Chilling with LAH

So before I go on, I´m referring to the fact that I thought LAH was the completely oblivious, completely non-understandable woman working at the Lisbon Avenue Hotel. Yeah, I´m pretty dumb...law school here I come.

Anyway, so I just got back from a ridiculous weekend in Lisboa, Portugal. Now, let me start by saying that Portugal, in all its beauty and history, seems today a slightly irrelevant as a nation. Now I know many of you think that I say this simply because I´m an aggressive americaphile, but in fact, it´s because it´s just true. When the hell was the last time you heard someone say, ¨Damn, before I die, I really need to get to Portugal¨. Never.

Also, it´s language, while very difficult to master, sounds like people spitting. The funny thing is is that portuguese reads much like Spanish. You could pick up a paper and easily understand the article and gist of the story. But when it came to listening to it, it´s like night and day. In fact, on the train to the beaches (cuz Lisbon is on a river so we needed to take a train that reminded me of the LIRR to the Atlantic coast), one of the stops was called Paco de Arcos (with some accent marks strewed about). I kid you not, when the conductor called the stop, I thought she was saying Cashew. Strange.

The beaches and the area very much actually had a long island feel. It was weird, many of the trees and the smell of the ocean and everything made me think of Jones Beach. Some of it makes sense, considering Portugal and New York are on a very similar latitude on the same ocean. On the other hand, many things were different too. For one, that damn language.

The first day we got there, we took easyjet over to Lisboa...awesome airline, very quick and clean. They took my hair gel and suntan lotion though. But, I got to go through airport security without taking off my shoes. So it was similar to TSA, but the workers didn´t all look suicidal. That day we went to the beach and just relaxed. It was called ¨Carcavelos¨. Very beautiful. Pretty much every train ride consisted of the same thing: 1) falling asleep 2) someone yelling at me for singing to my Ipod 3) calling out for ¨Brent¨. We thought he´d be the first one to get lost, but that was until Melissa and Salem were either talking too much or simply not listening when I screamed Everybody up-and-out. Turned out fine though.

The nightlife in Portugal seemed fine, lots of bars, we didn´t hit too many clubs, but mostly did the bar scene at Barrio Alto. Lots of cheap beers and shots. The second night, before we made our way there, we went to dinner around 11 at Chapitos, a small trendy restaurant near the neighborhood of Rossio. absolutely incredible. Argentinian Steak, Margaritas, Baked Potato. Heaven on a plate. Audi, Maria, and Jess just took pictures of each other like Japanese tourists while Danny and I discussed the No Child Left Behind Act. Seriously, leave it for me to get the slightly cracked out party animal into a political discussion. But he´s going into education and runs an NGO for the entire Westchester region on helping reducing violence in schools, so I deferred to his expertise during that convo.

Saturday was exhausting but awesome. We made our way to Sintra, an old old town north of Portugal. There we saw some ancient Castillos built in the 9th century, some old monesteries, old bricks lol. But it was also at an extremely high altitude. Beautiful landscape coupled with greens and clouds makes for an enlightening experience. We would have gone into more sights if we didn´t have to pay, making it the 1,000th time Europe has forced our hand in seeing things that shouldn´t be kept from poor people.

Oh yeah, and then there was Belem, my favorite part of the trip. Belem, known for its pastel de Belem, is a gorgeous small town about a half an hour bus trip away from city center. There we saw the Tower of Sailors (at least I made up that name) dedicated to all those portuguese explorations of the high seas back in the 15th and 16th centuries. Also there´s the Torre del Belem, the famous tower, which I have pics of but can show you later. We went into the monastery, in which there was the tomb of Vasco da gama. Now, I´m a history major. Seeing Vasco Da Gama´s tomb as a history buff is the same as giving a small child an overdose of Sesame Street. It was so cool. This is the man who single handedly helped jumpstart European exploration of the high seas about Africa, and finally, reaching India bypassing the Mongolian controlled land passes, enabling Europe to discover America, open trade with China, and eventually stereotype itself as a landgrabbing, selfish whore of a continent. Que guay!

After our trip, we went by train over to the city of Estoril. The girls went to the beach. Danny, Brent and I went golfing. We put on our snazzy polos and went to the driving range of the Estoril Golf Club. Imagine golfing into the clouds, no joke. It was sunny and off int he distance we could see a small mountain range dotted with thin clouds. Brent could actually hit the ball that far too, but as he said, ¨drive for show...but putt for dough¨. Ahh the ever so wise muse. Brent, for those of you from GW, reminds me a lot of James Hacker, without the anger management control problem.

The funniest but at the same time most disappointing part of the trip up to the golf course could be summed by the fact that the sun was destroying our souls...margaritas sounded incredible. Brent pointed to a sign that said ¨margaridas for 1.90 Euro!¨. We proceeded to salivate and get happy, only to realize that margaritas were also a flower and we were staring at a flower shop. Oh lord. Where´s Brent?

All in all it was a fun trip. Last night we watched the España v. Italia game. I´m so glad Buffon´s a jackass, it made the win that much more appealing. I felt a little weird rooting for a non-US team, but now I especially have a reason since Spain will be facing Vladimir Putin in the semis. Gotta go get a Spain t'shirt so when I go to the Plaza de Colon where they set up the screen, I won´ñt be targeted as a non-Spain supporter, raped, and hung out to die on the fences they set up for public executions. Just kidding, Spain is part of the EU now, whenever there´s a problem, we all just hug it out. Tonight I´m off to a cooking class to learn how to make paella, sangria, and certain types of tortilla really well. Should be interesting. And to abbreviate like los madrileños do, ¨ta luego!¨