Lisbon- Two Nights of Train Rides- Lucerne

(Sunset in Switzerland)

So I got on the overnight train in Madrid bound for Lisbon, Portugal at around 10 PM. Due to bad experiences I take two benadryl pills before getting on night trains to ensure I'm the first one to fall asleep. The system worked flawlessly Madrid-Lisbon. I got in my bed, read for an hour and I was out. Each overnight train is very different depending on the country. The Madrid-Lisbon trains cost 30 euro on top of the rail pass and there are 4 people to a cabin. The cabin is very small. I've seen up to 6 beds in a small compartment. The "steward" takes your tickets and wakes you up 30 minutes before you are due to arrive. I wish they woke you up 5 minutes before. Sleeping on a night train does not equal real sleep. With all of the stops and starts the sleep isn't normal.

I got off the sleepy night train in bright, sunny Lisbon, Portugal. I walked the kilometer to my hostel and was told I couldn't check in until 2:30 PM (This is standard at hostels). I didn't have the energy to walk around Lisbon yet so I went into the movie/tv room and passed out. I must have been a pretty pathetic sight because the best hostel worker ever politely woke me up and asked if I wanted to get to my room early. We'll call him Jim since I don't know how to spell his name. Jim spoke excellent English and has endless energy. He is from Lisbon, but has done a good bit of traveling himself. I should give a plug for the hostel at this point. The hostel is called "Travellers House." It is the #1 rated hostel on Hostelworld.com. No small feat. Everynight the hostel has some sort of activity or dinner or something to ensure easy interaction with your hostelmates. These range from dinners to happy hours to pub crawls. Anyway, Jim took me up to my room and I took a much needed shower before venturing out. The hostel is located in the very middle of Lisbon in the middle of the shopping district. I decided to hit up the most popular tourist sites the first day and ventured out to Jeronimo Monestary where Vasco de Gamma is buried and is famous for being the place sailors spent the night praying before their long, dangerous journeys. It was pretty amazing with intricate architecture and haunting biblical artwork inside. Just across from the monestary is a massive fountain and gardens leading to Discovery Monument, a monument to the Portugese explorers that put Lisbon on the map in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Just down from the Discovery Monument is the Belem Tower. The tower was a defense fort built about 100 meters into the water. It cost 5 euros to walk through. The tower has beautiful views of the ocean. It is easy to see how ships could easily be taken down. My Aunt Kimberly should never take a tour of this place. There is a single about 1.5-2 foot wide spiral staircase leading 5-6 stories up to the top. There is no system for going up or down. People would basically push through or trap you against the wall. Luckily no one was carrying swords or bows and arrows. Once I got to the top and took pictures I was not excited to attempt my way down. I seriously thought about yelling "Cannonball" and launching myself into the water. Thanks to a frugal life style I think I've dropped a few lbs or as they call them in Britain, stones...? and was able to squeeze past numerous massive men and women to make it out.
Now walking down to these places seemed like a short walk on the map I got. Using my scouting skills HALFWAY through my walk, I figured out the map didn't have a distance measurement. I took a much needed bus home. Thanks to Google Maps I found out the walk was around 8-10 kilometers. I got back to the hostel and read myself into a siesta.

After the siesta I went to the common room where people were having a beer and socializing. The hostel had a cool honor system. They had a full Cribs TV Show style fridge with cokes, tea, water, and beers all for 1.25 euros. We just marked the sheet next to our names how many we had. 1.25 euros is like $1.50 a beer. Not too bad at all for Europe. I picked up a Super Bock and sat down in one of the bean bags and met some Scottish girls, an Australian guy, and a few Americans. The beer I saw everywhere in Lisbon was called "Super Bock." It seemed like a direct insult to Texas's own Shiner Bock. The activity for the evening in the hostel was a dinner of special sausages from all over Portugal. The sausages were cooked over this funny little grill in the shape of a pig. Jim used basic rubbing alcohol to cook the sausages. I had everything from pork marinated in red wine to the delicacy of black pig sausage. They were all delicious. Everyone stood around the table, made sort of tapas out of the sausage, bread, and cheese and of course enjoyed the red wine which was included. The entire thing cost about 6.50 euro. Not bad for a full meal. After getting all of our money's worth, we hit the town. Lisbon is also a late going out city. Dinner was at 9 PM and we left the hostel at around midnight or so. We went to the alta area.

I should explain at this point that Lisbon is known to have 7 hills, but I think they are liars and there are actually 7,000. The sidewalk and streets are made of finely cut tiles much like the ones I saw in Pompeii. I walked past some work crews fixing the tiles and it was apparent that, though incredibly beautiful, the tiles were each finely cut and difficult to replace. Lisbon is in some ways like San Francisco with the endless hills, almost exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, and identical tram system. Across the water looking out on the city is a huge, and I mean huge Jesus looking out over the city. It reminded me of the pictures of the huge Jesus in Rio De Janiero.

Anyway, we went out in the Alta District. In Lisbon it is legal to drink in the streets. A lot of people either bring it from home or walk into a bar, buy a beer or sangria for about 2 euros and ask for it in a plastic cup and journey out into the street to talk or to go to the next bar. The bars are lined up on every street and they are tiny and have no air conditioning. If you like sweaty people rubbing against you to Britney Spears and random TLC songs this is your place. I do appreciate TLC as much as anyone, but the heat was intense. I left for the hostel a little early and called it a night. The next day I had breakfast and met up with a guy from Israel and a guy from Australia who wanted to walk around the central part of the town. We walked up a hill and found ourselves overlooking the city.

There was even a cool elevated and platform. You could see the ocean in front of you and to the left a massive castle. We walked from there over to the castle, but decided against going in due to the price. It was a vibrant area and we saw the biggest mustache we had ever seen. Check out this guy:

We saw all sorts of church's and viewpoints before heading back to the hostel 5 hours later to take a much needed siesta. After the siesta I walked around some more and saw all sorts of street performers and enjoyed one of the custard pastries Lisbon is well known for. The activity for the night was 2 euro a person all you can drink until the keg is tapped beer and then pub crawl. I took it pretty easy and hung out with people from all over. I went on the pub crawl, but was exhausted. I walked back after reaching the final bar. Party pooper, yes. This is what happens when you walk around all day and haven't been getting much sleep for a while.

The next day I checked out of the hostel and prepared myself for a marathon of a journey from Lisbon to Madrid to Barcelona to Paris to Lucerne...yeah, yikes. This trip consisted of 2 overnight trains in a row, something I've never tried before. Due to getting everything set to go, I forgot to eat until I got to the train station in Lisbon. I then proceeded to eat some pizza and get a horrible stomach ache. Lesson learned. I took the benadryl, read for an hour and knocked out on the train. I woke up in Madrid, changed train stations and took the Ave (high speed train) to Barcelona. I had a 6 hour layover in Barcelona and the train station didn't have a luggage storage place so I got a cab and took a miniature tour of Barcelona to all the places I missed when I was there a week before including Sagrada Familia and the Boqueria Market on Las Ramblas. I did it all with all my luggage in tow. It was a tough 5 hours or so. I've found the Golden Arches in Europe still don't mean good food, but they do mean internet hot spot. I went to the McDonalds next to Sagrada Familia and Facetimed my Dad on my phone. It was good to talk with him.

I made it back to the train station right before my train took off for Paris. I continued my tradition and got into my cabin. Our cabin was completely Americans traveling around Europe. I laid down to read and immediately was interrupted by some incredible snoring. After hours of listening to it, I decided it sounded like someone jumping on a fully blown whoopie cushion every 4 seconds...terrible. I put in earplugs and nothing worked. Finally I got up at 5:30 am and sat at the breakfast bar and read my book, looking up from time to time to see the the sun simmer over the dark blue sky. It was peaceful, but did nothing to make up for severe sleep deprivation. The best part was when the two gentlemen entered the breakfast bar about an hour before our arrival in Paris and were like "We wondered where you went." I quickly told them I needed to change and ran back to the room to attempt a 45 minute power nap. Again, Night Train Rule #1: Fall Asleep Before Your Cabinmates. I took video 4 different places in the night. It doesn't capture the decibel level of the snoring, but thanks to the decibel app on my phone the snores averaged about 88 decibels and one hit 97. I think that is a noise violation in Austin. The small cabin had a lot to do with how loud it was.

I switched train stations in Paris and after two incompetent train customer service reps I finally got tickets to Lucerne, Switzerland. I found a Euro Hot Spot near the train station--AKA McDonalds and booked a hotel for Lucerne (I waited until then because I wasn't sure I could make it to Lucerne.)

I took a taxi to my hotel, which was a bit of a mistake. The hotel is about 6 kilometers outside of Lucerne, but easily accessible by an hourly train. The cab driver was a girl in her early 20's and was very, very friendly. Though she offered, I turned down partying with her and her friends that night. She gave me half off the ride though. I checked into the 4 star hotel (I found a really, really good last minute deal). I got the cheapest room possible which put my across the street from the lake in a 300 year old barn. It was actually really nice though. Above is a picture of the barn. I went downstairs to ask where to get food and they said the only place close is the hotel informal dining. This reminds me of when my Dad says to dress casual and that generally means put on a coat and maybe a tie. I walked downstairs and treated myself to a good meal after 48 hours of traveling. The waiter gave me a free appetizer and it was very nice. My room was big and comfortable. For the first time on my entire trip I fell asleep to absolute silence. It was magical.

The next morning I got up early to get the free buffet breakfast and to walk around Lucerne. The breakfast was excellent. Have you ever heard of a candlelight breakfast?

After breakfast I packed up and walked across the street to take in the lake view. It was incredible. I sat down and just had some reflection time. Time flew by and before I knew it I ran to check out and was told I would miss the train to the city. I ran up a steep hill with luggage in tow and dove into the train making it without a second to spare.

Lucerne is a great little town. I had two hours to walk around. The major thing I wanted to see was the Lion of Lucerne.

"the Lion of Lucerne is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."- Mark Twain

(YIKES)

Amazing stuff. There are numerous shops selling swiss army products, watches, clothing, etc. 

Great place. I boarded the train bound for Berlin. The train ride was long, but I was in 1st class thanks to the Eurail Pass. I got candies and cashews every 2 hours or so. I read the last 300 pages of the book The Passage. It was great. Written by a Rice University Professor. It is a very different kind of vampire book. I arrived in Berlin at about 9 PM and checked into my hostel. My room had about 8 beds in it and everyone in the room had been hanging out for about 3 days. It was fun to talk with them and get to sleep at a decent hour. 


Now I'm just preparing body and soul for Denton, Troy, and Jimmy's arrival. I asked my Dad if we Troy, Jimmy, and I made the prayer list in the church bulletin (we all went to church together in Dallas). He said not yet, but hopefully someone gets on that. Berlin-Prague-Munich- You don't know what you're in for. Oktoberfest here we come. Thanks for the e-mails and suggestions of things to see. Please keep them coming!