Lisbon: drinking in my childhood.

Although I was still waiting for my visa, I was getting restless and didn't want to impose on Ella anymore, so I headed back to Portugal for a bit. I spent most of my time kickin' it in Aveiro, but I also went down to Lisbon to explore for a couple days.

I spent a lot of the time just wandering around, kind of with a goal in mind but with no real urgency in reaching it. In my wandering, I found this abandoned, crumbled-down, graffiti'd plot in the middle of a normally built-up area.

Smoke break with a dog, near the castle [Castelo de São Jorge].

One of the days, I met up with Jorge and Nelson, two CouchSurfers I had hosted in Freiburg. After getting some authentic - and delicous - pastéis de Belém [pastries with the egg cream that's in pretty much every pastry in Portugal] in Belém [a city right next to Lisbon], we went back to Lisbon, where we went to the Pavilhão Chinês [Chinese Pavilion].

The Pavilhão Chinês felt a lot like my childhood turned into a bar. Since my mom was/is an antique dealer, my brother and I spent a lot of time in antique stores where she had a booth when we were kids. The stores were full of glass cabinets with old busts and figurines and toys...but don't worry, we didn't drink expensive beer in the stores back then.

I got a ride back to Aveiro with Jorge and his parents, who were heading to Braga for Christmas, and on the way we saw a FULL-ON DOUBLE RAINBOW. So intense. I decided not to actually yell that out, though, because his parents seemed nice and I didn't want to scare them.