have to wait for because I’m so behind blogging!! So let’s pretend it’s Thursday and we are going on the train to visit Sintra, Portugal.

The morning started off wonderfully with this BEAUTIFUL cappuccino :). The best part? It  literally tasted as good as it looks. I think I’ll move here just for the coffee alone, nothing ever tastes this good across the ocean. And if you’re wondering if that’s a fresh off the oven scone with homemade berry jam, it is. Be jealous. 

We started off the day by visiting the Moorish Castle, well really it was more like the ruins of whatever castle was there and the walls that lasted around the area. The original structure was built in the 10th century. Around 1108 a Netherland King spotted the castle, overtook it, and “renovated.” Now there’s no castle left but the floor plan...hmmm looks like the moors has better architects and no revisions were needed after all...

But look at how green and beautiful this place is!

Can you spot Mom? Haha she always seems to be hiding from the camera. 

We went to the top of the fortress walls and look at this great view!! We found the Pena Palace, home to King Ferdinand II and whatever drugs he was tripping on when he made this Disney-esq playground in the 19th century. 

Look at how crazy those colors are? Imagination wise we have to give the guy credit, but practical points are in the negatives. An enemy could spot this palace 8 million miles away. Looks like the fun nature of the building started to rub off on everyone as the day progressed.

 

The four Islams were jumping from wall to wall, posing, and giggling at their own childlike nature. I wish we dedicated our whole day to this palace, as we only saw just this part, missing out on the entire park that seemed to be created for this king.

Jihan had waaaayyyy too much fun taking the mick out of us girls for being posey....but just you wait, turns out he decided being cool jabs “instagrammable” was worth it after all.

I got Mom to pose with me too!!!!

If you were questioning whether it was equally brilliant and opulent inside as it was outside, let me tell you, it was. Get a load of this chandelier! I’ll take two please. I think if I were to live in any castle, I’d like this one.

We decided that if Dolan and King Ferdinand II had a competition regarding kitchenware, we would win. Those pots are nothing compared to our 500 people cow party pots. Hahaha

More poses on our way out. 

Oh and if you thought I would be too nervous to bring out the Steamy Alpaca, you thought wrong hehehe. Steamy goes where I go, I’m telling you if I instagram this I could go viral.

Our final destination was the National Palace of Sintra. Which unfortunately just couldn’t compare after playing in the Disneyland of Portugal for three hours. But we carried on, because you only travel once right? 

Good thing too, because the Steamy Alpaca found some nice geese friends.

The National Palace of Sintra was medieval and inhabited from the 15th to 19th century. Which means that the kings seriously upgraded when they built the Pena Palace. Fine by me, somehow the millions of miles we walked was less daunting when there’s so much to look at all the time lol.

Yet we still played amongst corridors...

And tiled walls...

And mazes...

And then 100 steps later made it back to Mom. Our legs where aching and this medieval stair master kicks butt.

Anyways, I wish we could have spent another day here but I’ll take what I can get.

Love you lots,

Carolyn