Lisbon, Portugal

          This past week was the week of midterm exams. I don’t like calling it that because it makes it sound more rigorous than it actually was. Let’s just say it was our first week of actual academics (sorry dad). Well to reward us for our strenuous week of exams we were given Thursday and Friday off which meant one thing… vacation! Now on this side of the pond vacation usually means traveling to another country so my mates and I decided to give Lisbon, Portugal a visit. I imagine it’s not exactly in the top 10 list of European cities to visit but I think that’s a good thing; less tourists. It made the experience more authentic I guess.

I woke up at 3:45 AM in order to get to the airport for my early bird flight (yikes!) so I arrived in Lisbon around 10:45 Thursday morning. After living in London for almost two months now Lisbon was a welcome change. I walked outside of the airport and was blinded by the bright sun (a rarity in London) and started sweating in the 60 degree weather. Fantastic!! My mates had a later flight so I had a little time to kill before we were to meet at the hostel at 2:00 pm. I immediately went to a café to grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I picked one, walked inside, and before I ordered I had to stop and ask the man behind the counter, “English?”. He shook his head no. Well great, I’ll get my first experience with communicating with someone who doesn’t speak English. I Lucked out because one of the other employees spoke English so I didn’t have to go with plan B (which was pointing at what I wanted and grunting like a caveman). As I learned later, school children begin learning English in the 5^th grade so most people speak fluent English (Yay!). Though in a few cafés I did have to point at the coffee machine and say “café” just to get a cup of coffee (impressive Portuguese don't you think?).

When I finally meet up with my mates at the hostel we were blown away. The hostel was amazing! Comfortable beds, very clean, the staff was so friendly and to top it all off…. They make breakfast! If any of you are ever going to travel to Lisbon don’t even think of staying anywhere else. The Lisboa Central Hostel makes the BEST PANCAKES IN THE WORLD! (I didn’t misspell Lisbon, Lisboa is the native spelling). We began wandering around the old part of the city, trying to see as much as possible. We went to the Lisbon Cathedral, Sao Jorge Castle, and a few other places; here are some pics:

Oh and there are some pictures of statues and monuments that looked cool but I have no clue what they're for. Most of the plaques were only in Portuguese!

This is the main street through the old part of the city, called Liberty Avenue. In some spots there are small cafes in the middle with tables and chairs on the sidewalk. They would be fantastic spot for breakfast on a pretty day, too bad on our one pretty day we didn't do that.

The crew: Myself, Adam Bodner (center), and Dan Scofield (right). Behind us is a garden and if you look between Adam and Dan's heads you can see the Tagus river.

The Marble Arch: no clue why its significant, I couldn't read the Portuguese plaque.

One of the many fantastic views from Sao Jorge Castle.

                                     

Lisbon's famous cathedral

At the castle looking over the city

This could be a post card

After we left the castle we stopped at one of the many restaurants on the hillside to watch the sun set.

After our glorious weather Thursday the weather gods were not as kind the rest of the weekend. Rain, rain and more rain. Not even British rain either which is more of a drizzle or a mist. I’m talking about real rain. But that didn’t stop us! (though it made a valiant effort).

Lisbon's monastery

The monument for Portuguese explorers. We thought about it and aside from Cristiano Ronaldo, the explorers are probably Portugal's best claim to fame.

I don't know the name of this building but it's a guard tower at the mouth of the river.

Since we were so close to the ocean we had to get come sea food and let me tell you the eyes were delicious! (Note to the reader: I didn't actually eat the eyes, though they are full of nutrient so maybe I should have)

As I've already said, the hostel's pancakes were some of the best I've ever had (but not as good as the pancakes my mom makes).

 We went to the Oceanario De Lisboa on Saturday so we could get out of the rain. Turns out its the only aquarium in Western Europe with sea otters (no one seemed to be sure why that's the case).

It's hard to tell but I promise that's us. I'm actually NOT the tall guy, Dan is 6'6".

The Oceanario was in a very pretty part of the new part of the city.

This building is the permanent exhibit of the Oceanario. Its suspended over the water in a man-made inlet. It's kinda like an oil platform. 

We didn't eat here but I definitely chuckled at the name.

We stumbled onto the filming of either a Lexus commercial or a movie scene, not sure which.

The three of us love going to markets in London. Turns out we stumbled upon one in Lisbon!

One of the street cafes had a three piece band Saturday night. We stopped and listened for a moment while they played some Spanish guitar style music.

Adam and Dan were a little less impressed by the music than I was. To each his own I guess.

I how you enjoyed reading about my trip as much as I enjoyed living it! (I doubt that because it was so much fun and there's no way I could translate that to you on this blog) But thanks any way for reading yet another post.

Long Live the King

I'm Lost!

Well reader, to be honest, I considered not telling you this story because it is slightly embarrassing. And Kings should not allow themselves to be laughed at, but after careful consideration it would be a crime to pass up on such an opportunity to tell such a good story. So here it is my dear reader.... the story of me getting very lost. Now I'm sure you're thinking that my loyal subjects would be more than willing to help out their King, and you would be correct. The people love me just as they have loved every King Charles before me (don't fact check that). However when I go out on my own I use the old celebrity trick of a baseball cap and sunglasses that way no one recognizes me. Trust me, after you get mobbed by your subjects once you'd go incognito too.

It started out as a normal Friday here in the big city. I woke up, ate breakfast, and then I decided to go on a run. I planned my route out on Google maps, ironically, so I wouldn't get lost. It was a very easy route to remember, just a loop down to the river and back, about 8 miles. It was through several areas I'm fairly familiar with so even if I took one wrong turn it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'm sure you have already inferred from the title of this post that my run did not go as planned. You would be correct.

I ran from the residence (oh if I haven't mentioned this before, we call where I live 'the residence' and the staff calls it 'the accommodation') down to the river Thames, along the river, then up through Trafalgar square towards Regent's park. No wrong turns, no problems at all. Once I got to Regent's park I decided to take the canal back to where I live. I've run on the canal before and it is quite nice but I have not ever been on this particular part. Well I started my way down the canal and when I finished the 8 miles I planned on doing I still wasn't home so I kept walking in the same direction. It can't be too much farther I kept telling myself. After walking for a while and not recognizing any landmarks I decided to get off the canal and figure out where I was. Uh oh... I didn't recognize a thing. I found one of the many street maps posted around most bus stops and realized that I must be pretty lost because I didn't recognize the area the map said I was in. I guess I should ask for directions...

I would like to thank the young man working at the Chicken Inn Village, a fast food chicken restaurant, for pointing me in the right direction to get home, which was the direction I had just walked from. As I'm walking in the direction he pointed me in I went through a couple weird intersections so just to double check my course, I asked a guy at a tube station I passed how to get back to Kings Cross. He looked puzzled and asked if I didn't know how to read a tube map, "Its easy just take Bakerloo line too...". "No no no," I said "I'm walking." I told him I didn't have any money to take the tube nor did I have my Oyster Card (the public transportation pass). The horrified look on his face immediately told me I was VERY far away from home. Well I better get walking, but hey it won't be that bad. It's not windy or raining and I had my IPod for entertainment. I spoke too soon, after the guy at the tube station and I parted ways my IPod died! So to recap: my IPod was dead, the temperature was around 40 degrees, I was sweaty, cold, hungry and had a long walk ahead of me.

Thanks to the modern miracle of GPS I can show you just how far from home I really was.

The red line is where I ran, starting at the green pin and ending at the red one. The red X on the left is where The Chicken Inn Village is. As you can see I stubbornly kept going in the same direction after I quit running because I thought I was going in the right direction to get home. As I learned the hard way Regent's canal will not only take you back to the residence but it will also take you AWAY from the residence! (hence my wrong turn at the top of the map). Had I taken the correct path on the canal I would have gotten home no problem and you my dear reader would not have gotten to hear such a wonderful tale! I learned to ALWAYS carry my Oyster Card with me just in case I get lost again. When I finally got home I checked my GPS and it said my mileage for the day was a grand total of 19 miles! So my 8 miles turned into over twice that with just one wrong turn. My legs were very sore the next day but I did hit my step goal and I definitely slept very well that night!

On the bright side I got to see some new parts of the city. I ended up walking through one posh neighborhood where the canal ran through the middle of the street (pretty cool if you ask me) that had some very nice cars parked along the side of the road. Well my dear reader I hope you enjoyed this story of my misfortune, here's to hoping that this doesn't happen again!

Long Live the King

Art

I guess I'll start by saying that my mom and Ms. Bryant were right about art. My mom always tried to push me towards art, telling me how wonderful it is and that I would learn to love art if I just gave it a chance, but I never really cared much for it. I mean yeah I saw some art painting that were good and very pretty but they never blew me away. They were just there. Then before my trip Ms. Bryant and I were talking one day after church and she told me that the art in Europe makes the art in the states look like garbage. I didn't really think she was right, after all art is art right? Well maybe not...

My first dose of great art was at Windsor Castle during orientation. The church at Windsor Castle has some of the most magnificent marble sculptures I have ever seen. Once sculpture depicted a group of mourners by a tomb of a king, all covered head to toe by sheets. It is done so well that it looks like you could reach out, pull the sheets off the mourners and see their faces underneath. It doesn't even look like its marble but actual cloth, just incredible!

I enrolled in a western art class because I needed to sign up for one more class to complete my schedule and it was either take an art class or take some sort of literature nonsense (yes I see the irony of calling literature nonsense when my grammar is apparently not the best). The class it set up like this: one week we have a class with an art history professor discussing, well, art history of course. Then on the alternating weeks we have class with an artist who teaches us about certain aspect of art, like linear perspective or surface geometry, and then we go to an art gallery with him and draw from one of the paintings we see. That's right, I get to show off my wonderful drawing ability! Even better, our homework is to do another drawing on our own! Yay! All the drawing we do is based on real art from any of the galleries in London. We sit in front of whichever painting we choose in the gallery and try and draw the main bits. It's hard enough not being the best at drawing without comparing your own drawing to a world famous painting. That just comes with the territory I guess. I decided to wander around the National Gallery to see if I could find a piece of art that had strong linear perspective aspects (the theme of the week for class). While wandering around I came to new conclusions about art and I thought it only fair to share them with you all. ($20 says my mom prints this out and hangs it on the fridge as proof of my new appreciation for art and so it can be easily referenced if I ever say anything negative about art in front of her again)

Early renaissance and Impressionism are probably my two favorite periods in art. I love the history and the religious theme of the early renaissance pieces. Themes that I have actually had to explain to my classmates that never went to Sunday school or got all of their knowledge of Christianity from the bestselling book The Da Vinci Code. Because most of the art was commissioned by the church to help teach Christianity to illiterate people, the art is, in a way, art for dummies. The illiterate people needed to be able to understand who the characters in the painting were and what was going on just by context clues. So themes like the Virgin Mary always wearing blue emerged. It gives the whole gallery a feeling of uniformity, like all the painters were on the same page, which I think is very neat.

As for Impressionism, I don't know what makes a blurry painting so beautiful (no point in arguing with me on that one, they're blurry), but some of them really are spectacular. I actually have a theory that all impressionist painters don't know they're painting in that style. They're just normal painters with extreme near nearsightedness (come on think about it, it makes complete sense). They're painting what they think they're seeing which is out of focus! The only obnoxious part about impressionist paintings is that when looking at them you must first walk up close enough to read the information plaque besides the painting then back up far enough till the image makes sense. They should just put the plaque about 10 feet in front of the painting to make everyone's lives easier. I will never understand the people who walk around the impressionist gallery standing within a foot of the rope at all times. I did it for a few minutes just to see what it was like and it's terrible! Every painting looks like chunks of paint stuck to the wall, they don't look like anything from that close up. These people clearly know less about art than me which is embarrassing.

"No hold on Charles! We came here to read about your completely correct views on life, NOT your opinion flip flopping! This isn't like you to change your opinion!" The first thing I have to say is relax reader. Didn't I tell you to do that already? Now just stay calm because my previous opinion is still partially intact when it comes to modern art. That stuff just makes no sense.

  

I mean come on this is just silly. Anyone with paint and a ruler could do that.

So have no fear my reader! My opinions are still intact and all is right with the world so you can rest easy. 

Mom, it looks like you were right... maybe there is something to this art thing after all, though I'm probably going to stick with economics if that's ok.

Long Live the King

More Pics

As promised, here are more pictures for your enjoyment!

We took a boat tour on the river Thames from Tower Bridge to Greenwich last weekend. Though it was very cold we got to see some very cool views of the city. The first picture is the Tower of London which is very impressive from the river

And of course a neat picture of Tower Bridge

In Greenwich we trekked to the observatory where you can see the official marker for the prime meridian. however we didn't get to take touristy pictures with one foot in either side of the prime meridian because it costs money to actually get to the marker. Though technically we did cross it while walking around the grounds of the observatory, so that's fun.

One of my favorite things in London is the markets. All the food looks and smells amazing so if you aren't careful it would be very easy to spend all of your money! This statue is at the beginning of the Brick Lane Market and no one has been able to explain to me why, so until then I'm under the impression that its there because everyone loves goats.

I'm not sure what the name of this market is, all I know is the food is spectacular. Its a block away from where my classes are and its open every Thursday for lunch. Yes, I eat lunch here every Thursday!

This church is a few block from St. Paul's Cathedral, well whats left of it anyway. Most of it was destroyed during the World War II and rather than tear it down or rebuild it, the ruins have been turned into a garden. Pretty cool if you ask me.

To end of a fun note, here's a picture of me and a blue storm trooper! For the star wars nerds who are thinking "Isn't he a little short to be a storm trooper?" I think he's actually movie height.

Long Live the King