Our first few days in Portugal have been a mix city exploring, castle visits, and the beginning of our industry experiences. We spent the first 2 days taking walking tours of Lisbon, our home base, and took the 28 tram to the top of one of the seven hills in Lisbon to tour St. George’s Castle and get a fantastic aerial view of the city. Lisbon has taken me by surprise with its diverse restaurants and cultures represented, and the numerous monuments to important historical figures. It has become very clear that the Portuguese have a long, proud history of economic prosperity in cork, olives, spices, and jewels and an evolving need for independence, as seen in their revolt against the Spanish kings that led them briefly and the more recent move away from a monarchy to a republic. Next, we took a day to trip to the town of Sintra where we visited Quinta da Regaleira, elaborate home to wealthy businessman Carvalho Monteiro, and were able to roam the local shops for souvenirs and a taste of Ginja, Portuguese cherry brandy, inside chocolate tasting cups. Visiting Sintra definitely fulfilled my original expectations for Portugal with their weathered white buildings, red shingled roofs, and painted tile designs along the walls. In the afternoon, we drove to the seaside town of Cascais where we toured the main avenue of shops and got to see the small fishing boats used by the locals for lobster and crab trapping. We also had our first company visits to a cork farm where we learned about the process of stripping bark from the cork trees and the industry for cork wine stoppers and its other uses and an olive oil farm and mill where we were told about the process for harvesting olives and extracting the oil from the olives. At both visits, the owners of the farms stressed the importance of using all natural and sustainable practices otherwise both of these industries will be negatively impacted down the line. Overall, I have loved seeing the diverse lifestyles that Portugal has to offer as well as the pride that the Portuguese take in their culture and history.
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