We arrived in lisbon after a 7hour night bus at 6:30 in the morning. Riding into the city on the metro, and then walking to the center of town, lisbonºs uncanny similarity to San Francisco shocked us. Lisbon contains a lovely "golden gate bridge," trolly cars and fun walking/shopping streets. We walked into the first open hostel we found, discovered a full capacity, then made our way to another hostel called "Yes." "Yes" awed us from the beginning. Clean, open, and jammed with people, the staff checked us in and invited us to have the breakfast all the travelers indulged themselves in.
  We took our time in lisbon cruising around and getting to know the city. compared to marakesch, we explored with ease, moving slow and taking in portuguese culture. Expericnes included: happening upon a mass in portugese in a beautiful church, witnessing the beautiful combination of the ocean running into the orange roof countryside, and eating dinner sitting on the dock of the bay. Not only did we spend all day getting to know the city, we also spent part of our night getting familiar with the unique lisbon night life. Our hostel took everyone out and introducded us to the city streets- packed with young people enjoying a drink and hanging out with friends.
 
Porto, like toledo, greeted us with rain. However, the rain did not stop us from taking our map in hand and doing our best to see some sights. Porto´s beauty rivals most of the cities rebekah and I recall. A walk across their daunting bridge allows a full view of colorful houses, a clear blue river and busy merchants. Everyone told us we must visit a wine cellar (where they store the port), so making our way to the tourist office we asked where we could get a free sample of the infamous port. Luckily, we ran into an english speaker on our way to a cellar, and she kindly let us know about a free tour and tasting happening in about a half an hour. I sipped my first glass of port, soon learning about the long and special process to produce the much sought after drink. the barrels of wine/port were HUGE- and some of them they store up to 30 or 40 years till they sell them. In my opinion, thatºs a long time to wait for a drink. To each their own. :)
  The restaraunt owned by Manel and his son Andre was our favorite part of porto. We enjoyed typical portugese food- something called Franchisia, a delicious portguese rendition of lasanga. The restauraunt overlooked the water, perfectly positioned for watching the sunset. After eating there for two nights in a row, we witnessed the locals rooting for a soccer team, learned some portugese words, and enjoyed being spoiled by andre with free samples of drink and food.

    Portugal leaves us hungry for more of its culture and people.

oh! i almost forgot- portugal produced some rebeliousness and adventure, leaving us with shining rings in our noses!