Lisbon, Portugal

Hola from Portugal!
I am not in Spain anymore!  Crazy right?  As I am writing this I am sitting in the sweetest hostel ever and am completely exhausted.  Last night we spent the night in the Madrid airport and I only got about 3 hours of sleep on and off throughout the night.  Sleeping in airports will never be fun or warm or comfortable but now we are in Lisbon!! At this amazing hostel... It is so clean, has a nice kitchen, everyone has a locker and is very hip and trendy.  They have an amazing breakfast and offer dinner in the evenings.  This is what a hostel is supposed to be like.  Very communal and friendly.  I have met people from all over in less than 24 hours.  It kinda makes me miss my friends back in the States because there are a few different group of girls traveling together, who have known one another for a long time!
The first thing we did in Lisbon, after eating breakfast, was take this free tour of Lisbon that our hostel offered!  We went everywhere!  On the tour a met a guy that is living in Lisbon working for the hostels and was born in the same city I was!  What a small world!  For lunch we ate traditional Portuguese dishes.  One was a steak with an over-easy egg on top and the other was cod.  Very delicious!  We also tried this Portuguese liquor that is made with ginger.  It was kinda cool because the place where we tried it was right on the busy streets and only sold shots of this liquor.... That would never fly in the States!  After lunch we went on a wine tasting tour.  We tried a few different kinds of port wine, which is a dessert wine.  Very sweet but very good.
The sites we saw today were amazing!  Lisbon seems very similar to San Francisco although I have never been.  It is very colorful, hilly, has a trolley system and has a bridge that resembles the Golden Gate exactly.  Our hostel is located in the Baixa area, which has a lot of shopping and is very close to the Tagus River which leads to the Atlantic Ocean.  We saw the Castle of St. George, more stunning cathedrals, the Alfama neighborhood, Plaza de Comercio and then we went to the Belem region.  In the Belem region is a palace and the Torre de Belem.  Very cool!  It was right on the Atlantic Ocean and we got to see it at almost sunset!  Across from the huge bridge that resembles the Golden Gate is this huge Jesus Statue that is like the one in Rio de Janeiro.  That was pretty cool! 
Tomorrow I really want to go to Estrella Basilica which is supposed to be beautiful and breathtaking.  Tomorrow we are going to go to a flea market with a group of students studying in Florence that we met at the hostel.  Then we are going to travel to a nearby town called Sintra.  One of the most beautiful places in Europe, let alone Portugal.  Very excited!
As for the language, Portuguese isn't too different from Spanish.  There are many similarities.  I can read Portuguese far better than I am able to understand it!
All in all I can't believe I am in Lisbon!  Now I need to sleep because tomorrow I want to have energy for Sintra!
Un beso,
Sarah 

Part II - Sintra!
Today Drew and I got up and went with our friends from Florence to this flea market!  It was very... flea-market-ish... haha :)  Then we took a 40 minute train ride to Sintra, a nearby town.  Sintra is beautiful!  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site... so its legit!  We walked up a mountain (in flats) to a Moorish Castle that overlooked all of Sintra and the surrounding areas.  You could see for miles.  It was breathtaking.  Nearby was a summer palace that was very colorful and picturesque.  Then on the way back down we took the winding streets lined with stores selling beautiful Portuguese tiles.  Its unbelievable that I am here.  I am so blessed.
Tomorrow we fly to Madrid in the morning and spend the day in Madrid and then back to Alicante kinda late that same evening.  This week I have quite a bit of work to do before spring break begins!  Ill post pictures of Portugal as soon as possible!