Day 9

9:15am GMT - Woke up to my alarm at 8:10. Brought my other pastry down to eat for breakfast. It was like a chocolate layer cake I suppose. Anyway. Tasty. Today was actually cloudy, whoa.

9:45am GMT - got the Tram 15 to the Belem district to see the sights there, took about a half hour. Got off at the stop for the Monestary and holy shit it is so huge I couldn't even fit it into one picture. Across the street we saw some kind of street market so we checked it out for a couple minutes - it was mostly antiques and the stuff was pretty fugly, so we left. We crossed the street and went into the monastery and looked around - it was so big and beautiful. Then we left to go to the cloisters where we found out that Sundays are free, whoda thunk (we would have gotten in free with our LisboaCard anyway). Anyhow, it's quite beautiful architecturally, all in limestone (see pics). That's about all there is to say really.

On our way out, we realized that it was getting busier and busier. Mass must have been then going on in the monastery itself and so they weren't letting anyone in and so the line was alllllll the way to like the end of the building, which is LONG. I was soooo glad we got there early and it wasn't so bad!!! Then we walked a few min to the National Coaches museum (see pictures), which we were in for about 10 minutes (thank you for being free thanks to LisboaCard). The only memorable thing was this one coach that was scary as all hell (see picture) - at first I didn't see it and amanda was all "whoa that one's scary" and I'm like "which one" and she points and I was "this one?" and she was like "no the scary one" and she did it again and I still didn't see it - I was looking at the ones on both sides of it - and then I saw it and I was like "holy shit man!" It was the coach embodiment of the grim reaper! So yea that was fun.

We went out there and walked back past the monastery to the Torre Belem or Belem tower, which sits right on the Tejo river. Little did we know, that was also free on sundays, so it was superbusy. But the line moved fast. There wasn't much to see, but the structure itself is really nice and the views were good.

1:00pm GMT - made our way back to the area near our hotel on the Tram 15 and found a place for lunch. This place called Komybebe (or Comibebe, depending on where you look at the place) had these complete meals for 8 euros including a starter, a choice of 3 entrees, a drink, and a dessert. So amanda and I each tried the salad and cheese and split it. The cheese was like soft, and smelled funkily, but kinda tasted a bit like parmesan. Amanda liked it more than I did (she says it's because she's "cheesy"). I had the "frankfurt" which was kinda like a little hot dog cut in half and grilled, but it was more like a sausage and it was ok. And guess what it came with - FRIES. It also came with a fried egg. How bizarre. For dessert I had "chocolate mousse" which was really more like a bowl of chocolate goo. Anyway, it was a very good deal and I also ate lots of olives. And I was sooooo stuffed.

2:30pm GMT - We took a shortcut back to the hotel to avoid the asshole at the restaurant. I found that I had the card he had given me, the place is called Restaurante Torremolinos on R. portas S. Antao 60. AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE, what an ass.

4:00pm GMT - after resting for a while we decided we would go back out. The only really major thing in the city we had missed was the famous Se Cathedral. We asked the guy at the hotel front desk and he said it was easiest just to walk, so we did and he was quite right. We got there around 5pm and the church was still open - very pretty inside and I am particularly proud of the picture of the stained glass window I took. We wanted to see the cloisters, which we would've gotten in for free with our LisboaCards, but she wouldn't let us in even though we saw people walking around and coming out and the sign out front said it was open til 7pm. WTF. Oh well.

5:30pm GMT - we weren't really sure what to do and knew we needed somewhat of an early night because we have to be up at like 6:30am tomorrow, so we made our way back to the area where our hotel is. I feel a little badly eating there so many times but it was just convenient. Right by the cathedral there was an extremely busy pastelaria and I bought a little cake roll thingy for 1 euro to save for breakfast tomorrow, since we'll be leaving before the hotel starts serving.

6:00pm GMT - Near the hotel, we had dinner early at an Italian place near our hotel that was apparently owned by the place we went to the other night because the menu was the same. Amanda and I split a margherita pizza and I was still full. Cheap dinner.

And that's it! Tomorrow I will write a wrapup, etc. Bye Lisbon!