Only in Lisbon!

Thankfully I splurged and got a sleeper car for the night train from Madrid to Lisbon, otherwise the trip would have been miserable. I arrived into Lisbon early in the morning and made it to my hostel without too much trouble. I really lucked out with the hostel I´m staying at, Goodnight Backpackers Hostel, the staff immediately welcomed me in and I felt as if I was staying at a friends house. At dinner time everyone gathers in the kitchen cooking then hangs around the common area sharing stories about their travels, by far the best hostel I´ve stayed at on my trip!
I ended up meeting a girl from Philly on the train in from Madrid and we grabbed lunch in the afternoon. It was intriguing to watch how the beggars approached her as we sat at an outdoor cafe (she´s originally from India so naturally has dark skin), it wasn´t until she repeatedly told them no that they would try their case with me. I spent the afternoon hiking around Lisbon (it is an extremely hilly city) and found my way up to Caselo de Sao Jorge (Castle of St. George) which had an unbelievable view of the city and river (crazy fact: Lisbon has a huge bridge spanning over the river that is identical to the Golden Gate bridge). After spending several hours walking up and down the hills I was so tired and sweaty I called it a day and headed back to the hostel. Several of my roommates and I cooked dinner and sat around talking about college football.
I got up the next morning and went for a run around town, if I had known how much hiking and running I´d be doing later that day I would´ve just stayed in bed! Myself and one of my roommates and I decided to catch a train to Sintra ( as small town just outside of Lisbon). For some reason I thought is was going to be right on the beach, turns out it´s up in the mountains, so I was completely unprepared for all the hiking we did!!! Thankfully my flip-flops (yes, I wore flip-flops to go hiking... not smart decision!) held up and I only came away with a skinned up knee. We spent a couple hours hiking through a park then made it up to the Palácio da Pena (the Palace of Pena, on old palace that was built in the 1800´s). The palace was straight from a Disney movie with it´s bright exterior, draw bridge and multiple look out towers. Unfortunately just like the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, our view was completely fogged out. We tried to make it to the top of the mountain to the lookout point but gave up after getting lost several times.
Later that night we wandered over to the Praca de Comerico (one of the main spuares) after we saw a bunch of people getting ready for a run. Given it was the first day of summer they were having a solstice celebration which included a night run (Corrida da Luz, loosely translated it means "run from sunrise"). After taking pictures with a couple Portuguese guys and joking about doing the run ourselves we thought "why the hell not..." We ran back to our hostel, changed, and joined the run. Keep in mind we just had dinner of pork, chips and a coke!!! It was amazing, here I am running the streets of Lisbon with locals cheering me on in Portuguese... only in Lisbon!!! I quickly learned Portuguese runs are alot different from American runs! I´m used to in the States having water stations at every mile, here in Lisbon you don´t get water til half way through the race, which was a little over 3miles... needless to say I was exhausted by the end of the race!!!
I´m leaving Lisbon today and heading to Cascais (a small beach town), the hostel I´m staying at rents out surf boards so I´m going to try my luck at surfing.

Adeus! ("goodbye")
Lauren