Portugal Trip (Day 2 - 13 April 2014)

I can't seem to  study now so that's why I'm posting our second day in Portugal. For our second day,we visited Fatima, then back to Lisbon and then took the tram to head over to Castelo de Sao Jorge (Sao Jorge Castle) where we had the most beautiful sunset and then dinner at this Japanese restaurant near our hotel.
Be ready for A LOT of photos!

Fatima Shrine

It was such a hot day and I was amazed by the devotion some people have. They were walking with their knees (if that made sense) all the way to the Shrine and it was a long walk! Imagine if you were just "kneeling" your way through! It was amazing! We took the mass at the new Basilica since we arrived late. The basilica was beautiful and huge!

The famous Tram 28

After getting the bus from Fatima to Lisbon, we then took the Tram 28 and headed over to where Castelo de Sao Jorge was.

The beautiful view at Cerca Moura

Took this tiny cobbled street and walked all the way up to the castle

Entrance to the castle and that's my sister there :D

We could see Restaudores Square from the Castle! The castle gives you the whole view of the city (or so we were told).

My mom and her friend wanted to leave but we insisted that we'd watch the sunset. We didn't regret our decision! It was peaceful and simply beautiful!

Watching the sunset with my sisters and our mom's friend's daughter
(L-R) My sister Nikki, Nichole (mom's friend's daughter), me, and my sister Steffi

A silhouette shot of me as the sun was setting

My parents and our family friend we were travelling with

My sisters and I on Tram 28

We took the tram again back to the city. It was quite a journey and it kinda turned cold during the night. We then headed to this Japanese restaurant called Nagoya. It was a buffet Japanese restaurant and we paid €14.95 each for dinner.

I was starving and ordered plenty of sushi. I was surprised at the strawberry one on the right. It was my first time trying such a thing and it was really good!

Salmon Roll (I think)

I had matcha green tea ice cream for dessert. You have to pay for dessert since it was not included but the price was very reasonable. It was around €2.95?

It was such a shame that we arrived late at the restaurant. They were about to close so we couldn't order anymore but it was worth it. We went back to the hotel really stuffed!

Manicure Monday: Wet n Wild Gray's Anatomy

This Wet N Wild Fast Dry in Gray's Anatomy captured my attention when I was just browsing through the Wet N Wild stall in Penney's.  The polish is a sheer, duo-chrome polish with green, silver and iridescent purple.  The photo above was taken with a flash and my nails got 2 coats of that baby.

Gray's Anatomy without flash. It looks more silvery in this lighting and angle

So here's a mini-review of the polish

• PRO
• Price - the polish was really cheap. It was € 1.99!
• Drying time - When I was testing this polish out, it seemed to dry really fast but there were instances that it didn't which I will discuss in the cons
• Colour
• CON
• Sheerness - this polish is very sheer to the point that there is visible nail lines even if two coats of this is applied
• Drying time  - Even though it does dry fast most of the time, there would be instances that I would have to be more patient. Like I said in the previous point that two coats of this polish would still show visible nail lines therefore it makes me want to apply another coat. The drying time seems to be longer when you put on the third coat

So yeah that's pretty much it. I just placed an order at Boots and I'm excited to get them. I'll be sharing them to you soon! What do you have on your nails right now? And have you tried Gray's Anatomy? What are your thought? Do you beg to differ from my opinion? Don't forgot to post them on the comment section!! Have a wonderful week ahead!

Portugal Trip (Day 1 - 12 April 2014)

Hello!

I decided that I'd blog about my Portugal trip with my family that was just exactly a week ago.  We flew from Dublin to Lisbon with Aer Lingus.

We stayed at this hotel called HF Fenix Urban.  I can't remember how much my parents paid for a night (we stayed there for four nights).

• Pros
• The hotel was 15-20 minutes away from the airport.  
• Very accessible to restaurants and public transportation such as the Metro.  
• The breakfast buffet was excellent.  They serve different food everyday but the fruits, baked beans and Vienna sausage was always there as well as the cereals and all sorts of juices and different types of breads.  
• The staff was very accommodating.  I had a problem with the room I was staying in.  The toilet flush was not working so it was a huge problem for me and my baby room mate.  When I informed them that they sent the maintenance up and it was already fixed within 15 minutes! It was great!
• The rooms were in excellent condition everyday.  They were clean in the first place but the fact that they make our beds is a plus.  They also change the towels everyday even though I didn't request any new towels.
• FREE WIFI! I heard that in some hotels you have to pay for the WiFi! Even if there were times that it was slow it's such a plus that it was for free!
• Cons
• The only con I could think of was the fact that we booked 4 double standard rooms and they were not even on the same floor.  It would have been convenient that the rooms were in the same floor since we were a family on holidays.  The staff told us that Agoda should have been responsible for it and so on but we overlooked it.

After checking in the hotel, we decided to tour around the city.  Our hotel was only 5 minutes away from the Metro stop called Parque.  The fare was really cheap (€ 6 for a 24 hour ticket pass which includes bus, metro, ferry and tram access).  The transportation in Lisbon is also veyr efficient! They are always on time! Unlike Dublin!

The Monument to the Restorers in Restaudores Square

The Gloria Funicular

The Gloria Funicular at the top near that leads to Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara  
The only thing that I don't like about this tram and where it brings you is that it's full of graffiti!  I hope that the tourism board of Lisbon could fix this since it's not a good sight to see and a lot of tourists get on that tram. 

Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara



After the sight seeing, we decided to have dinner. We stumbled upon this restaurant called Andorra Restaurante.  We were just looking at the menu board they have on displayed and the staff pushed us to have dinner there and got us seats.

A puff pastry made of haddock 

Mussels in butter and spring onion. It was delicious!

My main course: Grilled salmon with rice and salad on the side. 

• Pros
• The food was delicious
• The grilled salmon that I had was soft and very tasty and it tasted really fresh
• The price was really cheap.   I have read other reviews saying this was an expensive restaurant but compared to the country I am living in, a main course dinner costs more than €10.  This was just below that
• The toilet was clean! I have this peeve when it comes to dirty toilets of restaurants.
• Cons
• It took the staff to serve us our food so long and we were starving
• The staff also put a basket of bread and some butter, cheese etc on our table.  We thought it was complementary but apparently you have to pay for it.  I guess we were just not used to it

So this is day 1 of our Portugal trip.  I'm sorry that this post is a very long one! Hope you enjoyed reading this! I hope to have the second day up soon!