So, here it is. After much ado…Portugal! Are you excited for the I-Pod commercial? You should be. But here we go! I arrived and wanted to get a picture of my first step in Portugal and it didn’t really work out that well.We got off in the airport and I was all excited. I had my I-pod full of Brazilian music to get my head back into it. When President Didier came to our mission he always talked about how easy it was for him to switch between languages. It was just the push of a “button”. I was still working on my button though so I had the music to put me back into the mindset and it worked out pretty well. I got us around and found out where the bus was and where we could buy travel passes and it was a lot of fun. We rode the bus through the center to the coast line near our Hostel. But it was still quite a walk.Lisboa is a very hilly city. “Muito Ladeira” I learned that phrase in Guarabira. But anyways, I can now see how quickly worn out I’d be. But the hostel was awesome.The first thing people noticed was how our hostel owner was a dreamboat. You have to understand that it was Brock, Me, and 15 girls. Anyways, he was a really cool guy and knew perfect English. We all talked about how we were up for walking a lot of places and he told us all the cool things to do but warned us that we’d get really tired really fast. I doubted but he turned out to be right. We all headed out toward a neighborhood called Belém. It was a cool place with a famous tower and a cool pastry shop. But we decided to keep going on the tram because this guy that I had met in the temple the day before told me how the mission home was really close. I decided I’d stop by for a surprise visit so Kyte, Missy, and I headed out in search of it. We saw a pretty neat graffiti. People here know a lot of English but clearly not enough.I did see the classic Old man. In my RM Portuguese class we had 3-4 from one of the Portugal missions and they always talked about the old men of Portugal. I saw them and it was exactly how I had imagined it when they were talking.We walked around a lot and found the street that it was on. The street of the voluntary firemen. However, there was no mission home. We finally found someone who knew about it and she told us that it had moved a while ago so that guy from the temple was a little outdated but we didn’t really care because it set us up for one of the most fun days ever. We took a bus back and it dropped us off right by the Jeronimos building. We got some lunch at a pita place on the corner and then took some pictures.It was pretty cool and had a few museums inside but they all cost money so we opted for the Cathedral which was free. (Fun fact, costed is not a word. Cost has no real past tense.) It was pretty cool inside.This was a picture of a camera taking a picture of a camera taking a picture…Crazy.I thought this was a cool picture.Right after we took a picture by this grave this old Asian man came and took the funniest picture with no facial expression at all. We tried to recreate it on our way out. Also in the Jeronimos there was a library that we thought might have been cool. But it was closed off except for the courtyard and the lobby. I’m a pirate.In the lobby they had some crazy art thing that we thought was funny.Across the street there was a really cool park that we chilled at for a while.Kindra, what do you think?Here is the Jeronimos from far off.Across the street to the left of the park was another cool park with some cool monuments.There was a pretty quaint street with colorful little buildings.The pink one was a McDonalds. I decided to get an ice cream cone for 1 euro. But, they didn’t have them. Sorry Tyler. We did get sundaes though. Right there by McDonalds we found and climbed a pretty cool tree.We looked down the road and realized we were right back to where we started in front of the pita place. We laughed really hard when we realized that it took us a few hours to get nowhere. But we decided we had better find the place that sells Pasteis de Belém. (Paa-stays’)We looked in our guide books and saw that it was close and then looked up and it was right next door to the pita place.Then we really started laughing. We bought the pasteis and they were so good!I was amazed. I really like sugar too.Commemorative photos:From there we went to the famous Torre de Belém. (Toh-hey) Here is the initial view from far off.This one was taken by my good friend, the trash can.And far off in the distance we saw the attempt at being cool like Brasil. (Just for all of you who judged me in your head for misspelling Brazil, in Portuguese, an s between two vowels makes a “z” sound so you should never see a z between two vowels. Therefore, in Brazil they spell it Brasil.) But the tower was pretty cool.We saw some artist who did a bunch of really cool paintings and so we each bought one. Mine was of the tower.We got a bunch of really cool photos taken. We took so long though that when we finally got there it had closed just shortly before.But we found some nice people to take a picture of us.Only because there were no trash cans. We took some cool ones in the front of the tower with the help of our trashcan friend.It is a good thing my camera has a timer because we set up for another shot and people walked in it like 45 times but we finally got a good one and it was worth it.They had a cannon.And a cool war memorial.It was an amazing sunset though.This fountain had colored lights.How cool? It’s like magic.Sad bunny.So we walked into this cultural center and our creative geniuses started to work together. We saw the large square with a color changing glass panel. Kyte first suggested that it was like that one Campbell’s Soup artist. So we took a picture.But then I had an idea. I acted like I took another picture but really took a video and it turned out really cool.
When we sat down to watch it Missy decided it would make a perfect I-pod commercial. And so the fun began. However, this must be watched with music playing in the background. We decided that Mika’s “Love Today” or “Lollipop” is preferable. (Seriously, one of those two are almost necessary so for those of you who don't yet know Mika, open up a new tab and go here: http://www.myspace.com/mikamyspace Listen and enjoy.) And when that is all set up, the movies. Here you go. Take 1
Take 2
Take 3
Take 4
Take 5
Take 6
Amazing huh? After I saw this cool glass bottle tree and decided to take a picture but it was dark so I had to hold really still. I was up against a wall when a security guard came out and the girls got all nervous but he was just worried that I was too close to the door. I took so many pictures trying to get it that I killed my battery. But I used Missy’s camera to take it so it worked out. I got the picture though.Even if it was really blurry. We finally headed back and that was the end of an awesome Day One in Portugal.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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