December is kind of a silly month in Spain. The Spanish take their holidays seriously. On December 6th there is Día Constitución Española (Day of the Constitution) and on December 8th there is Día de la Inmaculada (Day of Immaculate Conception). Since these days are so close together, they just throw in an extra day and give everyone the 7th off too. We don't want to mess up anyone's vacations. And, if you weren't counting, that's 6 days of no work in a row. That only leaves room for one thing....ROAD TRIP!
My roommate's have told me that renting a car is inexpensive. We all wanted to go somewhere so I suggested renting a car. The closest place to go (since we're in the south) is Portugal. One of my roommates went to school in Portugal for awhile so she told of us a few places to go. We rented a car that would fit 5 girls and luggage and headed to Portugal. Our goal was to start the furthest away and work our way back to Malaga. People in Portugal drive fast. Jen was driving 154 km/hr (96 mi/h) and people were passing her, honking because she was going slow.
We started our journey on the way to Lisboa. Lisboa is about 6 1/2 hour drive if you don't get lost. We knew we would get lost and confused with European road signs so we budgeted for this. We arrived in Portugal late, found our hostel and went walking around. We arrived in Lisboa late on Friday night, but there was no one out. In Spain on Fridays, you can't walk 2 people wide because there's so many people. Here, no one. I think we saw 2 people. We wondered and looked at the Christmas lights and then sat and looked at the port. The next day we found the ocean. It was very cold and rainy, and the sky was grey, but it was pretty. We took some pictures, ate a pastry and moved on.
Near Lisboa was el Torre de Bélen. The Tower of Belen was an old lookout for the town. It was made of stone and looked like an old castle. It was even colder and rainier this day. The wind whipped through the tower. It kept going up and up, but there was only one narrow staircase for everyone going up and down to use. It was interesting.
We were hungry after this and found a restaurant nearby that would offer some sort of relief from the weather. We ordered a bottle of vino verde, Portugal's version of wine. It wasn't really green. It looked like white wine with a little tint. For lunch I had a fish dish (as was only appropriate overlooking the ocean) that was baked with cream and had golden cheese on top. It was delicious. The waiter told us about a certain type of pastry called a belen (ironically) that was sold in the nearby town so we went looking for it. We found it. It was the one with all the people outside eating belenes.
After our heavenly pastry experience we loaded up and headed to Evora, a town recommended by my roommate, Mela.
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