Semi-Solo in Portugal
One of the things that first bonded my roommates and I was the shared goal to travel to Portugal. Through a lot of slowly spoken conversations and planning we managed to book a flight to Lisbon, a train to Sintra, a bus to Porto, and a plane back to BCN. I decided to take advantage of not having classes on Friday and extended my vacation to four days (we'll just not focus on the fact that I skipped classes on Monday, capiche?). The only catch was that they couldn't join me until Saturday, so I had to decide whether I should put my big girl pants on and travel alone for 24 hours, or wait to go with my roommates. Knowing myself, if I thought about it for too long the paranoia would settle in and I would talk myself out of going alone, so I bought the flight for Friday morning knowing this would be a good introduction to solo travel.
My newest hidden talent is picking weekends with bad weather, and Portugal was no exception. The forecast for rain every day of the trip only confirmed my suspicions that the sun hates me, so I packed my bright pink, look-at-me-I'm-a-tourist rain jacket and headed to the airport.
Figuring out the public transportation in any country is challenging, let alone when the instructions for said transportation are in another language. After staring at a map for far too long, I picked a bus and took it to the farthest end of the city, working my way to the hostel in the center. The nice thing about traveling by yourself is that only you have one person to make happy and don't have to delegate decision making. Being an incredibly indecisive individual, I walked around and looked at every menu I could find, took turns down random streets, and doubled back about a thousand times — just doing things as I pleased.
When I couldn't ignore my growling stomach anymore I summoned the courage to go to a restaurant that had live fado, a traditional Portuguese style of music. Did it feel uncomfortable to eat by myself at a restaurant? Oh yeah. Did everyone there think I had been stood up? Probably. Will I ever see these people again? Nope. It may just seem like a baby step but I proved that it is, in fact, possible to go to a restaurant by myself without dying of embarrassment. Something I would never do in the U.S., or even in BCN, solo travel brought out an inner boldness that I wasn't sure I actually had.
My roommates joined me the next morning, and although I had liked being by myself the previous day, it was a relief to have my compañeras back. Finding the right travel companions makes life a little more entertaining: having people to help navigate weird streets and confusing languages, to take embarrassing touristy pictures with, and to share the sights.
Most cities offer free walking tours if you know where to look, so we found one in Spanish and explored the city with the help of a very spunky madrileño. We saw the sun starting to set while walking back to the hostel, so we turned into the crazy people going down random streets in an attempt to find the horizon. We found a viewpoint just in time to sit down and watch the sky, which for the first time all day had a little bit of blue. A minute later a man sat down near us and started playing the guitar; without a dish to collect donations, he was playing simply for the joy of it while people in the park were all happy to sit quietly and appreciate the evening.
Every once in a while you encounter moments that make you realize just how lucky you are, and this was one of those moments for me. I don't think I can put words to the sheer amount of tranquility that I felt sitting in that park, more content with life than I can ever remember being. If it weren't for the cold, I could have sat there for hours, happy just to be experiencing the complicated, confusing, incredible thing that is life.
On Sunday morning we hopped the first train to Sintra, a small town known for its palaces and fairytale-esque scenery. My roommates and I all wanted to do different things, so we decided it was best to split up and meet back in Lisbon that evening. By myself once again, I hesitantly bought my entrance to the Palacio de Pena, wondering the whole time if I had made a mistake by leaving my friends. My anxiety wore off as soon as I started hiking through the national park surrounding the palace. This was my first time being in nature since leaving the U.S. and I was overcome with relief to be surrounded by trees, a sunny sky, and virtually no people. I ended up spending 4 hours in the park, meandering my way around the woods and the palace, casually eaves dropping on the various English and Spanish tours I passed (I'm a college student on a budget, remember?). I may or may not have started singing "I'm On Top of the World" when I climbed to the highest part of the park, but I'm going to plead the fifth on this one...
I eventually had to leave my forest sanctuary and go back to interacting with people, but I found a local artist in town, so it was worth leaving my little haven. The roommates and I reconvened in Lisbon and boarded a bus for the last leg of our trip: Porto. A few hours north of Lisbon, Porto is much less touristy. On Monday morning we woke up early and walked from one side of the city to the other until we reached the Atlantic ocean. It may sound weird, but I found a little comfort knowing that my country was somewhere on the other side of those waves; it may be 4 thousand miles and a choppy ocean away, but it's there waiting for me nonetheless.
Walking a combined 55+ miles over four days is enough to wear a person out, so I returned to BCN exhausted but oh so content with life. It's for this reason that I'll forever be grateful for Portugal; those quiet moments watching the sunset and hiking through the forest allowed me to fully appreciate how amazing of a life I'm living. I love being surrounded by the hustle of Barcelona, but it wasn't until I was able to breathe without 1.6 million other peoples' second-hand smoke and car exhaust that I was able to fully comprehend the magnitude of my experiences.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
