My first initial impressions of Lisbon were very rewarding. I loved riding around the bus right off of the airport and getting a quick walking tour of the city on the first night. They kept their Christmas lights up on the street and on some of their buildings which was cool to walk around and take pictures of everything. Another cool thing is all of the small shops and restaurants are within walking distance from the hotel making it easy to go off and see a cool place whenever we had free time. As far as the group visits went, my favorite would have to be our day trip to Sintra, it was super cool hearing about the summer palace that Portuguese royalty used to live in hundreds of years ago. Besides how beautiful it was, seeing all of the architecture and time they? devoted to the statues and buildings were incredible, truly a castle built for a king. Since I have never been to Europe before this whole trip has been one great day after another and was packed with sightseeing tours of Lisbon and the surrounding cities.
My second favorite trip would be the visit to the olive oil farm that we took on Thursday. It was really awesome getting to see people so devoted to their craft and in love with what they do. It was also unique learning that they use no preservatives or pesticides on their plants in order to “maintain the intimate relationship between god and nature.” Being able to experience all of this in person was far better than watching a video in a classroom in Texas discussing all of the culture and heritage of Portugal. It really was something that you need to see for yourself and really take in all of the full experience. Overall I was very thankful for how well the trip has gone and like how much we are able to fit into each day.
One of the worst parts of the trip was having an additional 6 hour layover in the Newark airport since we already were supposed to be there from 4pm-8pm. Although the layover sucked, it did give us a lot of time to get to know each other before we got to Europe which made the first day here much better on the walking tour in my opinion.
Overall I felt my initial impressions of this trip were amazing and can’t wait to see what next week will bring. As far as the food is concerned, I liked that for each group meal we get to dine at a different local restaurant and try Portuguese food. It has been very interesting getting to know more about the food they have here and how different their schedules are with respect to mealtime. The best thing to me would be how much better the fruit and vegetables taste over here since they are all grown naturally and close to the city. On Sunday we leave Lisbon for Porto and while I will miss Lisbon I’m excited to see what a new city will bring!