PORTUGAL!!!

It is about 1am here and I just got back to my room, on our boat, in Spain, from PORTUGAL!!  Portugal was one of the few places we were allowed to travel out of our 'port country' to go to, so my roommate, friend from class, and I decided to go so we could see even another country!  It was an interesting journey, but it was definitely worth it!

 

We had to take a bus from Cadiz, Spain (where we are) to Seville, Spain, which is about 1 ½ hours away.. then from Seville we took a 3 hour bus ride to Faro, Portugal.. those bus rides were interesting.. on the bus to Portugal, the couple in front of us who had a kid with them starting puking! So that was not fun at all to be sitting behind a vomiting child!! yuuuck! Other than that… the bus rides really were used as sleeping time and seeing the country.. literally.  There are farms and stuff in spain, which I really wasn’t expecting so that was neat to drive through a lot of Spain and see things we wouldn’t have otherwise.

 

Once we got into Portugal, we walked around to find a place to stay and we saw a ‘residential’ which I believe is like a hostel and it really wasn’t as bad as you would think.. we had 3 twin beds in a room and then a balcony-type thing and a bathroom and all the floors were like tile.. so there was no gross carpet to creep me out!  The funniest thing was our key though.. it was a normal key with this big wooden block chained to it??? So everytime we left the place we had to turn our key into the front desk and get it back when we got back and wanted into our room!

 

After we got into our room we asked the lady at the front desk of a good place to eat.. and so we went to where she recommended.  All I have to say is Portuguese food is very fresh!  There was a tank of seafood right when you walked in the door, so when you order something they get it out and then cook it!!! Thank goodness they had chicken because I do not like seafood! The chicken was good and it came with rice which was really good and french fries, which we doused in oil.. as everything else is there!  After dinner we walked around, taking pictures and doing touristy things.. there was really no nightlife in Faro (it could have been because it was a Wednesday night!?) so we went back to our room to sleep around midnight I think.

 

Thursday, we all woke up and got ready.. and went to the ‘market’ across the street from our hostel and right next door to the bus station we had been at.. that was fun and they had a lot of really cool stuff.  I got an orange huuuge necklace that I really really liked as well as a tunic type shirt that was also pretty.  After the market we walked around the city looking in the shops and such.. and then we went to a pizzeria for lunch!  The pizza there was amazing which I didn’t expect because italy is known for their pizza, not Portugal!  After I ate pizza, I got dessert which was a great decision because it came out looking like a party! There was this like flower decoration thing in it so it made it look really neat.. but what I got was basically a sundae.. because it was chocolate ice cream (which is different there b/c there is little chunks of chocolate crispies in it) with chocolate syrup and whipped cream! Yumm!!  After lunch, we walked a lot more around areas we hadn’t seen and took a lot of pictures.  They really had some neat buildings and statues and the grass there is super green for some reason!

 

After we were done sight-seeing.. it was time to catch our bus back to Seville in spain.. and from there we went caught another bus back to Cadiz.. which is where I am now.. “home sweet home” it definitely feels like.. our dean was telling us you will see the boat and really be like ahhhh I’m home!! And she was soo right.. even though at first it seemed like a hotel or something, not at all where I would live.. now it has really turned into my home.. for the next 2 months atleast!!

 

Well.. I am heading off to bed, for a full day in Cadiz tomorrow! Two more days in spain!! I will write about spain probably on Saturday or Sunday.. so look for it then!