Pretty much everyone agrees that Portugal is a fantastic place to vacation and P and I finally got to experience it ourselves for our birthdays. Let me tell you, it really was a dream (although not as cheap as I was hoping, I think we missed those days). Both Lisbon and Costa da Caparica felt like strangely nostalgic fusions of places I love in California. The former, with its steep hills overlooking the water and big red bridge, reminded me again and again of San Francisco on a sunny day, while the latter had the same clean-cut surfer vibe of Redondo or Hermosa. What I found most amazing about the region as whole was how it almost always managed to smell like fish grilling on charcoal. For a hungry seafood lover like me that’s the perfect perfume for a city. The food was really wonderful, so flavorful and fun and interesting. And the winding alleyways of the Alfama! with grandmas selling shots of the local dark liquor from out of the windows and Fado singing in the background… a perfect end of summer European escape.