I've just begun solo traveling and this is kind of how I feel on November 10th I took a flight
from Chicago to Lisbon and started by spending three days there and this is what I did the
flight was pretty good I lost my ear bugs but no one sat next to me and I could stretch out
my legs so I guess it all kind of balances out I am alone in my hostel room now and I'm so nervous
that someone's gonna come in but if there's just someone on the top bunk that I didn't
see that would be so awkward anyways my plane flew in at 8:00 so I took the metro and then I
walked to my hostel and I didn't realize that it was at the top of a hill so it's quite the walk
especially with a huge backpack on my back and then another one on my friend and then my phone
in my hand trying to figure out directions but I made it unfortunately check-in was not until
3:00 p.m. so I was just kind of sitting there and then this tour guide came to pick up people for a
walking tour and she was like hey do you want a free walking tour so I was like okay why not
it was a really fun tour and I found a friend there was one other American in the group and
she was this woman from DC and we just I don't know since they're both from the United States
and no one else was we just kind of became automatic friends so that was nice it was
not really a free walking tour um I knew that I was supposed to like tip the tour guide but
I was about to give like five dollars or five euros I had no idea how much was like a normal
amount because I'm clueless and then the guy was like yeah usually people give about 15 which feels
like a lot to me because I'm trying to be so low-budget about this but I forked over the 15
euros because it honestly was a really good tour and the guy was nice so once I finally
got into my hostel room I changed clothing and then I wash my face and I feel so much better
now I felt disgusting literally people here are wearing winter coats and it's mid 60's which is
like t-shirt and shorts weather in Wisconsin so I do not understand how people are not sweating and
dying yeah I've already walked over 10,000 steps my legs hurt anyway that I have not
experienced before I have lots of energy but I know I'm gonna crash soon because of the time
difference in the jet lag and just getting like a few hours of sleep on the plane but
I'm really happy and really excited so that makes up for it and now I am waiting to meet up with an
Instagram friend we're gonna meet in real life and she's gonna I guess show me around and I'm gonna
stop talking now because I feel like any second someone's gonna come in and I can't handle that
so the first place that we visited was this beautiful castle it was a long climb but it
was worth it because the weather was absolutely perfect and the views were amazing we took some
photos and I had a little bit of a Marilyn Monroe moment and nearly flashed a few people
but we avoided it it was all good I was too excited to really feel any hunger all day but
I really wanted to try the egg tarts which are called pastel de nata so we went to a cafe and
it was also a good chance to warm up because it was very windy outside the next day we took
a day trip to sintra and we missed our train by literally a few seconds so what else could you
do while you're stuck waiting in a train station other than take photos I kind of drifted in and
out of sleep during the whole ride but believe me I was not sleeping once I saw these views Sintra
is a town about 40 minutes from Lisbon and it is basically a fairy tale the Royals would build a
lot of palaces and mansions there so it was basically like their vacation home again we
had to do a lot of climbing which especially after that first day was pretty difficult
there's always a reward at the end of the climb though so we got to explore this beautiful castle
unfortunately photos are not allowed inside but you can see that outside of it and then we walked
around the palace grounds which are absolutely gigantic there's greenhouses and ponds and all
sorts of animals and it probably would take you a full day to actually see everything that's there
this is an episode of cooking with beatrice smooshed bread we brought on lunches to save
money and I had bought a loaf of bread some salami some cheese tomatoes and apples at a
grocery store done it basically got like three lunches out of that for the price of one lunch
at a restaurant so I was really proud of myself once it finally got back to Lisbon I really wanted
to try ginginha which is a cherry liqueur that originated in Lisbon plus it comes with chocolate
cups so how could I not one two three - vai a cima, vai a baixo, vai ao centro e vai a dentro
one of my favorite things to do for some reason while traveling is just to
explore malls and little stores so we walked around this shopping center in this shadow
neighborhood and we visited some bookstores some stationery stores clothing stores etc
I also got another egg tart and then once we went outside we watched some street performers
but we also had roasted chestnuts which are a really popular street food in Portugal
on my last day I set off on a long walk of my own today i've got a mission which is to
recreate this photos that my parents took of me here about 17 years ago I kind of overslept and
I missed breakfast so I'm kind of pushing it because my flight is at 4:00 and it's
almost noon right now and I haven't even made it to the place the challenge unfortunately was
unsuccessful because I thought I only needed to make it to the monumento dos descobrimentos but
unfortunately once I got there I saw the place where I took the photo but it was so far off
in the distance and I was already kind of worried about missing my flight so I decided to save that
for another trip but at least I got to see the monument right now I'm in my temporary
little room in Madrid bienvenidos a mi casa I'm staying with the family for a language exchange
and I actually haven't really explored Madrid yet because I've been editing photos and videos
and doing the chores that I have to do but it's actually been really nice so far it's a different
piece of life and a good challenge for me and so soon I'll be sharing a little bit more about
my time here in Madrid and also answering the questions that I've gotten on Instagram about
how I found this workaway thing how how it works yeah thank you for watching it for following along
you