Lisbon

We got to Lisbon late Sunday night because our plane was delayed for several hours and had to fly around in the air for a while because of fog. There was a huge crowd at the airport because all the planes had just landed and the line for taxis seemed like it would be at least one hour long. My mom asked at information if there was a faster way to get to the hotel, and the attendant told her about a secret taxi spot that no one knows about. We went to this place and immediately found a cab…phew! We arrived at the hotel and it was very nice. We had one room but there was a wall and door between where I slept and where my parents slept.

Building Similar to Josh's at MIT

On Monday morning, we had a wonderful buffet breakfast at the hotel. There were delicious pastries with custard that are typical in Lisbon. We took one of those double-decker bus tours around the city to get a feel for it. The city is truly beautiful, with amazing monuments, adorable plazas around every corner, and pastel colored buildings. We got off the bus and walked around by the river. There were enormous monuments of explorers and a fort on the water. We walked down to see a building that is by the same architect as the one Josh’s lab is in at MIT, It was not even open because it is so new. I told him he should transfer there because it is in a stellar location on the water. We walked around Belém, a section of town, and had cod for lunch at a cute restaurant. Later, we took historic tram 28 that goes all around the city. Again, we got off and walked around the shops and hills and outside a castle. We tried to ride the tram back and ended up getting very lost but eventually got back to our part of town on a city bus. The city is cute and seemed very big after spending so long in Sevilla.

On Tuesday, my mom and I walked around a neighborhood called Chiado in the morning. It was filled with shops and more statues in plazas. Every side street looked super cute but we didn’t have time to explore them all. We all went to the Oceanarium on the site of the World Expo. The metro stations along the way were decorated in cool ways, and the metro station that we got off at was designed by another one of Josh’s favorite architects so we took many pictures for him. The Oceanarium was amazing! It was a building that projected onto the water and had a giant tank in the center with endless and incredible sea creatures. It also had rooms that you walk through along the outside with more amazing animals. Sea otters grooming themselves and floating along were some of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Watching penguins fly through the water and waddle on land was incredible. There was also the strangest creature I’ve ever seen called a sea dragon – it looks like a plant but is kind of like a sea horse. Google it now. I had a wonderful time walking around the aquarium and ogling at the cute sea beasts. After, we walked around the rest of the park and the giant mall in the complex but didn’t buy anything.

Sea Dragon

On Wednesday, we went to the Gulbenkian Museum. He was a super rich guy with a massive art collection. It had some really pretty pottery and famous paintings. It was pouring rain all day, but we attempted to walk around the city again. It was pretty futile in the torrential downpour so we ended up in another mall for an attempt at a typical Lisbon meal of rice with seafood but ended up getting a junky fast food version of it. Then we headed back to the hotel, changed out of our soaking wet clothes, and went to the airport. Lisbon taxis are the cheapest I have ever seen. The flight was easy but we wandered all around Barajas trying to solve a check-in issue with my parents’ flight tomorrow. We had no success in that but managed to acquire a terrible taxi driver who scammed us into paying him 50 euros for the ride to our hotel that is close to the airport. He told us that every taxi out of Barajas costs a minimum of 50 euros and even gave us a “receipt” but it had none of his information on it. The people in the hotel could not believe how much he had charged us but there was no way to punish him without his license number. Now we are relaxing in our hotel before my parents depart early tomorrow morning and I take the high-speed train back to Sevilla. It has been absolutely amazing having my family visit me and travel around. We went to some of the coolest places in the world and had incredible adventures. I will miss them a ton but am excited for 6 more months of adventures before going back to America.