Magpie's Flight: First stop on the crazy train through Europe!!

Turns out, when you're in the hot sun, eating delicious food, and playing a LOT, you don't blog much :) However, Amsterdam has decided to be rainy, windy and borderline cold, so it's bidniz time (10 Pts to those that know the reference)!

First stop on this new continent, Lisbon, Portugal! I am a big fan. Lisbon has beautiful beaches, great architecture, reasonable prices, hot summertime weather, and an awesome sounding language. The town was large, but still somehow seemed quaint. It was very clean and had several great viewpoints (Chiado Sq, one of the best). All of the streets are cobblestone and brick, many of the bldgs have great tile work on the outside (if not covering the entire bldg), statues galore, street parties, huge churches, and adorable cafes! We rented "Go-Cars" and it was so fun! It's like a three wheeled scooter, that has been turned into a mini-car. It has a built in GPS that navigates you around the city, while telling you facts. We went to a viewpoint where you could see the oldest part of the city and the castle, to a flea market (we got some great handmade stuff), almost got hit by a taxi...it was an adventure. I've driven scooters plenty, but when I first started driving, I wasn't making a corner and for some reason I didn't think of stopping as an option and we just rammed the curb in the middle of traffic with our bright yellow baby car. To make it worse, our hostel roommate just happened to be standing right there watching the whole scene (of course she brought it up in front of everyone at the hostel that night). At one point of the tour, the GPS says, this is a great spot to take a break, why don't you pull over and have a beer?...Um, cause I'm driving you. Anyhoo, we had a fantastic time driving around in our lunchlady hairnets and helmets sight seeing the beautiful Lisbon! Other day time activities were laying on the caiscas beach (water is cold), wandering the streets, and hanging out drinking coffee at the outdoor cafes. We also decided to get a taste of the nightlife one night, and went out to The lively neighborhood Barrio Alto. The streets were filled with people and music, drinking, and dancing! It was ridiculously late (because they are night owls in Europe), and we ran into a group of gay guys that invited us to go to a club with them, and of course we went- so fun. The club had a drag queen show, and we danced the night/morning away. The problem was that we got back to our hotel with only time for a 45 minute nap before we had to be to the airport, so we set our alarm and drifted off....yup, we missed our flight to Madrid, sigh.