Goodbye Morocco and Hello Pub Crawl!
I haven't written a blog in a bit because we've been so busy and enjoying Portugal so much. But we're on a train to Porto now so I've finally got some time.
We left off with Lacey and me on our last morning in Fes and Morocco. We woke up a little late again because breakfast is served a little later. We had a wonderful breakfast made by Moussa. Just like before, lots of bread and sweets and fresh orange juice. All things we love! We packed up our bags and left them in a common area while we explored during the day. Moussa arranged for us to ride in a taxi with some other people to the airport at 1pm.
To keep ourselves busy during the later morning and early afternoon, we headed out to some ruins just a little past the bus station. They're up on a hill and Moussa said they're beautiful at sunset. Of course, we weren't going at sunset but that's fine! We like getting out of the Medina for a bit and just being by ourselves. The walkout was pretty uneventful. We took a different exit from the Medina than the Blue Gate which was kind of fun. The "hike" up was very uphill at the end but not too bad. The view of the Medina was incredible. Honestly, it's so incredibly big it's almost beyond reason. Of courssssse, someone was selling crap up there haha. Can't escape that even up by some ruins on a hill.
The walk down was okay and we stopped to buy some fresh orange juice as we entered the Medina. We still had a lot of time so we took a left and walked further down, down, down into the Medina. The street we were on was full of people and shops and got more closed in. This type of atmosphere was what we expected in the Medina, we just hadn't walked this specific part before. All the shops were cool and we ran into a few people from our hostel which was funny. We also walked by a couple mosques and their minarets were awesome to see sticking up from the enclosed Medina streets.
It was finally time to get back to the hostel and start out trek to the airport. We STUPIDLY did not get lunch before leaving. The taxi ride was mostly good although I had like no leg room. There was a woman and her mom with us who live in Amsterdam but travel all the time. She had her phone stolen in Casablanca which really stinks. It was nice to split the taxi fare between all of us.
We waited at the airport for a long while and had a pastry sort of thing for "lunch". We were running out of dirhams so we didn't want to spend too much. Ultimately, we should have just used a card quick to get something more substantial. We checked in and went through security easy peasy. Our airline was TAP Air Portugal and our plane was a tiny bit late but only like10 minutes. Speaking of tiny, the plane was very small! It had propellors instead of jets. The flight was nice with plenty of leg room and a drink included even though it was only 1.5 hours.
Portugal airport is really, really nice and the metro is fantastic and easy to use. What a departure from Morocco! We've never been so happy to see public restrooms and trash cans. We got to our hostel which is called "Good Morning Lisbon Hostel". It has fantastic ratings on Hostelworld and it's easy to see why. The hosts are incredible and tell you so much information and give you tips and the place is so clean and fun. We were SO EXCITED! We had a private room with shared bathrooms. To enter the hostel you have to like go through a souvenir shop which is a little weird... but it's fine!
We dropped our bags and ate some leftover waffles from the hostel breakfast earlier that day. That was our dinner. Pathetic haha. But we wanted to hang out with the people in the hostel common area and maybe go to the pub crawl and there just wasn't time to go out somewhere and get food. Thinking back now, we should have just run to McDonald's but it's fine!
We had a few drinks at the little bar in the hostel common room and met some people. Then we all got together and went out for the pub crawl. This was a new experience for us but it was sooooo fun! There were like 15-20 people from our hostel that went and then we met up with another group. The pub crawl was run by a different company than our hostel of course. We went to a couple bars in the Barrio Alto district of Lisbon. We could not believe the insane amount of people out and about at all the bars at like 12am on a Thursday (we're almost always in bed by that time). It was especially jarring after being in Morocco for 4 days where everyone goes home at like 9pm.
The main people we hung out with was a young woman named Laurel who was from Atlanta and kind of sassy but really funny. We also met a young guy from Eden Prairie, MN named Sam who was going to work in Lyon, France which made me very jealous. The most exciting part of the night was when I did a flaming mouth shot. They have you take a shot of absinthe and swish it around your mouth but not swallow it. Then you lean back and open your mouth. One of the workers lights your mouth on fire and another throws cinnamon on it to flame it up. Watch the video below haha.
We left off with Lacey and me on our last morning in Fes and Morocco. We woke up a little late again because breakfast is served a little later. We had a wonderful breakfast made by Moussa. Just like before, lots of bread and sweets and fresh orange juice. All things we love! We packed up our bags and left them in a common area while we explored during the day. Moussa arranged for us to ride in a taxi with some other people to the airport at 1pm.
To keep ourselves busy during the later morning and early afternoon, we headed out to some ruins just a little past the bus station. They're up on a hill and Moussa said they're beautiful at sunset. Of course, we weren't going at sunset but that's fine! We like getting out of the Medina for a bit and just being by ourselves. The walkout was pretty uneventful. We took a different exit from the Medina than the Blue Gate which was kind of fun. The "hike" up was very uphill at the end but not too bad. The view of the Medina was incredible. Honestly, it's so incredibly big it's almost beyond reason. Of courssssse, someone was selling crap up there haha. Can't escape that even up by some ruins on a hill.
The walk down was okay and we stopped to buy some fresh orange juice as we entered the Medina. We still had a lot of time so we took a left and walked further down, down, down into the Medina. The street we were on was full of people and shops and got more closed in. This type of atmosphere was what we expected in the Medina, we just hadn't walked this specific part before. All the shops were cool and we ran into a few people from our hostel which was funny. We also walked by a couple mosques and their minarets were awesome to see sticking up from the enclosed Medina streets.
It was finally time to get back to the hostel and start out trek to the airport. We STUPIDLY did not get lunch before leaving. The taxi ride was mostly good although I had like no leg room. There was a woman and her mom with us who live in Amsterdam but travel all the time. She had her phone stolen in Casablanca which really stinks. It was nice to split the taxi fare between all of us.
We waited at the airport for a long while and had a pastry sort of thing for "lunch". We were running out of dirhams so we didn't want to spend too much. Ultimately, we should have just used a card quick to get something more substantial. We checked in and went through security easy peasy. Our airline was TAP Air Portugal and our plane was a tiny bit late but only like10 minutes. Speaking of tiny, the plane was very small! It had propellors instead of jets. The flight was nice with plenty of leg room and a drink included even though it was only 1.5 hours.
Portugal airport is really, really nice and the metro is fantastic and easy to use. What a departure from Morocco! We've never been so happy to see public restrooms and trash cans. We got to our hostel which is called "Good Morning Lisbon Hostel". It has fantastic ratings on Hostelworld and it's easy to see why. The hosts are incredible and tell you so much information and give you tips and the place is so clean and fun. We were SO EXCITED! We had a private room with shared bathrooms. To enter the hostel you have to like go through a souvenir shop which is a little weird... but it's fine!
We dropped our bags and ate some leftover waffles from the hostel breakfast earlier that day. That was our dinner. Pathetic haha. But we wanted to hang out with the people in the hostel common area and maybe go to the pub crawl and there just wasn't time to go out somewhere and get food. Thinking back now, we should have just run to McDonald's but it's fine!
We had a few drinks at the little bar in the hostel common room and met some people. Then we all got together and went out for the pub crawl. This was a new experience for us but it was sooooo fun! There were like 15-20 people from our hostel that went and then we met up with another group. The pub crawl was run by a different company than our hostel of course. We went to a couple bars in the Barrio Alto district of Lisbon. We could not believe the insane amount of people out and about at all the bars at like 12am on a Thursday (we're almost always in bed by that time). It was especially jarring after being in Morocco for 4 days where everyone goes home at like 9pm.
The main people we hung out with was a young woman named Laurel who was from Atlanta and kind of sassy but really funny. We also met a young guy from Eden Prairie, MN named Sam who was going to work in Lyon, France which made me very jealous. The most exciting part of the night was when I did a flaming mouth shot. They have you take a shot of absinthe and swish it around your mouth but not swallow it. Then you lean back and open your mouth. One of the workers lights your mouth on fire and another throws cinnamon on it to flame it up. Watch the video below haha.
We um had some drinks and stuff and went to a third bar but this one wasn't very fun and it was literally 3am. We walked Laurel back to her hostel with a couple other people we met and then the 4 of us going back to Good Morning all walked back. We stopped at a video board thing and took a couple pictures. Finally, we made it back to our hostel and passed out.
Morocco was a very interesting experience and neither one of us regrets going there for a second but we absolutely loved Portugal from the second we stepped off the plane. Like truly loved it. The city was beautiful and the pub crawl and friends we made were amazing.
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