I have now returned home from Portugal and Europe but I would like to write to you about my experiences. In Portugal, I stayed in a village called Venda do Pinheiro, northwest of Lisbon, with one of my aunt Sharrie's friends Vitor Morais and his family. While there I was taken care of very well with an excellent bed to sleep in, great Portuguese food, and shown many beautiful sites around the southwestern part of the country. We started out taking a tour around the southwestern coastline and to the palace at Sintra. On just my second day I tasted my first Portuguese pastry and boy was it good. This started a trend that continued the entire week that I was there. I was able to try many traditional tasty pastries and found some that I like a lot! The Portuguese take their food seriously and it shows because their traditional cuisine is quite tasty. For someone who hasn't tried a ton of different fish and seafood it was quite an experience. I tried bacalhau, a cod dish with potatoes, and an octopus dish which was a surprise. Aside from food, I really enjoyed the landscapes in Portugal as you can tell from
my pictures and
videos. The Lisbon area of the country is very hilly and makes for some beautiful scenery. The city of Lisbon itself is built on seven hills, which is kind of hard to tell it because of the tall buildings on the land. Another thing that makes the area scenic is the water, from rivers to the Atlantic. I have never been to California or San Francisco but when I came over the bridge into Lisbon on a bus from Madrid Lisbon looked like what I imagine San Francisco to look like. The hills, river, and the April 25 Bridge that is designed by the same architect as the Golden Gate Bridge.
The language and history in Portugal are two things that interested me during my trip. As far as language goes I knew beforehand that Portuguese is a Latin language and that it is similar to Spanish but after having been in Spain for a month learning Spanish I was curious to see how similar they actually are. Turns out there are quite a bit of differences with the most notable being the pronunciation differences. The vowels in Portuguese are fairly difficult to pronounce in comparison with Spanish. I bought a Portuguese phrasebook before I left for Europe but it was neglected while I poured all of my energy into Spanish. However, I was able to find some time for a little Portuguese and was able to speak a little of the language with such little background and confidence it was difficult. Luckily, Vitor and his wife Isabel both spoke English so I was saved by that. As far as history goes, I was able to learn some general Portuguese history thanks to the Lisbon tourism book that Fred let me borrow for my trip. Touring around some monuments in the city and around the country taught me a few things, but the biggest draw to me was the exploration period. The Portuguese discovered many places in the world and was a world power in its heyday despite being relatively small in size. Many things about the explorations are commemorated in the city and I enjoyed being in awe at all of them.
Overall, there is much more to say about this trip and my entire trip to Europe so the best way to find out more is to just ask me the next time that you see me. This was such a wonderful experience and has inspired me to want to travel more often in the future!
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