New ports and news hiccups...

Shall I start with the hiccups again? Then perhaps we will be done with them for the remainder of the trip, or, perhaps that is all too wishful. Actually, honestly, I am not sure I want our hiccups to go away. Despite their annoying quality of ruining plans, they do manage to make themselves just a little useful as they morph into wonderful stories to tell.

Our introduction to this interesting city, Lisbon (Portugal for those of you not inclined towards a sense of natural geography), was not a bump free journey. We were tired, thanks to the over night train that we took from Madrid, and tiredness is not conducive to managing unfortunate situations well. The train took ten hours, eight of which we were tied up in our dreams. We have found a magic pill that is all natural but helps you to zonk out as soon as your lids close over your eyes. So the train trip was not a bump in the road until a helpful stranger offered us the wrong information that saw us exiting the train a stop too early. Still not a big bump, we found the metro and a friend and rode it (the metro, not the friend) until we arrived at our destination. Alighting we heaved our heavy packs on our backs and began the steep ascent that led to our hostel. Imagine the hills and the trams of San Fransisco and you have an idea of the hills of Lisbon. So, up the hill we walked. And walked and walked until we found a quaint little hostel like the one we had seen in the pictures. We were thrilled to have arrived and to find that the hostel was so close to the centre of town!

I am now going to make an anti-Ad-
Never book a hostel through hostel bookers

We booked through them, they took our deposit, sent us our confirmation email, which we printed and showed the non-English speaking receptionist. She looked bewildered momentarily, muttered to us in Portuguese, shook her head and then pointed to a computer screen that did not include our names on the reservation list. We had been double booked! Not a huge deal normally but it is currently spring break over here (and in America) which means hostels are all fully booked!

Thank fully the receptionist cared enough about our predicament to ring around other hostels to see if they would take us in out of the cold (and boy is this city cold!!!). The god of luck had obviously woken on the right side of the bed as a hostel was found that had just had a cancellation not five minutes earlier! Whoopee! Or not so...the receptionist wrote down a few very nondescript directions and sent us on our way. We asked for a map, but alas she had run out of maps!

Mapless, tired and 100% fed up we set out to locate the new hostel. It all started badly when we hopped on the wrong tram, which took us 15 minutes up the road before we re-asked, alighted and turned to catch a tram back down the very steep hill from which we had come. We found the correct tram but did not find the correct stop ( thanks again to a helpful stranger who directed us to alight) which left us a 2km hike up a hill before we reached a little plaza full of quaint shops, but I do not have time to describe these shops to you just now...remember, I am fed up! So, we arrived at said plaza where we located the correct stop, but this is where the directions finish excepting a brief mention of stairs that we would need to find. We saw multiple sets of stairs in the plaza by the time we completed our 360 tour and were left feeling somewhat deflated by the thought of NEVER locating the hostel...or at least I was feeling deflated, the wonderful boyfriend was still acting as my worthy knight (I am not sure where his energy was coming from!). At this point the god of luck had obviously awoken, eaten and was ready to hand us more of his good fortune.

Are you looking for Jonnie´s Guesthouse? We heard a swedish voice dodging its way through the packed plaza. She was Jonnies mother, sent down to locate two lost looking travelers.

Everything from that point on has been marvelous and the hostel has been a real gem of a find! We spent our first two days eating pastries and exploring the many nooks of the city, we have no time to feel guilty about the pastries, thanks to the wonderfully steep cobbled hills that paint the city. We spent one magical day in a fairytale village called Sintra where we climbed 6km to the top of a mountain to walk through the ruins of an 11th century castle. We were enthralled by the condition of the castle, which you can truly imagine being used all those years ago. It was like walking through the set of Robin hood with the medieval castle, forest and beautiful natural springs (where we filled our water bottles with the sweet ´nectar´).

We have been surprised by the way the wind cuts a path through our layers of clothes and finds a way to bite at our skin. It has been a constant game of tag, we pile on layers against the wind and then the sun comes out and warms us beyond the need for layers, so we remove them, and welcome back wind! It has been all fun and games with the weather of Lisbon.

The most important note is that we are happy travelers managing to experience all the ups and downs that we have been waiting for.

"Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness". ~Ray Bradbury