Tchau Portugal — RachiePie

We are back in the States and enjoying our time in New York. I can not believe we have wrapped up the first five months of our travels. Alex and I enjoyed Portugal immensely and I'm so glad we were able to spend this time traveling around the country. It will be an experience I will not soon forget.

Some thoughts:

I must learn how to make a pastel de nata. I ate one of these custards tarts multiple times each week and could not get enough! They are creamy, flakey and delicious. The best place I have found was in Lisbon at Manteigaria - they add a little cinnamon to the recipe. Yum.
Dryers are not common in Portugal and I have not been able to dry my clothes properly (except for the two times I went to a laundromat) in 2 1/2 months. Who knew I would be so excited to use a dryer once again. I CAN NOT WAIT!
I will miss the sunshine. Portugal boasts a large number of sunny days and we only had rain a handful of times while in the country. It has made for some beautiful viewpoints and pictures. I read Lisbon is Europe's sunniest capital city, with an average of 2,800 hours of sunshine a year.
I surprised myself that I can live out of a suitcase for so long. I do miss having choices in what to wear and am looking forward to swapping out a few clothing items for something new and different, but overall, I'm proud of myself for being adaptable to having less. With that said however, Alex is trying to see if we can just pack two large suitcases for Australia and New Zealand (we currently have an additional small suitcase now) and I'm not sure I can make that happen!
Finally, what started as visiting only two countries in our itinerary - London and Portugal - ended up morphing into traveling to eight countries total in addition to some wonderful side trips including flying to the Azores and spending three days in the Cotswolds. I'm still amazed at how much we got to do and see while in Europe. There is no shortage of beauty and history here.

A few of my favorite photos from our travels:

Prague, Czech Republic — Prague, Czech Republic