LISBON

In other news, Sarah (my friend from high school who has been spending a year in Geneva) and I just returned from a fabulous weekend in Lisbon. It is a beautiful city - very hilly, with tons of winding side-streets covered in streamers. My favorite street is below (I don't even remember its name!).

It's so steep! There were old ladies just sitting on their stoops with their small dogs all up and down this street. Old men were barbecuing, more old ladies leaning out of their shuttered windows. And the entire time, music was playing from every corner! Here's a video of the street - listen to the music. I'm pretty sure it's Amalia, whose voice I heard all through the secondhand market and very frequently being played from inside people's homes.



We visited the Tower of Belem, built in the early 16th century as part of a defense system. It was absolutely beautiful. The architecture iss very Moroccan, and was influenced by Moorish design. The tower is quite small, only about 35 meters, so it was hard to picture it as useful for defense. It was used for other things later on - a customs post, a prison, etc. Really cool place, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.



We also visited the castle in the old city, a second-hand market, the beach, numerous statue-filled plazas, a beautiful church, and we walked along the port. And we ate a LOT of seafood. Check out these snails! We ate them with toothpicks!

Also, the last night we were in Lisbon, Portugal won against Turkey in one of the Eurocup games, actually held in Geneva. WOW. People go nuts. Sarah and I were sitting in one of the plazas and heard hundreds of cars honking, people running around with the Portuguese flag waving in the air, people leaning out of car windows, through sunroofs, yelling...it was quite an experience. That night, a bar played only traditional Portuguese music and I danced with a very happy 55 yr old man wearing the Portuguese team's jersey, who then returned to his balcony above the bar, where he danced alone for everybody down below. He's the one facing the camera, dancing with someone facing away from the camera.