I would not recommend visiting Lisbon, Portugal on the hottest day of the year. A lady at a souvenir shop who spoke nearly perfect English informed Laura and I that Tuesday, our second day in Lisbon, would be their hottest day of the year. Still, when we woke up and saw that it was overcast and quite cool, we were optimistic that we could handle Lisbon's hottest day of the year.
On day one in Portugal's beautiful capital city, Lisboa, Laura and I found ourselves navigating the train system and ordering food with no problem. My unpracticed Kriolu (Kriolu is a mixture of Portuguese and native African languages spoken by Cape Verdeans) was little help to us, but luckily enough people spoke English and Laura could get by with her Spanish while we were visiting the country of our ancestry.
Our first day of sightseeing was uneventful. It was hot and we were tired so we road the bus out and did not venture off on one site. Saving our energy for the next day, we did another bus tour. After drizzling for about five minutes, the sun came out and turned on full blast. We did manage to do laundry. We hung our damp wet clothes out to dry on a clothes line, as the apartment where we were staying did not have a dryer. Speaking of where we stayed. Luckily, I am blessed with great friends. Maisa, a childhood friend, arranged for Laura and I to stay with her uncle Zinho while we were in Lisbon. As fate would have it, Zinho's brother was out of town during our visit, vacationing with his family in Switzerland, so Laura and I made use of his apartment. Zinho even brought us a traditional Portuguese dish comprised of tuna, cheese/cream and potatos which we feasted on along with wine, bread and fruit for the next two days.
Laura and I also were able to ship a medium size box (mine was 7 kilos and Laura's was 5) back to the states. As soon as we left the US, we regretted bringing so much luggage. In each of the hostels, I feel like I have the most luggage even though I only have a medium-large sized suitcase and backpack. Laura is traveling with about the same amount of things. All of our belongings do not seem ourageous for the two months that we will spend in Europe, however, our wallets just cannot afford the fees that the airlines charge for our bags being overweight (we are allowed about 20kilos and our bags are about 35 which means 135+ euros in excess luggage fees). So ridding ourselves of that weight was practical and cost effective, as we would have paid the cost to ship it plus more just in excess baggage fees alone.
Another word to the wise: If you are literally backpacking across Europe like Laura and I claim to be doing, then literally carry a backpack. You will not only save yourself money and aggravation, you will also have peace of mind. If Laura and I could have done it over again, we probably would have taken a very large backpack with about a week's worth of clothes and then shipped the majority of our belongings to Amsterdam so as to have them there when the study abroad program began. Well, you live and you learn and hopefully our mistakes can save someone else the trouble of making it for him or her self.
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