February 28 & 29, 2016
I have to be honest that before this trip, I knew little to nothing about Portugal. I just knew that it was some country somewhere in Europe, where Cristiano Ronaldo comes from. But I knew nothing about the weather, what it looked like or the culture. And with the limited access to the internet during all that traveling I had no time to do a Google research. So arriving in Portugal was a big surprise for me. A very pleasant surprise actually.
After Rome, I would pick Lisbon as my second city during this 2016 Eurotrip. Why?
Because it was just so different and unexpected, things were cheap… and remember I live in Suriname, so considering prices to be cheap in another place is saying a lot… also the weather was nice: not too warm and not too cold. Just perfect.
On the train ride to Portugal we were in a room with this great American guy named Matt, whom was backpacking through Europe for a few months. We quickly befriended him and got wasted at the train’s bar. This was quite a long train ride and had all the accommodation of a moving hostel.
So anyways, we made friends with the American, shared stories and were all just enjoying this once in a lifetime experience. We were being quit loud and the conductor had to shush us a few times. Ryan was already in bed much earlier than the rest of us, so when we were done drinking and making our way to our room, we wanted to be crazy and make a lot of noise to wake him up. So we barged into the room and started making noises like a maniac.
The problem was… THIS WAS NOT OUR ROOM!!!! 😮
Our drunken asses stumbled into the wrong room and woke up a bunch of strangers for nothing. As soon as we realized this we closed the door and stormed to our own room and locked ourselves in. Mission failed. But we did have a good laugh about this and quickly fell asleep.
The train conductor announced our arrival close to an hour and we brushed our teeth and waited to arrive at the train station. It was early morning so not many people out just yet. We strolled around a bit, went to see some flags and even spotted the Surinamese flag right there in Portugal. It was cool to see. We went to find to some breakfast and did some sightseeing.
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Matt was about to stay longer than us in Lisbon so we walked him to his hostel. There we did a few more drinks and made friends with some more strangers. Soon afterwards a friend from Farid, whom originally is from The Netherlands, but now, is living and working in Lisbon joined us. We said goodbye to Matt and decided to go to our own hostel.
Finding our hostel was tricky. There was this mix-up with the reservation and the room we had reserved turned out not to be available at the moment, but instead we got an even better deal in another hostel. This was like a mini-hotel. We got a spacious room with a double bed and a small one, with our own bathroom and a balcony all for 40 euros a night. This was amazing.
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So after getting freshened up we decided to go for a stroll with Farid’s friend. We walked around Lisbon and I was totally loving the city. We had dinner and afterwards we went out to some pubs. The nightlife in Portugal is something else. We went to this bar where they gave everyone a number and if you like someone or wanted to tell them something you wrote it on a piece of paper and gave it to the bartender, who put it up on a board. I had no one leaving me messages, but I enjoyed the place nonetheless.
Ryan at one point was too wasted and it was time to head back. He took off his shirt and walked around like that. I was scared that the cops would arrest us or something, but luckily nothing happened.
Back at the hostel Ryan went straight to bed and Farid went for a smoke break. I decided to take a long warm shower. I think I showered way too long, because when I stepped out the entire room was flooded. Literally!! The water had seeped from the bathroom, to the bedroom into the lobby. I grabbed all the towels I could find in the room and dried it all up. This was not an easy task and when I was done I wanted to shower again.
At this time I was wondering where Farid was staying, because it had been more than half an hour since he was gone. I figured he probably pulled another stunt like in Rome, or went home with his “friend” whom he was totally into, despite having been friendzoned the entire day.
I walked through the hostel, even went up to the roof balcony, but couldn’t find him anywhere. So I decided to return to the room and go to sleep.
The next morning I heard the room door open and there was Farid. Being escorted in by one of the hostel staff members. Apparently Farid was sleeping in the roof balcony room, because he had no keys the room and was locked outside. I had searched for him, but he was in that one place I did NOT look. -_- he cursed like a sailor and passed out on the bed.
After a few hours we all woke up and it was time to check out. Ryan had woken up earlier and went out to find us breakfast. As we were cleaning the room and getting to leave he and I had a little fight or something I will not repeat, but I decided to avoid him for until we arrived back in Holland.
Our plane wasn’t scheduled for a few more hours, so we went to do some more sightseeing in Lisbon and I was really starting to like this place even more. At one point it got so (comfortably) warm that we were walking around without our jacket. We went to the tourist-y places, had some dinner and finally made our way to the airport. The airport was quite crowded to say the least.
In the airplane from Lisbon to Amsterdam we had our last surprise when Farid suddenly had this major headache and felt like his head was about to explode. This was strange, but also over as soon as we landed.
Back in Amsterdam, we had to move out of the apartment that Farid used to rent and I went to stay at Patrick’s house. We had one last day and the next day we needed to go back to Schiphol and fly back to Suriname… back to reality.
And that was the end of our Eurotrip!
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