Obrigadu!

On May 19, we packed up, departed Madrid and headed to Lisbon, Portugal around lunch time. When we arrived at the airport we immediately felt the difference in countries. Since a lot of our group spoke Spanish, we felt a bit more comfortable...we had to learn a few key phrases to help us get around. So, we chose, "Thank you" and "I'm sorry" - both seemed to common themes - they are Obrigado or Obrigada (depending if you were speaking to a male or female) and Schupa, respectively. We had a bus tour around the city...stopped for a quick coffee, which has come to mean an espresso or possibly cappuccino (aka not just a cup of coffee). Then we checked into our hotel and all met down in the lobby to walk to a group dinner at a restaurant named Carina. It was a very traditional Portuguese dinner - soup to start, chicken with fries/rice (we appreciate extra carbs) and flan. VERY YUMMY! Oh, and did we mention the free-flowing wine?! Or table had a wonderful time...we spent the whole dinner laughing, telling stories, toasting to our trip thus far and the memories to be made in the coming days! It was one of the more memorable events on the trip. After dinner, we went port wine tasting with our professor, which apparently is a very serious thing because we kept getting shushed...and our group wasn't good at being quiet. We tried a 20, 30, & 40 year port wine...there were 8 of us sipping out of 3 glasses...sounds sanitary, huh?  We decided to check out the Lisbon nightlife...so as is common in a group trip about 20 of us starting walking around looking for a good time and we found this little hole in the wall bar BUT it was playing the best American music (old stuff). We all sang (at the top of our lungs) Bohemian Rhapsody!!! Other songs included Barbara Ann, Ring of Fire and other favorites from 70s and 80s rock bands. We made that little bar our own karaoke/campfire. It was a blast! The next morning (May 20) we took a bus to Peniche and Obidos. It was technically a free day but our professor planned an optional trip to these two cities for anyone who was interested so we took him up on the offer. The first stop was the seaside town of Peniche. We were there long enough to walk around, take some pictures and get rained on. Obidos was amazing...because basically all we did was eat and shop...our favorites! We had one of the best meals of the trip in this hip new restaurant (only been open a week) called Vintage Tapas...day fulfilled!