Portugal Spring Break!!

Hey!! So after Ryan left, we had midterms...which went ok haha and then I headed off to Portugal with my friend Heather for Spring Break!! It was basically amazing!!!!!!!!!! lol so you should read about it ;)

LISBOA

We "couch surfed" with a couple here that showed us so much of Lisbon that we probably never would have seen. Heather is from the US, but fell in love at first sight and married a Portugese man named Victor who grew up in South Africa....yeah I know right? They have the craziest stories and have been all over the world. I will you all about her later, but I'm sure you wanna find out what we have been up to! ;)

Saturday, April 4

On Friday when we arrived, Heather picked us up from the bus station!! (She was so nice!!!) and brought us to Mcdonalds because it was really late and we were really hungry! lol We had our own room in her house and were free to use the computer/TV/kitchen whenever we wanted. She was full of stories and hospitality. It was such a great experience! In the morning, she drove us up the beautiful coast to Casa da Guia in Cascais where we had our 2nd breakfast of the day. It is very common for Portuguese to eat breakfast at home and then go out for a second breakfast...we tried a pastel de nata which was really good and walked around the shopping center that was right on the coast and absolutely gorgeous! Then we drove up to Guincho where we may have been in a movie haha - this guy asked us to move our car because they were filming. We watched kite surfers on the beach which seriously looked crazy. The waves were the biggest I have ever seen and when the kites were caught by the crazy wind, the surfers would literally float in the air with their surfboards attached to their feet. It was so windy that sand was blowing in through the car windows! Then we drove to Don Quixote which was an amazing restaurant with a huge windmill building. We tried white sangria for the first time which was awesome. We couldn't use credit cards, and we didnt know if we had enough cash so we asked the waiter if there was an ATM nearby. He told us no, but we could wash dishes or come back and pay tomorrow so not to worry about it. haha :) they are so laid back here. I love Europe!! Then we drove to Cabo da Roca which is the western-most point of Europe (so I was the closest to you guys that I will get until May 20!!) It was so cool to look out into the ocean and know that the next thing we would see would be the US =) Then we drove back home to Carcavelos and went grocery shopping to make dinner. Heather worked as a chef for several years on cruise ships and she made us this awesome appetizer that I am going to show you, an amazing codfish dish and her magic salad. We also tried green wine which is only found in Portugal! You drink it cold, and it is pretty sweet so I really liked it. We forgot parmesian cheese, so we went for a walk to find some and ended up witnessing an accident and giving a toy chicken to a giant rotweiler. Then Heather (Curtin - my friend) and I discovered that Portugal was an hour behind Spain haha so we had woken up at 7 AM instead of 8 (no wonder why we were exhausted!) After dinner we pretty much crashed!

Sunday, April 5

Heather Curtin and I went to the Carcavelos beach early in the morning to watch the surfers before going to an international church service. It was a really nice church with people from everywhere!! And we met the director of topgun and his family there because he was stationed in Lisbon with NATO. After church, we went to this awesome pizza place with a great view of the water! AND I TRIED ANCHOVIES!! Yikes they were pretty gross haha Then we met couch surfing Heather's family, and her daughter in law is a celebrity of Portugal! She was on their cover of Maxim this month - so that was pretty crazy! Then we drove downtown and took a bus tour of the city which was really cool because we saw everything! In Lisbon, they have the same bridge as San Francisco designed by the same architect and everything! Driving through the city on the tour bus was so surreal - the street cars coming up the hills down narrow alleys and the clotheslines off of balconies and all of the pretty colors and flowers and people everywhere...it was really amazing to see. After Lisbon, we drove into Sintra which was absolutely gorgeous!!! We shopped in the cutest stores, ate these amazing pastries called travesseiros, and bought roasted chestnuts from street vendors! I absolutely loved this little town. There was a toy museum and a palace and everything haha it was like I was dreaming. The smell of eucalyptus was so strong here as we drove up the winding road to the palace, it is something I will always remember from Lisbon! =) That night we hung out and packed so we would be ready to head to Faro in the morning. We watched some TV - IN ENGLISH lol and called it a night.

FARO

Monday, April 6

We woke up and watched the surfers again (lol it was addicting it was so cool!) and came back so Victor could walk us to the Metro. Saying goodbye was hard because they were so nice to us and everything! I felt like I had known them for a really long time. Then we took a four hour train ride to Faro to our next couch surfer host...which turned out to be not so pleasant!!! We got there and found a bus to take us to the island where he lived, stopping at a supermarket along the way because he told us in advance that there would be nowhere to grocery shop on the island. By the time we were done, it was dark and we sat at the bus stop for about an hour and a half before finding someone to ask about the bus schedule. A girl told us that at night, the bus drivers don't stop at their stops unless they are flagged down!!!!!! How stupid is that?! So we missed the last bus because we didn't flag them down while standing at the bus stop...grr lol and Heather tried to hitchhike for about 5 minutes before we saw a taxi and finally got to the island. We called Bruno to tell him we were there and he arrived barefoot and a little tipsy in his friend's car. In the car he told us he had a few people over and they had cooked dinner for us. A few minutes later, we are lugging our stuff into a hut on the beach full of about 30 hippies dancing to Bob Marley and drinking sangria out of an open cooler....we smiled as he pulled back a curtain to reveal a matress where we could put our stuff. In the "closet" with the matress we tried locking all of our valuables in one suitcase while everyone stared at us! We were so uncomfortable and everyone knew it. So he told us to introduce ourselves to everyone, laughed about not really knowing where we were going to sleep, and left us alone for the rest of the night...we were just standing there like oh my goodness this is insane!! haha now that i think about it it's pretty hilarious. Then this big tan guy came up to us and offered us food (which ended up being really good) and we sat outside for a while even though it was cold to get away from the awkwardness...then some guy came outside and said everyone had to come inside for one a one song dance party...some guy with crazy dreds came up to us and told us not to worry - they weren't pirates or anything...so we went inside but I sat down on a chair (I was sooo tired!!) and finally Bruno came up to us and said - you guys look tired, and I am going to give the bed to the Australian couple I have staying with me, so do you want to sleep at my neighbor's house? We were like sure, yes, perfect...So we get there and they are two Germans...they were really nice, and the guy let us sleep in his bed. There was just one little problem...He took all of his sheets and blankets with him to the couch. So we pulled out our beach towels and tried to sleep (we probably slept for a total of 2 hours) and in the morning, we were sore from shivering!!

LAGOS

Tuesday, April 7

We got up and went back to Bruno's to get our groceries but found most of them gone (damn pirates!) and Bruno was in his bed while the Australians were sleeping outside!!! We just wanted to get the heck out of there so we headed to the bus station to get to Lagos (our next destination). We called the hostel to see if we could come two nights early, and she said they were full, but she would try to fit us in...we were like ok? haha so a few hours later, we got to the Rising Cock (the symbol of Portugal is a rooster) and met Momma (the woman we spoke to on the phone) who was AWESOME!! And she told us not to worry she would find a place for us and everything. We dropped our stuff off, walked around the cute town for a while and came back and cooked some of our groceries in the kitchen. Then we went into the lounge and watched Old School and used the community computers (lol coolest hostel ever!) We ended up seeing Heather's roommate Dorothy and her friend there. So we talked to them and ended up going out together that night with a lot of other people from the hostel (mostly Americans studying in Spain who were there for Semana Santa too). The hostel was so full that Heather and I shared a twin top bunk that night...but it had blankets so we slept great! haha

Wednesday, April 8

We woke up and went to the kitchen to try Momma's famous crepes and lemon tea - which were amazing =) then we went to Camilo Beach - which was a little bit of a walk but sooo worth it. You have to see the pictures because I cannot describe how beautiful it was! We got back to the hostel around 5, took a nap, cooked dinner, hung out in the lounge with everyone, and then headed out with the hostel again! We were like a little community - it was so cool. That night we had our own beds and lockers and everything.

Thursday, April 9

We woke up for crepes again, headed to a smaller beach closer to our hostel, and said bye to some of the people who were leaving that day. Then Heather and I went to this little shop and signed up to kayak...which was sooo awesome!! It was about 3 1/2 hours long through all of the grottos along the coast. We went into all of these little caves that boats could not fit into, and it was soo beautiful and just amazing to see. We stopped in the middle of the trip at a small beach that could only be accessed by land if you rock climbed down a rope...lol and we attempted to snorkel but the water was freezing and I kept submerging my entire snorkel into the water! haha There were a total of 6 kayaks on the trip. Heather and I, a couple from California that we met in the hostel and invited with us, two australian girls, their guy friend and a dad from australia, his son and daughter, and then the tour guide and his son. After we made it back to the beach, we headed back to the hostel to make lunch...and checked to see if Pilar, Ester, and Ange had checked in. Momma told us they were at the beach...she called them the primitas espanolitas (spanish cousins in Portuguese haha) So we took a nap until they got home. It was sooo nice to see them!! We went out to a really good dinner with them at "The Blue Doors" (haha that is not really the name of the place, but no one can pronounce it so we call it that because of the blue paint!) It had really amazing seafood and I ordered salmon and loved it!! They also had great dessert, but we ordered right after the chocolate cake ran out :( We went out for a little while after, but we were all really tired!!

Friday, April 10

Heather and I originally planned to take the 1:45 bus back to Granada today, but the girls convinced us to stay with them, and Momma moved us into their room. We tried going to the beach, but it was pretty chilly out, so we took a little road trip to Cabo do San Vincente in Sangres. This is the most southern point of Europe haha we were loving the points on this trip. It was reallllyyy windy, but we did some souvenir shopping and drove into town where we ate lunch on the beach. We got back to the hostel and took a nap before heading to dinner at NahNahBah's which was right across the road from our hostel and highly recommended by everyone there. lol Heather and I loved it (we got GIANT hamburgers) but the girls weren't too crazy about it - it was pretty American...our waitress ended up being our 6th roommate from Canada - so it was interesting to talk to her, and this spanish guy from Sevilla talked to us for a while and suggested we go to Joe's Garage afterwards. We did and it was not very impressive...lol his job was basically the program coordinator of "Discover Sevilla" and he brought Americans studying there to Lagos for Semana Santa - the entire bar was full of drunk Americans and it was not a very good time...so we headed somewhere else that was a little more fun. (The nightlife was not very impressive to the girls because nothing beats Granada!!)

Saturday, April 11

The weather was better, so we brought the girls to Camilo Beach and ended up staying there until 5! Afterwards, we went to this cute little seafood restaurant that was really good - except that I didn't get my food until everyone else was done because the waitress forgot!! We had a big discussion about customer service - because it is VERY different here than in the US. Here the customer is not always right, and the waiters and waitresses are paid salaries so it is not necessary to tip...therefore the service is not very good. We went shopping for a while, went home to get ready and then headed to dinner at a pretty fancy restaurant which was again really good! lol I feel like all we did was eat ;) After dinner, we went back and hung out in the lounge with the night watch guy because everyone else was out. At around 1 when people started coming home, we went out for a while and the girls played pool with some guys from London. I got a cold that day and Justin Timberlake was playing every other song haha so I left early and talked to Ryan online for the first time in 9 days! =)

Sunday, April 12

We woke up to a guy leaving the Canadian girl's bunk...awkward!!!! and ate crepes and lemon tea for one last time with Momma :( checkout was sad because she was soo nice!! We stayed at the Rising Cock for 5 nights instead of the one night we reserved!! After somehow cramming all of the luggage into the car haha we drove to Camilo again and laid out until 2 when we started our journey back to Granada. We stopped in Faro on the way back to eat lunch (which was somewhere we never wanted to go again! haha) and we ate at this vitamin place that was awesome! After lunch we had our last galao (latte-like coffee that they don't have in Spain) in portugal and got back in the car. After driving a little on the highway, we realized we were almost out of gas, and Ange told us to roll the windows up! haha there were no gas stops for what seemed like forever - so we were crammed in this car, sweating and crossing our fingers that we would find somewhere soon! We finally made it to the Spain border and got gas haha. We ended up getting back to Granada around 10 and all of the streets were all still blocked off for the processions and stuff - it was crazy! Coming home felt so nice after the long trip, but it was seriously amazing, and I wouldn't have changed a thing about it =)