Weekend 6

This past weekend we went to a Portuguese food festival in a town about two hours northeast of Lisbon called Santarém. The town was quite and quaint. We walked around for a few hours before heading to the Main attraction: The Festival Nacional de Gastronomia em Santerém! The festival featured foods and crafts from various regions of the country, from the Northern Braga to the Southern Algarve. After paying a small entrance fee you could go from restaurant to restaurant and either sit down and have a big hearty meal or stand at the bar to sample some snacks, then moving on to the next. We really enjoyed the food from the Algarve, which was fresh fish, shrimp, lots of olive oil, cilantro, and veggies. They also had this amaazing hearty homemade bread. After stuffing ourselves at various places we went over to the dessert side and gawked at stall after stall of delicious treats. OF the delectable goodies I really liked this little dessert shot of this ginjinha (cherry) liqueur in a little chocolate cup. The festival also had handicrafts from various regions, ranging from baskets and leathers to pottery, tiles, and wine.

Sunday we decided to take another voyage outside of Lisbon, but only across the River Tagus to Alcochete to check out a recommended outlet mall. We crossed the famous Ponte Vasco de Gama, a huuuuge bridge that crosses the river from Lisbon to the southern banks. In fact, it is THE longest bridge in Europe, nearly 11 miles long! As exciting as crossing the bridge was, we shopped out hearts out at the outlets. I got some tall black boots from Aldo which I loveeee. We also ate dinner there, deciding to try out a Mexican food place. I didn't have high hopes for good Mexican here, but I was really REALLY surprised that my green chile chicken enchiladas were spicy!! Not nearly as cheesy as I like them but the chile was delicious!

So it was a good weekend, really fun. Its great having a third roommate in the house, and we seem to be getting along quite well and enjoy getting to know one another! On Saturday night the new roomie and I went out for some drinks in our neighborhood and discovered some neat little places super close to our house. We also have started a Capoeira class together, which I will talk about next post! :)