Taking a long weekend trip to Lisbon, Portugal, was an opportunity I’ve been looking forward to as soon as I knew I’d be in Spain for a semester. When I boarded the train for the nine-hour ride, I kept thinking that Portugal was pretty much like Spain — but with more fishermen. I soon found out that expressing such thoughts would have been enough to get me killed since the two countries strive to be as dissimilar as possible. All I knew of Portugal before I went there is the typical ethnocentric tidbits that I learned in fifth-grade geography — Portuguese is spoken there, it’s a European country that borders Spain and hundreds of years ago the royalty funded many explorations of the world. The language was the first thing that struck me when I arrived. The written language looks deceptively similar to Spanish, and several people had told me that if I slurred my Spanish, Portuguese people could understand me. Apparently pronunciation is the key to Portuguese, because it sounded to me as if the people were speaking a random mixture of Spanish, French and German while their mouths were full. When I did attempt to speak Spanish or what I thought was Portuguese, whomever I was talking to would say “Speak English,” in perfect English. Multilingualism (especially French, English and Spanish) is common in Portugal, especially in Lisbon and other tourist havens. One evening while I was waiting on a main shopping street, a man came up to me and started speaking Portuguese. I told him in Spanish that I didn’t understand, so he switched to Spanish. When I still looked at him confused, he tried Italian, and finally fluent English. It turns out he was a multilingual homeless man who wanted me to give him money. To my surprise, more people in Portugal speak English than Spanish, even though Spain is the country’s only neighbor. It’s also more common for Spaniards to travel to France or Italy even though it’s much more economical to go to Portugal. Basically, the two countries don’t really like each other that much. For hundreds of years they haven’t gotten along, and the last thing Portugal wants is to be known only for having some association with Spain. However, Portugal’s similarities to Spain can’t entirely be avoided. Both have a history filled with colonization, monarchies, dictatorships and naval exploration. The ocean is also a large part of the culture of both societies, but the Portuguese take their love of all things nautical to an even higher level. Maritime museums, tacky ship souvenirs and countless seafood restaurants are on every corner. Even the money shows Portuguese pride for its naval background; all the coins and bills have ships, explorers or compasses plastered on them. Today most of the Portuguese colonies those ships helped capture are no longer part of Portugal, but their influence remains. Lisbon is a mix of many cultures, picking up customs from its colonies and from its naval expeditions. With my light skin and blue eyes, I am quickly marked as a foreigner in Spain, while in Portugal I blended right in — until, of course, I tried to speak. The meticulousness with which Portuguese maintain their cities and heritage is astounding. When I first arrived in Lisbon at Plaza Dom Pedro IV, the main city square, all I could see was construction. The entire square was fenced off in sections and filled with construction. I was a little disappointed to not see the square in its glory, but I assumed it was one of just a few places being reworked. But every place after that had some form of renovation — the queen’s bedroom in one palace, a few cathedrals, an entire museum, most of the roads and several of the intricately designed mosaic sidewalks. It’s true that much of the renovation was being done because March is an off-season, but what Portugal does have to show off is diligently preserved all-year round. It also seems as if the pop culture influence of other countries is kept at bay. Of course, a McDonald’s can be found at virtually every tourist sight and Limp Bizkit posters plaster construction areas, but with them were at least twice as many posters for Portuguese artists and concerts. As more changes occur in Europe that are making the continent more and more unified, the sense that Portugal maintains its multicultural identity while still being an international stomping ground is impressive. Just do yourself a favor and don’t confuse it with Spain.Amie Van Overmeer is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Rock Rapids.