Welcome to Lisbon, Portugal

Olá and welcome to Lisbon, Portugal! We arrived in Lisbon late Wednesday night after just over 38 hours of traveling. Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal, and its largest city with a population of around three million. The city is perched among seven hills along the Tejo River, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. We are beyond excited to be visiting Europe for the first time and to explore this very charming city!

Travel is Exhausting

The travel involved to get here was definitely the most exhausting we have encountered this year. Everything went according to plan, so we were expecting it, but that didn’t make it any less grueling. The trip included three separate flights and a total of 14 hours of layovers. Here we are trying to sleep during our nine hour layover in Angola.

When we finally arrived in Lisbon, we were greeted with an extremely long immigration line. We stood in line for two and a half hours, which truly felt like torture at the end of our long journey. When it was finally our turn and the immigration officer asked Dave what country we were coming from, he was so fried he couldn’t remember. This picture is of the kids as we waited for our Uber to take us to our Airbnb. Braxton had to keep standing up so he wouldn’t fall asleep.

Our New Home Away From Home

Our Airbnb is on the third floor of a very old building. It’s extremely quirky in the best possible way and for lack of a better word, has a ton of charm. It feels like it has been loved and lived in for decades.

The condo is at the top of a hill and has amazing natural light. There is a small balcony off the living room with expansive views in every direction. There’s even a glimpse of the Tejo River in the distance.

There are traditional Portuguese tiles in the bathroom and along the baseboards of the living room and dining room. The exposed beam ceiling is throughout the entire condo and I love it! We are all excited to call this place home for the next five weeks.

Finding Our Footing in Lisbon

We made the usual first trip to the grocery store, which always feels a little exhausting in a new place. There is a fantastic store about a 10-15 minute walk from our condo. We’ve found that every grocery store has its own way of handling produce. Unlike in the states – Thailand, Sri Lanka, and South Africa had an employee next to the produce that would weigh your items and put a sticker on them prior to you going to checkout. Portugal has a similar system, but the machine is automated. As we struggled to figure it out a very nice man stepped in to help us. He didn’t speak English, but through gestures we figured it out. Our refrigerator is tiny, so we will be making a lot of trips to the grocery store. We don’t mind though, especially when you get to walk past all this stunning architecture along the way. I found myself wanting to take a picture at every turn.

The weather is cool here with highs in the upper 60’s and lows in the 50’s and our condo is especially cold at times with its old, drafty windows. We all needed some warmer clothes, so we made the trek to a second hand store that was about a 30 minute walk away. The store was amazing! We all got some new things and now have a place we can donate anything we no longer want or need.

When Everything Feels Familiar and Foreign at Once

Walking around the cobblestone streets of Lisbon today, we appreciated how we just blended right in. We have been in several places this year where we turned heads and felt out of place. Although the language barrier still exists — I had to use Google Translate to read labels at the grocery store, and AI helped me again to operate the washing machine — things still feel familiar. Dave has been practicing some Portuguese phrases for the past few weeks and has already used them several times. The English proficiency is high in Portugal, but outside the tourist areas it’s less common. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of this continent, but I’m already seeing what the hype is all about. We get it, Europe — I think you’re going to be amazing!