French Word of the Day: Lisbonne (liz-bon)- Lisbon

Before my trip, I had never considered Portugal.  Quite frankly, very few people I knew had been there or discussed it.  I had met one Portuguese guy who sang Lisbon’s praises, but I just took it as national pride.

Dude, he wasn’t kidding.  Portugal rocks.

Shelley had told us to go to Sintra, a town outside of Lisbon.  We decided to take a day trip there and climb the mountain.  Ou first stop was just before the mountain.  It looked like this:

I know what you’re thinking: that’s absolutely the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen.

Wait, it gets worse:

And who would ever want to see something as uncool as this?:

And that was just what we saw before the mountain. (It’s called Quinta da Regaleira, and it’s quite possibly my favorite place ever created by man with help from the big guy upstairs.)

I’m by no means a mountain woman.  Considering I had already walked three miles that day and several more the day before that, the prospect of climbing a huge mountain was a bit daunting.  Fear not, I conquered the mountain!

That’s such a lie.  The mountain conquered me.  I’m still sore two days later.

But at least I got to be greeted by this:

Moral of the story?  Go to Portugal.

This post is going to be short.  I have to somehow translate my CV into French.  This should take roughly a week, so of course, they gave me one day in which to complete it.  Maybe I should strike in protest?

Oh dear, the French are rubbing off on me.

Pain au chocolat count: 25!!! (courtesy of Théo encore and eaten fresh out of the oven)