Well, the time has finally come for my grand voyage (study abroad!) On September 3rd, my friend Jess and I bid farewell to our families and friends and departed from O'Hare. After a quick stop in Dublin for our connecting flight, we landed in Lisbon, Portugal. Jet lagged, I quickly regretted not sleeping much on the plane. As we drove into the city, I really had no expectations in regards to what Portugal would be like, and how much I would enjoy our stay. In the past, I have only visited one other country (Spain two years prior), so I was excited to be back in Europe, ready for a new adventure.

We chose Portugal since it is very close to Seville, Spain, where we are studying abroad. We thought, "why not?" since we wanted to get a head start on our travels and it looked awesome in pictures when we researched trips. From the airport in Lisbon, we went straight to our Airbnb, located in the neighborhood of Graça. We didn't really have much of a plan other than to just walk around and explore, so that is what we did. Right away we fell in love with the the many buildings covered in colorful tiles. They were lined up one by one, separated by quaint cobblestone streets. Everywhere we looked, graffiti and unique street art decorated each building we passed. Photographed above is easily one of my favorite views from the trip. The city is stretched out with buildings knit closely together with the famous 25 de Abril Bridge standing tall in the background. If you follow me on Insta, you may already know the fun fact that coincides with this bridge.

Now, if you want a good leg workout, you have definitely come to the right place. Lisbon is constructed by narrow, steep hills that make you wonder how people walk up and down them everyday. Thankfully we took breaks to admire the many views and to take some photos. In total, I think I took roughly 400 pictures, just from day one. Crazy, right? We were eager to discover more and more of the city, knowing we didn't have a whole lot of time. We uncovered more street art, beautifully tiled buildings and doors and buildings of all colors one cannot find in the city or suburbs of Chicago. We even saw an icon of Portugal whiz by: the tram. To make the views even better, every now and then we would see the crystal-clear Northern Atlantic pop through the many rows of buildings.

During our first day exploring Graça, we unexpectedly saw a good amount of historical sites such as the Church and Monastery of St. Vincent and the National Pantheon of Lisbon. Despite how impressed we were by the buildings and ocean views, we felt we were still missing out on what Lisbon truly offered. Although it was neat to see a more local area, we yearned for the hustle and bustle of the main parts of the city. Little did we know we would find ourselves in just that the next day..

Here marks an end to a great, but very tiresome first day in Lisbon. We walked until our legs were literally shaking and our bodies quite famished. To be honest, we walked passed a dozen of restaurants and small shops to potentially grab a bite to eat or a drink, but we were too intimidated by the language to order something right away. While many believe Portuguese is similar to Spanish, that definitely was not the case-at least for us. After listening to it for a couple of days, Jess and I concluded that Portuguese sounds more like a bunch of languages all mixed together, rather than it's own. Despite the language barrier, we muscled up some courage in the end and walked into a cute cafe called Pastelaria Santo António. I am glad we passed up those other restaurants since this cafe had the well-known Portuguese pastry called: pastel de nata. Now, the pastel de nata might not be the best looking food you have ever seen, but it tastes amazing. They are egg tarts that are sweet and creamy on the inside with a toasted crunch on the outside. They are definitely a must to try when in Portugal.

As you can see, day two in Lisbon was more of a success. Despite fighting jet lag our first night and having a late start to the second, (woke up at 3:00 p.m.) our second day went more smoothly. Something important we learned throughout this experience: sometimes it is worth it to pay a little bit extra to ensure a more comfortable stay. We are in a foreign country where our personal and outside boundaries are pushed, so it is important to feel secure at all times. With that, we ended up leaving our Airbnb and staying in an amazing apartment (Otília Apartments) in the central district of Bairro Alto, right on the main pedestrian street of Rua Augusta (Augusta street) for the rest of our stay. While it was nice in Graça, where our Airbnb was located, we agreed that we did not feel 100% safe at some points and it would have been far to walk to the central district. Also, on the first night we ended up being locked out of the Airbnb due to our key getting jammed into the door. After an uncomfortable phone call to our host and four different Portuguese citizens graciously helping us to try and free the key, we were not really in the mood to continue our stay there. Needless to say, traveling is not always glamorous and it is important to remember that nine times out of ten people only show the highlights of their stays and not always what happens behind-the-scenes.

Front balcony view from our room at Otília Apartments

Breakfast and coffee/tea provided as well!

Our stay in Lisbon is officially over and reality has officially set back in. Sadly, we no longer are able to wake up to this view and some delicious pastel de natas, but we are very grateful to say that we were able to enjoy our stay in Portugal. Although the trip started out just a bit rough, we cherished each moment we had in this beautiful, one-of-a-kind city. I will definitely go back to Portugal someday, as there are some more cities I would have liked to see (Porto), but sadly we did not make it to. To anyone reading this, I would definitely recommend making a stop to Lisbon if you ever have a chance. Stay tuned for more Portugal photo diaries (Sintra and Lagos) and other travel diaries as well!

xo Kara

Lisbon Photo Diary