sharks can have over 20,000 teeth come and go throughout their life

That is just one of the amazing things I learned this weekend in Lisboa (Lisbon), Portugal. Lisboa was gorgeous!! The streets where we were staying were really pretty. We stayed in this semi-famous hostel called Lisbon Lounge. It was super funky and decorated solely by the local artists of Lisboa.

We got to Lisboa on Thursday night and we just had some dinner and went to bed early so we could wake up and start sight seeing. Friday morning we went to the oceanarium which was SOOOOOOO much fun. If you didn't know, I LOVE animals. I guess the oceanarium in Lisboa is the second largest in the world and the first largest in Europe. It didn't seem to be enormous or anything but it was cool nonetheless. Here's a pic (dedicated to Auntie Linda) of some penguins at the oceanarium:



If you didn't know...Penguins mate for life (awww) and they have impermeable feathers!!! It also said that both parents have chores when it comes to taking care of the kiddies. This fact was also near the penguins: "It would require 100-500 trees to absorb all the CO2 emitted by a computer left on for a whole year". Sounds crazy to me!!!!

We also saw sharks, seadragons (they looks just like seaweed), and a thing called an Ocean Sunfish. It was ENORMOUS... the PICTURES don't do it any justice. It was also really ugly but it seemed to be perfectly content in the water. We also saw what "fish" looked like in the times of dinosaurs. In my pictures, there's a picture of one of the dinosaur-fish and it's size in comparison to a human scuba diver...SUPER scary!!!

I also learned that humans take over 37,000,000,000,000 kg (that's 37 trillion) kilograms of food products out of the ocean every single year.

Here's a picture of me, Stephanie, and my Portuguese boyfriend that I met at the oceanarium Friday afternoon. His name is Luciano and he's a very nice guy.

We also saw the St. George Castle (Castelo de São Jorge). Here's me and Sam pretending that we are in jail and very happy about it:

sidenote: I wish my name had one of those funny a's in it. Jessicã Collins


You can see more pictures of the castle in all it's greatness if you go Here. There was also a watch tower built for the castle...which you can also see....I need more details on the history of them, I couldn't find any!! :( Sowwy

Here's me, Sam, and Steph at an ADORABLE little bar called "chapito". (I promise that I have more friends than just them, but they are great friends!!). You can see everyone I went with if you look at my pics. Anyways, Chapito was really artsy and we listened to Fado, one of the most well known versions of Portuguese music. There were 4 guitars and a single singer. There were about 4 singers in total and they all had beautiful voices. I was really happy to be there, it felt very "european". There's two videos of "fado" at the bottom. I hope it works...



See that TINY little person sittong on the steps on the right?? That's me. I'm in front of the "Igreja de Santa Maria Maior; Se Patriarcel de Lisboa Seculo XII". I'm missing a few accents but you get the point. In English it is the Church of Santa Maria Maior; Lisbon Patriarchal Cathedral. 12th century (second half). That's so old...but the cathedral was gorgeous. There were a bunch of really cool cathedrals, but this one is the most famous.
The church kind of made me mad because you had to pay to see certain parts....that's another story though!!! grrr







The airplane home was interesting. I was in the window seat, a man next to me, his daughter on the aisle (she had to be like 3.5) and his wife across the aisle on that aisle seat. Well he got up to go to the bathroom so I did too. His daughter was sleeping. When I got back he was already seated so I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if I could get in. Well he told me to just climb over both his daughter (who was again...sleeping) and him. Now I consider myself a pretty agile person, and I'm not fat. But honestly, how do you expect me to climb over TWO people in that small of a space?? OH and I forgot to mention I had a cup of water in my hand. So I hold the cup with my teeth as I try to push myself up and over them (without waking the angel). It DIDN'T work and I spilled my water all over my seat (NONE got on him). 2 seconds later he was pretending to be sleeping. grrrrrr

His wife was a trip too. She was eating an apple (eating apples is normal). She would take a bite...chew it (with her mouth open (EW))...then spit the skin out...IN HER HAND!!! OK now where I come from that is disgussssssssting.

Back to her husband. So right before we landed, we got a yummy piece of candy. I was SO happy to have some candy. But the guy next to me had his face like literally right next to mine (my face was looking outside). If I turned it to look towards the aisle, I probably would have hit heads with him...that's how close he was!!! helloooo...personal space!!! To top it all off he kept loudly sucking on the stupid candy we got!!! grossss

It was so funny because Sam was across the aisle (next to the wife) so she understood what I was going through hahahaha.

To top it all off there was a guy about 8 rows back who was snoring so loudly I thought he was right behind me!!! It was really funny.....

This weekend was so much fun. I'm really glad I got to go and I would recommend Portugal to anyone who asked!!!

Well that's my trip in a VERY condensed nutshell.



Today I'm really homesick!!! I'm getting nervous about the holidays and stuff but I hope it will just pass. It seems like forever until I'll be home again. Homesickness always hits me when I'm not busy or when I'm tired/sleepy. It also hit me today when I made myself a really gross pot of mostaccioli and realized i'm a disaster in the kitchen...

how can you mess up mostaccioli??


i love you all! thanks for reading, once again. email me if you get a chance :)

and lets go bears!! and illini!!! muck fichigan...!!