It's 2:20pm, and we still have two and a half hours left of this flight, since we were delayed, so I decided I'd start on my blog for today, since, hopefully, we'll be out and about this evening. That is if my stomach doesn't just give up.
Angola was a really good experience. One of my first forays into a vacation without amenities I'm used to - like drinking water from the tap - and other things I take for granted as a luxury - clean fruits and vegetables, running water, working toilets, that sort of thing. I got a taste of it when I went to Juarez, Mexico a few years back to build houses, but that felt more like a field trip - we were only there 3 or 4 days, and we drove there from Colorado. It also was a working holiday, so I wasn't ever expecting it to be nice and clean - we were sleeping on the floor of a church, building houses in one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the West, and a runner-up in the world. Anyways, I digress. This trip, though, had a weird dichotomy about it - we weren't really vacationing there, but we weren't really 'native' there, at all. Even though we were in a house, and often chose to stay inside to hang out with the fam, it was still a jarring experience everytime I walked out the door. I feel like I'm ready to take on less developed countries, now, since I've dabbled in them - I won't need to be pent up in a vacation resort or anything to go and explore. I also feel ready for Cairo, now, definitely. I had always been reticent of just booking a flight to just go to Cairo since, I don't speak Arabic, would be travelling as an unmarried female, and had never been to Africa, but now I feel like Cairo is an easy jump. I've wanted to go since I was six, so maybe, next summer/winter, I'll make it happen.
I could never see myself living in a place like Angola for any amount of time, unless it was for volunteering work, or whatever. It's just way too foreign (and has too many mosquitos), and has too much disease for me to ever feel safe and sound there. I'm constantly reminding myself to not get the water in my mouth, or to take my malaria pills, or put on a sweater in the evening, even though it's still warm out, so I don't get bitten. Apparently something around 50% of the population has HIV or AIDS, even though only 3-4% is the official number. They say that it's the under 18 population, which outnumbers the over 18 population, is nearly 1 in 2 for HIV/AIDS. That both scares and saddens me. Sometimes, I feel like I could never live in a country with intense poverty and illness just because I'd know I couldn't fix it and would feel guilty for doing anything else with my life. It's easier to push out of your mind when you don't drive by favelas everyday. And the fact of the matter is that even if I tried in a place like that, my dent would be very small. And it would be a worthwhile dent, but I don't have the determination to fight a losing battle, nor do I have the funds or time. I'm getting into a volunteering tangent, though, which is probably best left for another day. I would love to just devote my life to helping people and things, but, selfishly, I don't. Most of us don't. And there aren't excuses for it other than we just aren't doing it because it's scary or takes us to an uncomfortable place, or faces us with death and disease. It takes a stronger person than I to devote their life to volunteering, even though I'd like to do it.
Anyways, tonight, we'll be in Lisbon. We've rented a hostel room in the Bairro Alto, which is supposedly the cool part of town, and we're going to hustle there, drop off our bags, buy tickets for the hop on hop off tour, ride on that for an hour or two, come back to the hostel, take a nap until 10, whereupon we've been advised to go out and stay out as late as we can, because Lisbon is best at night. We probably won't stay out too late, but it should be fun. Also, the euro has dropped to the pound over the last two days, so that means a cheaper trip for us! Then, tomorrow, we're going to go on the other leg of the busabout tour (it's touristy and terrible, but it's the best way to get around to all of the sites in the shortest amount of time, with the most freedom, and you get to see the entirety of the city), then grabbing our luggage and catching a 3:30 train to Porto's Campanha station. I'm pretty excited. We're planning on going to the beach everyday in Porto, and I'm buying batteries at the airport now, so I will have my camera!
Talk to you later!
PS. Totally just looked out the window. We're flying over the Sahara! It is just brown sand as far as you can see on all sides of the plane.
It's 9:54pm and we're sitting in our hostel in Lisbon. It was hell to find, and you have to walk up and down about 500 (i'm not exaggerating) stairs from the main road. The picture in the bottom of the buildings at night, we start at the bottom, equal with the tower in the foreground. I'm going to get fit the two days I'm going up and down these stairs. We didn't get to go on our sightseeing bus today, our plane got in late (at 5!) then we had to do immigration, customs, and then the bus we knew we could take said that we couldn't bring bags on it - even though it had a sign that said that rolly bags were okay. Whatever. We ended up getting the shuttle, which was a better idea anyway - it'll give us money off tomorrow for the tour bus, if we do it, and we can use the tickets for 24 hours. Anyways, I'll just put pictures up now, I think we may try and go out and about again since it's cooler now, and the city's way alive at night.
This is the Praça do Comercial, which is where the iconic scenes of Lisbon come from, and it's really smelly because of the ocean.
This are fish. No joking around. There were thousands of them, just swimming next to the cement. I don't understand it, but whew they stunk.
My oily/buttery portion of their brethren at dinner. It was so good I forgot to get a picture at the beginning.
Also, too good to photograph, but this was our octopus salad.
The below guy was totes awesome. He is a living statue, with eyes painted on his eyelids, and he's hovering in midair off a cane, then has a hidden attachment around his back. And he has the world record for human stautes. Awesome.
IF you click any, CLICK THE ONE ABOVE. then zoom in. Those are painted on eyeballs!
This is the view I was talking about. You see that little pointy thing about the string of lights? Yeah, that's where you start you climb. The Praça do Rossio.
Out of order, a bit, but Diogo's paella like rice dish at dinner.
The prawn that exploded all over with brain juice. But, looks yummy, right?
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