The Seven Continent Trip Blog

We have arrived on our long-awaited trip. I´m sitting now in our hostel in Lisbon, where we plan on staying through the end of the month.

It was a pretty long trip, I´ll have to say that. We were up very early on the morning of the 25th, to catch our plane in Charlotte, NC. We flew from there up to JFK in NYC, and then on to Dublin, Ireland, on Aer Ingus. As commonly happens to me, I didn´t sleep at all on that flight. Even worse, it was only a 6.5 hour flight, so by the time I was getting tired enough to sleep, we were in Dublin. We had a two hour layover there, which had us sitting in the airport much like two exhausted zombies. Once we finally boarded our flight down here to Lisbon, we could barely keep our eyes open, and ended up sleeping the entire 2.5 hour flight.

Once in Lisbon, we had no issues. Our bags miraculously beat us out of the terminal, so there was no waiting or worrying for them. We loaded up and jumped on a bus that was to take us within a few blocks of our hostel, no issues there. The problem came once we disembarked from the bus, and found we had to struggle up an enormous hill to reach our hostel. 

I guess I should note the weight of our bags. At some point shortly before leaving from South Carolina, my bag weighed in over 70 pounds, once I attached the daypack to the backside. We did some hardcore weaning of our supplies, something difficult when you are trying to anticipate five months of travel needs. By the time we weighed our bags in the airport, my bag weighed 46 pounds, partly because I had the daypack on my back, and partly due to the weaning of the "unnecessary" supplies, including our sleeping pads, which we may end up regretting having left them behind when we go camping. Jess´s bag weighed about 30-35 pounds, which is pretty impressive given her small size.

At any rate, hauling the bags up this huge hill, probably at a 35-40 degree angle, after little sleep, little food, and loads of general grotchiness on both our parts, was a chore. In the end, we found our hostel with no issues and checked in. Per our budget, we are staying in a bunkroom, this particular room with a total of 8 beds. We even met our first hostel acquaintance, some Danish guy staying in Lisbon to study for five months (and staying in a hostel? Wow...).

We then headed out to see a little of the town while our strength held (turned out not to be too long, given this district of Lisbon is really, really hilly). We found a little cafe for Coke and pastries, and to learn a little Portugese. Later we found a shop where (according to our budget) we bought a bag of pasta, some tomato paste, some mushrooms and sardines, cheap wine, and some cookies for less than nine euros. Not too bad. We felt good enough about our budget, and the fact that we are staying under it for today at least, that we got a couple of beers in a little cafe that has a great view looking out over the bay, the big suspension bridge, and a nice section of Lisbon.

Until next time, be safe.