From Portugal:

Close to our hostel

"We have had a wonderful time here thus far--its been great to have a longer amount of time in one city. We got here Friday evening and walked around our area. We are in the centro area of the city by some cool plazas with fountains.  We're also really close to the river (well, its almost the ocean as it goes into the ocean just where our hostel is).  We ate dinner at this amazing cheap buffet with traditional Portuguese food.  Unfortunately, we ate a bit too much and had to walk it off, but it was great beans and rice, cooked veggies, and tons of different kinds of salads (some with lettuce and some without).

The bridge!

Saturday, we woke up and it was raining cats and dogs.  We decided it would be a perfect day to go to the Oceanarium, which was highly recommended on various top-notch websites.  It held up to all expectations, and had tons of huge tanks representing four oceans, with sharks, tropical fish, penguins, and sea otters.  It confirmed Jenna's and my childhood dream of becoming marine biologists.  When we left the building, the rain had miraculously stopped, and we wandered around the area near the museum.  It had a bunch of interesting modern architecture including one of the longest bridges ever (one and one half miles!).  That evening we happened upon a packed Indian restaurant that was perfection.  We then went to this area close to our hostel called Barrio Alto.  To get there, you have to climb up these tiny stairs on cobblestone streets, and when you arrive, its just one bar and restaurant after another.  We read online that Barrio Alto is the biggest bar crawl in Europe, but of course we didn't believe that before going there.  There were the most people I have ever seen in one place not gathered for a concert or game or something!  To walk through the street, you had to push through people standing and sitting!  We found an amazing bar that had some of the best mojitos ever.  It was run by these four Portuguese sisters, who were having a grad old time greeting friends, and mixing one drink for a customer and a second for themselves."

This was one of the least crowded streets we found!

I have to run to the airport now to head off to Prague with my class, but more info on spring break (Sintra and Barcelona!), and of course Prague too, when I return!  Au revoir for now!