The latest from Lisbon

We have been busy, in one form or another, over the last week. Katy has been slowly wrapping up her research, finishing up the last samples that will be useful for her data set. While I have been trying to soak up the last sights and places I want to go before we leave for Italy on Wednesday. I went out to the "local" bouldering area again on Monday, and finished all of the routes that I could climb...as my Mom commented, I posted a neat video of a simple climb with great background footage (the tide crashing on the rocks) on my bouldering site. Tuesday and Wednesday I met her for lunch near the museum, and did a little work myself at home...trying to get ahead for the fall semester.

Thursday, I went to the Modern Art Museum and the Gulbenkian Museum. The Gulbenkian is a world famous art museum donated to the people of Lisbon by a gentleman named Calouste Gulbenkian. He became very wealthy throughout his lifetime and had a passion for spending his money on fine art. As the second World War was raging in most of Europe, he fled to Lisbon for safety and found it to be the most welcoming and wonderful place he had ever lived, eventually in 1955 he died here. He felt a debt of gratitude to the people and beginning in 1956, the art he collected for over 4 decades was assembled, from his private collection and the pieces loaned to multiple museums of the world, to form the Gulbenkian museum. This place was truly first class with many example of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman statues and art. He was also fascinated with oriental art, with a vast collection from Persia, Turkey, Syria, Armenia (his origin), India, China and Japan. Finally, he had a huge collection of European art, including pieces from many of the famous European artists...Rembrandt, Manet, Monet, and Rodin just to mention a few. I'm not too artsy myself, and museums can bore me rather quickly...but as you can tell, this museum made a lasting impression on me. I was so bored in the Modern Art Museum that I took a bunch of pictures, but so fascinated in the Gulbenkian, that I didn't take a single one. Thursday evening, we met up with Katy's buddy from the museum and had a great dinner at one of the many awesome restaurants in town.

Friday, we took a sightseeing tour of Lisbon Harbor, where the Tejo River starts to open up into the Atlantic, by boat. This was a great way to see some familiar parts of Lisbon, but from a different perspective. Friday night, there was a huge parade in town to celebrate St Anthony, the patron saint of Lisbon. We stayed for the first 45 minutes and realized that they had only had 3 of the 23 performances, and didn't think we could make it for the rest. This was a big to do with the locals, because each neighborhood of Lisbon had there own little performance and celebration of where they live. These people are very humble, but very proud of their neighborhoods and their accomplishments and individuality's. On our way home, we stopped off at an outdoor wine bar with a live band performing...OK, the truth is that there was a huge hill ahead of us and this was a good reason to take a break:) The band was very European with the main rhythm being supplied by a synthesizer/computer, with just accents of the bass and guitar...and of course the vocals were Portuguese. Before we knew it, the place was hopping and there were around 75-100 people dancing in the streets and area surrounding the stage. Its was a very fun atmosphere, but eventually we had to face the hill and head back to our apartment. I think I mentioned in a previous blog that Lisbon is the city of 7 hills, but I think they forgot to count a few! Its rare to walk on flat ground around here.

Yesterday, we went out to Estoril, near Cascais and my favorite climbing spot we've mentioned before. Estoril has one of the most popular beaches around, as well as what has been described as an upscale casino. The beach was really nice, but crowded. We rented an umbrella and chairs and spent most of the time lounging and enjoy the day. After we had left the beach and were going to see the casino, I realized that I had left my wedding ring in the bathroom...the shock and dread overwhelmed me. I threw the backpack at Katy and told her to meet me back at the bathrooms as I ran off in hopes of retrieving it. Once I got there, I snatched the ring just before the guy cleaning could pocket it...too close for my comfort! Just for those of you that are unfamiliar...I don't run very often, mainly due to my asthma. This might be the first time I have ran a 1/2 mile since high school gym class:) As the asthma was subsiding, we took a quick tour of the casino (you wouldn't find James Bond in this one...I've seen better on a cruise ship), and hopped the train back into Lisbon. We had big plans for the evening, that I was really excited about...Cirque du Soleil! We got ready, which including some cold showering because we ran out of gas to fire the water heater (our "landlord" gladly refilled it before we returned), and headed out to the show. If you haven't spent the ridiculous amount of money to go see one of the Cirque du Soleils yet...what are you waiting for? You wont be disappointed! One of the deciding factors was that the tickets were cheaper than in the US (45 euro, or about $65 for the same seats that are $125 in the states). When we got there, they informed us that our tickets had been upgraded to the 110 Euro seats because those didn't sell out! We were 6 rows back, almost dead center...perfect way to spend our 4 week wedding anniversary (hehe). The show was incredible, with some of the most talented gymnasts and acrobats I've seen. I really enjoyed the awe in Katy's eyes when I'd look over at her...look like a little kid staring at her favorite Christmas gift she'd just opened! It was really late afterwards and the Metro (subway) stops running at 1am. We caught a wild driving cab ride to take us from the show to the Metro, and had just enough time to make all the switches on the subway and catch the very last metro to our home station...thank goodness! We came in and nearly collapsed in the bed...but what an awesome day!

Today, we are planning on going to a weekly art fair they have in Belem, one of the neighborhoods/suburbs of Lisbon. We'll hopefully get a chance to blog one more time before we leave for Italy, and I'm going to try to put some new pictures up on the Slideshow so everyone can see the sights from this week. Lisbon is truly an incredible place, it doesn't take much to make you want to stay here forever, and its going to be tough to say goodbye!