Lisbon, Portugal

In the last two Christmas breaks, we spent our time outside Europe—specifically Dubai and Brisbane. But this Christmas, we didn’t go far from France for logistics and budget reasons. Well… mainly budget reasons.

There were a few options we weighed, including staying home. However, a unanimous decision was made, and we chose Lisbon. Neither of us had ever been there before. I’d heard many things about Lisbon—especially about the food. Seafood, to be exact. And oh yeah, their pastel de nata. 😉

Coincidentally, a good friend of mine, Kevin, happens to live in Lisbon. What? Yeah, okay. I knew he lived there since he moved. There’s nothing coincidental about that at all. So I told him we’d be visiting his city. However, he was also planning to visit his parents in France on the exact days we’d be in Lisbon. Ben, c’est dommage. Actually, it wasn’t that much of a dommage because he recently got a new cat, Patrick. Instead of paying someone to cat-sit, we could stay at his place—and in return, feed Patrick and play with him. Not bad, eh?

I knew Lisbon was an uphill city, but I never expected it to be that uphill. Mec, you need one year of cardio training before going there. And since I definitely didn’t have that, Bolt came to the rescue—which, by the way, was surprisingly cheaper than in France.

So what did we do in Lisbon? Food. We probably ate seafood every single day. And on my birthday, Iris booked us dinner at a restaurant for some extra-special (and extra-expensive) seafood. And it was indeed uma fucking delícia! On top of that, those pastéis de nata are something else. We even brought some home. Even though they were airport quality, they were still good.

Those few days in Lisbon were a nice way to escape the cold winter in France and get some sun. Or so we thought. That was our rookie mistake. Because of the strong winds, it was even colder than in France. 😄 But it was all good. Cold weather with fresh seafood? I’ll take that any day.