Paradise in Portugal

This past weekend, a few friends a I went to Portugal through "WeLoveSpain" which is basically a travel agency for students studying abroad. We left on Friday morning and got the Albuferia about two hours later. It was a perfect day so after checking into our hotel (which was very nice), we headed to the beach for the afternoon. That night we got some pasta and made dinner in our kitchen. I was rooming with Lauren and Emily and then our friends Tori and Danielle joined us for dinner too. That night, we went out with everyone who was on the trip to three different bars. They were all a lot of fun, good music, close to the hotel, and we just felt safer overall since the people in charge of the trip were the ones to find everyone and say "Meeting outside in 10 minutes to go to the next place".

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel which was the biggest breakfast I've had since being here. Scrambled eggs, cereal, toast, etc. A nice break from the small Spanish breakfasts. That day we went to Lagos. Our first stop was Ponte de Piedad. It was a gorgeous lookout with lost of cliffs. We ended up spending the day on the beach near the cliffs. It was a lot cooler that day, but still warm enough to be in a swim suit for the majority of the time.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at "El fin del mundo" or "The End of the World" aka what people used to think was the end of the world. Again, it was a very pretty area, but by that point, we were all very very cold.

That night we attempted to make Mac n cheese by melting cheese with milk on the stove and adding it to some pasta. Unfortunately, we failed, but it made for an entertaining hour or so. And we still ate it. We had another night out and a few different bars from the night before.

Tori, Lauren, me, and Danielle

Sunday, unfortunately, was very very cold and a bit rainy. We spent the day in town doing a little shopping and then sat in a nice restaurant for an hour or so before heading out. All in all it was a very good trip. It was nice to be in a place where we weren't rushing around to get to museums or trying to figure out the metro etc. I've missed seeing nature type sights too so it was a very good break.

On Thursday I'm headed to Morocco with our program. They split us up in two groups so the first half of the alphabet already went and have given us a lot of tips about bargaining in the markets, how much money to bring, what shoes to wear and etc. I think it will be a really fun trip because, again, we don't have to spend time figuring anything out since it's planned by our program. We'll leave early Thursday morning to take a bus to the water and then we'll take a boat over! When we get there, we're going to be in safe areas as well as have a security guard with us, so no worries!