The Barbarian's Perspective

While the day didn’t really count as a “proper” one for the trip, there still was a few things to write about. For starters, we had to fill up the car before returning it, which none of us had done before. This ended up being very easy, as the previous night I’d checked and found out that the gas station chain where we’d get a discount with was directly on the way to the airport. We got there…

Because we had to drive back to Lisbon later on in the day, the onus was on us to get as much done as we could doing things in the Algarve doing things. We got up early, to find that our Guy was up and prepared a nice little spread for us in the kitchen. Having some toast (but no tea) and fruit was a quintessential English breakfast, but it gave us enough carbs to at least tackle the…

This was the second of three travel days on the trip, and this time we’d be flying down to the very south of the country to experience the warmer climes. We could have technically taken the train, but doing so would’ve costed us a valuable seven or so hours, so flying less than 90 minutes was the option of choice. Our flight wasn’t until the early afternoon, meaning we had plenty of time to kill…

Today was the day I was looking forward to arguably the most on this trip: spending a day going through the Douro Valley and sampling wine! I’m by no means a wine drinker, but getting a chance to try the famous Portuguese wines straight from the source was an opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up! Fortunately, my distinctly non-drinker mom was on board with this, and as things would turn out,…

Now that we had a good night’s rest, it was time to explore Porto more. Falling in line with our usual modus operandi, we booked a walking tour to help us get acquainted with the sites and history. Another view of the city, but this time from an observation point in our neighborhood. Our tour took us around the center of Porto, which was fair as there was a lot to see. However, before we really…

Today was when we’d be heading out up north, to the second city of Porto. Our train wasn’t scheduled to depart until the afternoon, so that gave us a few hours to kill. Harkening back to the first day, we decided to visit the house of Portugal’s first Nobel Prize winner, the writer José Saramago. Here’s what a Nobel Prize looks like! Having successfully killed an hour, we made the twenty-minute…

Today was all about our excursion to Sintra, a town roughly half an hour outside Lisbon. Why here? There were a series of picturesque mansions and palaces that always rank highly on things to do in Portugal, and we weren’t about to miss it. Getting outside of the urban sprawl of the capital was also a bonus, so we were looking forward to it. However, as it was a wet day, our expectations were…

Sunday was our “free” day to roam to our heart’s content, and we naturally decided to make the most of it. We decided to go with a suggestion Logan made yesterday and hike up to one of the oldest districts in the city, Alfama. Here, there was the Castle of São Jorge, which we were able to see the previous day. Because we knew this would be a popular destination, we made a point of getting there…

Back in late spring/early summer, my mom asked me if I wanted to go to Portgual, and naturally I said yes! After all, it has long been up there on my list of countries as well as giving me the chance to practice my Portuguese from my self-studies! To make a long story short, we booked our trip to the country for the Thanksgiving break. It also posed a slightly different set of challenges to plan…

As some of you might already know, I permanently left Russia back in the middle of April last year due to my work contract/visa being ended prematurely. It was, however, time to come back due to a few different factors, and I left with my head held high. That isn’t what I wanted to discuss though, since there’s one thing a lot of people experienced when returning from abroad: reverse culture…