Seeing the world in Black and White

Black and White Hostel has been great! The hostel has a yummy breakfast every morning, complete with Nutella and fresh bread and hot coffee. There is a continual stream of mellow music pouring through the speakers in the living room and candles line the perimeter of the room once the sun goes down. Most of the travelers use the kitchen to cook up big pots of pasta to share with their friends for a low-budget meal. Brent and I have a bunk near the balcony of a 14 person room and are neighbored by 4 French women on holiday who are incredibly friendly and talkative. I shared a friendly chat with one of the women about life in Madrid after discovering that starting in September, she will be spending a year in Madrid to finish up her license to become a lawyer! The mix of people in the hostel is quite interesting. There is a family with two younger kids that I believe are from Texas. They have been here for a few days and a few of the 20-some-year-olds and I had a laugh at how the Texan family boy was hogging the only computer in the living room. He can’t be more than 6 or 7 years old and was absolutely engulfed in his Google searches.

I guess we are now finishing up day 3 of our time here in Lisbon. We have both felt so much more comfortable in this city than we did in Madrid. It seems like every time we venture out further and further, we discover that each place is better than the next. The locals have been quite welcoming except for the dozen or so druggies that kept offering Brent hashish yesterday. We both agreed it was time for a haircut and shave, so I trimmed away and voila!—only one offering this morning. Let’s move on to our adventures from the past couple days!...