Stephanie: I Say Lisboa, You Say Lisbon, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Remember that one time that I went on a mission to Portugal? Oh wait a second. I wish! Don't Deb and I make great looking companions? Some of the young women walked up to us and said "Sisters?" which I absolutely loved. Attending church in a country where I don't speak the language was a really cool experience. Everyone there was so nice and of course a member of the bishopric asked me if I knew the Elder Zundel that had been there a few years before. I don't know him, but I have to say my friends, I sure do love my last name. Zundels are so dang cool. {claytons, i love you too - don't worry}

We met some really nice people at church; especially one guy named Antonio. When he was introducing Scott to the elders, he said to Scott "Ask them 'Who's your daddy?!'" To whoever taught him that - good one. Of course we all had a good laugh except for Antonio. I mean...I would never do anything like that to anyone - right Sil?

After church we made our way down to Belem, which is an area of Lisbon. Here we are in front of the monastery - look how ornate it is!

Since it was Palm Sunday, there were palm branches at the end of every aisle in the church - it was so beautiful!

And I just had to post this picture since I think it is so awesome. The tomb of Vasco De Gama is here in Belem and here are his fake statue hands with a beautiful painting in the background. Nice work, Scott.

The monument to the Explorers was across the street and in front of it, there is a huge beautiful mosaic on the ground. Here's me and Deb blowing the ships home with the West Wind.

And here's a picture of the entire mosaic from the top of the monument. We were kneeling down right by Alaska in case you are wondering. Isn't that awesome?!

And now, a picture of us with Lisbon in the background.

And if you're facing the other way, this is what you see. Oh yes, this looks quite a bit like a picture that would be taken right by my house, no? The bridge is indeed red and I'm too lazy to see who copied who with the whole Golden Gate Bridge thing. So whoever had the idea first, good job! I like it. The thing that looks like a cross is actually a "Christ the Redeemer" statue like the one in Rio de Janeiro.

We couldn't find jamon y queso in Portugal quite like we could in Spain - but what we did find in abundance here are pastries. Seriously, just looking at those is making my mouth water. These are so famous that they can be found all over Brazil as well.

Pasteis de Belem anyone?

I swear that we took every single mode of transportation possible while we were on the trip. Seriously - car, bus, cable car, boat, camel, minibus, metro, train...and is there anything else available for us? A bunch of old ladies were on this cable car and got mad at us for some unknown reason when we got on the car.

Here we are at the Castle of Sao Jorge. Have you ever heard a peacock scream? There was one up in a tree outside the castle tower and we were walking underneath it when it started to scream. Click here if you want to hear it for yourself. (please note that in this video, the peacocks were 4 houses away, so you can only imagine when it was in a tree right above us). Seriously, it was like a banchi in the tree yelling "HELP ME!" and it scared me to death. So we walk more towards the castle and a bat flies right over my head. The cats inside the castle were totally freaking my stuff and then as we're looking out at Scott, I see some type of very large feline walking into the woods behind him. I totally felt like I was in some type of animal horror movie.

Deb was insistent on the fact that she wanted to climb a castle wall. I could have cared less, so here we are.

We eventually made our way to the Oriente train station that night in Lisbon to take an overnight train back to Madrid. On the way over, Scott realized that he had accidentally purchased a ticket for the wrong day, which put him out over 60 euros. Yikes. Needless to say, he was a little stressed about getting everything taken care of. Scott and I met last year when I went to Duck Beach. One of the nights that I remember most was when someone taught us the "Dip dip dip" game. To try and make Scott feel better about his current situation, I tried playing "Dip dip dip" with him. Obviously it didn't make the situation any better, but I do believe that it made us all laugh.