Ghost Town

And here we are at day 7.

So you know that part in Grease when Frenchie is telling Sandy that Danny is an "amoeba on fleas on rats"? From now on, I'm going to tell people "He's a flea on the dog on the accordion on the metro in Lisbon."

I've seen a lot of crazy things on a metro before, but never like this.

We took the train to Coimbra, which is a town comparable to Oxford since it is the educational center of Portugal. Not a whole lot like Oxford, but whatever. Coimbra used to be the capital of Portugal until something that I don't know about happened and the capital became Lisbon. And we figured that we ought to go check out at least one college town on our trip and see what the fuss is all about. And first things first - time for pastries. A couple things about this photo...

1. There is a huge gold palm tree in the middle of this pastry shop.

2. I was able to use my extensive Portuguese vocabulary and ask for a knife, or faca, for you Portuguese speakers out there. I was so proud of myself!

Next on the itinerary - act like you're in a photo shoot for Scott.

"And that's when he said 'She went to get a huge pizza?'"

This kid got the memo about red pants AND posing for Scott. Awesome.

Have you ever been to/in Rexburg during General Conference weekend? Being Coimbra the Saturday before Semana Santa was very similar. Seriously - no one was there.
And just to prove it to those who care, I did my duty and lit a candle for a certain friend of mine (since it is tradition) in the name of Evita Peron.

Then we went to the old monastery next door to get some lunch.
Tienes Jamon y Queso??

And here's Deb going into the confessional.

The only other time in my life that I rode a finiculare was in Capri, Italy. You know the song...but did you know that its a mode of transportation? The song is about as random as that video I just linked to. Kind of a ripoff for a 2 minute ride up the side of a hill (3 euros each!) but it was fun and you hardly see these things!

At the top of the hill we arrived at the University. And there was "wall art" everywhere. In our tour book, it said to look for this one specifically. Click here to read up on the G8 in case you don't know what it is. I'm here to educate, people!

Since there were no students in sight, I don't know if we got an adequate view of what Coimbra is like on a normal day, but here's a picture that may tell you a bit about town. Seems like a party town to me!

Hello red door!

This was taken at the bottom of the Street of Broken Ribs. Ironically, Scott almost broke a rib walking down the hill.

Our last stop before dinner in Coimbra was at "Portugal Dos Pequenitos." Basically, it was a kids park of Portuguese sites. They have all of their major monuments in kiddie size! Here are are pretending to be Alice in Wonderland and growing out of the house.

Isn't Coimbra beautiful at night??

Only 2 more days before going home. It was at about this point that I was beginning to think about how I could live here permanently. Seriously.