Lisbon part 1

Mandatory safety update for concerned parties: I. Arrived in Portugal without incident and successfully found my lodging.

Arrival: I arrived in Lisbon at 11am and took the cheap way to my hostel (public transport) with the help of a friendly tourist booth attendant at the airport. I explained to her that distance walking was less important to me than simplicity of directions (many of you no doubt know that I am slightly, ahem, challenged when it comes to directions) so she literally drew me a map and sent me on a bus with no transfers. I still managed to end up wandering for an extra hour--wearing my big backpack, clutching a handful of colorful tourist maps, I have never felt like such a tourist in my life. I definitely walked past the same group of elderly portuguese men at least 3 times (I stopped to ask directions and discovered that the Portuguese I had practiced on the plane was pretty bad) What saved me was the trolley tracks. I vaguely remembered that the hostel advertised itself as on tram line 28 so when I saw said tram I just followed it's tracks for a mile or so until I saw my hostel.

Alfama Patio Hostel:
This place was great! I think they said that the building was more than 300 years old and it was tucked away in the medieval part of Lisbon (Alfama) which consists of tiny winding streets on a giant hill with a view of the ocean and the rest of the city. There were lots of other guests from Europe, all in their 20s and very chatty. I met a couple of delightfully sterotypically gay Germans from Düsseldorf  who shared a bottle of wine with me and complained that they couldn't find any hair wax in Lisbon (one of them was a professional hair and makeup artist). I payed for dinner at the hostel that night and was delightd to discover that I love Portuguese food. (More descriptions to come). I ended the evening laughing with the Germans and a Norwegian guy (who introduced himself as a Viking) talking about accents and what they sound like to an American or German ear (for example, it took me an hour to realize that the Norwegian guy was really drunk because a drunk Norwegian accent sort of just sounds Norwegian to me.....sorry Norway)