Today we woke up and went down to the kitchen area for breakfast. There was cereal, sweet breads, toast, and fruit. The hostel advertised a free walking tour that takes place every morning. We walked about 30 minutes from the hostel to the meet-up point at Rossio Square. There was probably a group of 40 of us from all over the world. There was people from Australia, Germany, England, India, Belgium, and one other person from the US. Before we started the tour, the tour guide asked Kayla to tell him the first work she could think of. which was "ice cream". The tour guide explained that "ice cream" would be code to let us know that a certain area might be risky for getting robbed. So throughout the tour we would be walking along, and then the tour guide would say, "This area is a place for a lot of tasty ice creams." You could see everyone perk up for a half second, and then their faces would change when they realized that he wasn't talking about actual ice cream. The tour lasted about 3 hours long, and I learned a lot of interesting facts about Lisbon that I wouldn't have realized on my own. I tried to include these facts in the captions of some of the pictures. Another interesting part of the tour was that one of the people on the tour knew about Farmington, Shiprock, Window Rock, etc. He is originally from Armenia but has traveled all of the world. If I remember correctly, he actually spent a year living in the Four Corners area. He was also familiar with Navajo Nation, so he was surprised to find out that Kayla and I were Navajo. After the tour was over, a group of us and the tour guide went to go have lunch. Our group included someone Armenia, Israel, Amsterdam, Portugal, and us. I ordered a seafood paella that was pretty good, but it was a huge plate. A pretty interesting thing to learn was about food etiquette. Apparently if you don't finish all of the food on your plate, a Portuguese person might interpret that as you not liking the food. However, if you say that you are really full, then they will be understanding and not think that you don't like their food. After lunch, we walked down towards the Tagus river to a monument called the Arco da Rua Augusta. Once you go through the arch there is a huge open square. It is called Praça do Comércio, or Commerce Square. We took some pictures around the square and went close to the river for a little bit. I was dying to put my feet in the water, but I didn't walk around the rest of the day with sandy feet. I think it was a good thing I didn't go in the water because we spotted a couple jellyfish floating in the murky water close to shore. Then we paid a small fee to go take pictures from the top of the arch. It was interesting seeing everything from a different angle. The best part was there was a bell on top of the arch, which I had a little bit too much fun ringing. A group of us walked from from the Rossio square and went to the aflame district. Before we went to the restaurant our guide told us a little bit about fado. There are two guitars a regular guitar and a Portuguese guitar. The Portuguese guitar is special because it has 12 strings which makes it very difficult to play. The guitar player has to have a manicure or fitted hardened nail on their strumming finger that is probably an inch long and is used like guitar pick. The Portuguese guitar is also in the shape of a teardrop to represent the emotion that fado can create. Fado has two distinct categories such as loneliness, which can be very sad and emotional song, or it can be about love fo Lisbon the city, which is said is like a curvy girl due to all of the hills. When it was first was created it wasn't very popular but overtime it has grown due to singers such as Amália Rodrigues who is known as "The Queen of Fado". We were also given strict instructions not to make any noise when the singers were performing. You are meant to sit and enjoy the music, so this meant no talking or eating loudly during the performance. We all sat down and were given a variety of different appetizers. We were given slices of ham, cheese, bread, sausage slices, and cod cakes. Then the two guitarists and the first singer came out. The first singer was an older man, and after a couple of songs the second singer came out and she was a middle aged woman. For the next couple of hours, we would eat and chat with each other for about 30 minutes. Then the fado singers would come out and perform for the restaurant for 30 minutes. |
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