Lagos, Portugal.

This could be a very long blog!! I wish it was more specific but it was a very long weekend and LOTS happened- I just can remember everything!

Thursday morning we woke up early and caught the bus with the rest of our class to head to Rabida! La Rábida is where Columbus stayed between 1491-92 waiting for financial backing from the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, for his voyage to the New World. We saw the sight where Columbus left to begin his explorations! It's a pretty cool thing to think about- we were standing in the place were Columbus sat sail to make the single most important discovery in history. It kind of gave me the chills. 


After walking around and exploring that for a while we visited the Río Tinto estuary, the Muelle de las Carabelas (Harbour of the Caravels) is a waterfront exhibition with life-size replicas of Columbus's three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María. There was a little play ground out front where Chelsea, Kyle, Katie and I played on the see-saws before we went in to see the ships! We goofed of for a long time and took some awesome pictures in all of the ships. 


After a long session of silly-ness at the ships, we all loaded the second bus at head to Lagos, Portugal for the weekend! On the bus Chelsea and I decided we were going to act really confused about where the bus was taking us. "This bus is going where? Portugal? where is Portugal? Is it in Spain? I though we were all going to Dinsey Land?" We actually got people pretty confused.. It was classic (but maybe you had to be there). 


On the bus ride we decide it would be a brilliant idea to sing songs like we were on a camp bus! So we obnoxiously turned up my ipod and all started to sing whatever songs we could think of- Usher, Justin Bieber, Dixie Chicks, Wagon Wheel. We sounded beautiful! I believe our friend Mike enjoyed the singing the most our of anyone (sarcasm). 


When we finally arrived in Lagos we caught a cab and headed to our hostel! The cab literally stopped in the middle of this tiny street and helped us out. The hostel looked like a little hole in the wall. My first thought was- where the heck are we? My second thought was- I hope we make it out of here alive.


The hostel was called Escape. This was all of our very first hostel experience! We were pretty creeped out at first, but when we went inside, it was GREAT! Some of the other people in our group stayed at a nice hotel on the beach about 15 mins from the center part of town.. but I think we had a MUCH better experience in the hostel!


The service we great! Everyone we so friendly. It had a very "Zen" atmosphere! I loved it! Very chill. The first thing we did was go out to our tiny tiny room with 3 bunk beds and put our stuff away! The second thing I did was go sit our amazing balcony/roof top and take advantage of the free coffee! 


Once everyone got settled in we took off to explore Lagos! We literally just walked around for a couple of hours and got a feel for the city. We found out that our hostel was right in the middle of the center- where EVERTHING was. We found a few beautiful beach (very close to the hostel). We found shopping and street music! This one couple was playing the flute and this interesting metal drum instrument. They were SO good! I wanted to buy their CD so bad but decided to be stingy with my money!


We met this man wearing a sailor hat that gives boat tours and talked to him for a while. He was passing bye us and I liked his hat so much I said "ohhh i like him!" I forgot that people in Portugal can speak english- I was so use to Spain were no one understands me when I speak in English! So of course he turns around and tries to tlak us into going on him boat tour. We didn't go, but he was a funny little guy! 


When we were walking back to the hostel to get ready for the night, we saw this guy who looked EXACTLY like Prince Harry. The only reason I mention this guy is because we ended up seeing him every day and every night in Lagos. So of course I had to ask if he was Harry- which he wasn't! But everytime we saw him from then on we would just yell "Hey Harry!" I think he hated it! But it was funny.


We then went back to our hostel and got ready for the night! We ate dinner at this fancy Italian food restaurant! It was amazing! We ate a lot of pizza in Portugal! Our waiter was a cute little old guy! He gave us a free house wine (which I though it was because he liked us- but found out he does it to everyone!) He accidentally spilled a little on me when he was taking a funny picture of fake pouring wine in my mouth (I guess he didn't get the fake part of it). We also saw a like 13 year old boy at the table next to us having a drink and smoking a cigarette with his parents.. 13! Not okay!


After dinner we decided to go buy a couple of bottles of vino verde (green wine). Green wine is only made in Portugal so I though we should all try it out! While we were trying to make a decision on which bottle to get I noticed this family and the owner of the store laughing at us. It is a pretty usual thing for our group to be laughed at, so I said out loud "Hey I think we are getting laughed at again." Forgetting again that most people in Portugal speak english. So immediately the mom said "no no we were not laughing at you!" This started the beginning of a good 30 min conversation between me and this woman. She is my new best friend. She told me she was from Ireland and had just bought a second home in Lagos. She said she had traveled the world but the only places she ever cares to go back to are Ireland and Portugal. 


I told her we were from the United States and she said that the U.S. was too fast for her. American's need to slow down and think about their priorities. She said in Ireland, family is always the number one priority and in American that is not necessarily the case. She also told us this funny story about her staying with this wealthy family in Alabama and the mom of the family pulled out a gun and asked he what kind of gun she carried. It was a pretty funny story! 


I told her that next time she come to the U.S. she needs to come to Texas and stay with me. She told me that there was no way she was ever going anywhere else but Portugal and Ireland. But she did say that I was welcome to come stay with her and her family whenever I wanted and for however long.. for free.. It was her "gift from the heart to me." She also said that she would let her daughter come to Texas as long as I took care of her. Maybe I should take a semester off and move to Ireland? We exchanged numbers and emails so that we could stay in touch!


After our long talk, we headed back to the hostel to have a glass of wine on our roof! We walked the sunset and just talked before we went out. 


Everyone in Lagos is either from Australia, New Zealand, or England. All of the accents are very similar and can get confusing! There were SO many people we talked to with accents- it was hard to not start talking in an accent as well! Drew: "I can't stop talking in a British accent!" 


We went to Redeye and played darts, and then over to the Irish Pub for karaoke and then over to Inside Out to meet up with everyone else from our group! I think we walked around the town about 6 times back and forth to different place before we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel.


Friday we woke up and went on to our hostel's roof for a free breakfast! The people who worked at the hostel were making everyone omelets and they were amazing! I'm extremely sad that I didn't not get to see my dad on his birthday but I hope you had a great one Daddy! Can't wait to celebrate when we get back! After breakfast we got ready quick and headed to the smaller beach closer to our hostel! At the beach we were bums. We all just laid out and listened to music together on our speakers! We had grilled cheeses and milk shakes for lunch right ton the beach! The milk shakes were not that great though! I forgot that they don't really use much ice in Europe so the milk shake was more like just really cold milk and sugar! 


After lunch Maggie and I decided that we needed to go kayaking- of course! We were pro's. We were totally in-sink the entire time. We kayaked pretty far alone the coast by all of the pretty rocks until out arms got tired! We decided to take a little break and just float for a while. We got carried away talking and didn't realize how far off the waves had carried our kayak, until we notice a boat pass us and the people looked at us like we were crazy. Then we realize just how far we were and began our long row back to the shore! It was fun!


When we got back we laid out for a little while long and an airplane pasted us with a long steamer message that said: Skydiving call 55555555555. The rest of the time on the beach I was trying to talk anyone into going skydiving with me. There were no takers.


So we left the beach a did a little shopping around the center of town. I didn't end up buying anything except for my mommy a little present (which I wont give away!). We grabbed a little ice cream- of course- and headed back to the hostel.


It is hard getting ready in a tiny hostel room with 6 girls, so I got ready really quick and then we again sat on the roof and had a glass of green wine! Once everyone was ready we headed out to Casa Rose (the restaurant where power hour was invented). We had the most amazing nachos and burritos ever! We made really good friends with our waiter and he ended up sitting with us for a while and telling us his life story on how he ended up living in Lagos! Really cool guy! They actually had a MLB game on TV so I was loving life (Cincinnati v San Francisco). After an hour of power we when back to redeye and then to a new place called 3 monkeys! We made so many friends at 3 monkeys it is unreal. Our entire hostel was there and we all talked and hung out and became great friend. One girl was from California and was a little crazy and the two guy were from Australia and were super hippy vagabonds. They just hostel hop. We talked to all them for quite a while. We all had a great time singing and dancing and being silly. We headed back to the hostel not long after!


We woke up early again on and then got ready for the day and headed back to the beach. We stopped for some food on the way to the beach (grilled cheese again), and then decided we wanted to take a boat tour of the coast of lagos!


The boat tour was perfect. It was absolutely beautiful! We weaved in and out of the rocks and through caves. The water was SO blue! We got to see all of the beaches (big and small) along the coast. Words can't really describe how beautiful it true was and looking back at my pictures- those don't even show how extremely beautiful it was. If you are ever in Lagos you have to do the boat tour. The rocks were all in shapes of different things (the titanic, king kong, and eagle, ect) and our tour guy would point everything out to us with the limited english that he new. Our tiny boat took us in to little caves- it was unreal! After the tour was over our guide dropped us off at a little beach that we had not been to yet! It was really relaxing and nice. We just laid out and listened to music again for the rest of the day. We reviewed our bucket list and realize how much we had already crossed off! We still have a lot to accomplish this week though! Once things started to get loud and not as relaxing on the beach we decided to head back to the hostel.


On our way back to the hostel we ran right into NahNahBah's (the 30th best burger place in the whole world) and knew it was a sign that we had to go back for dinner that night. We continued on out way to the hostel and realized that we now knew the entire town of Lagos. Every course we turned down we were saying hi to some new friends that we had met during the weekend. (including Prince Harry)


After getting ready at the hostel again we headed back to eat at the burger place. It was the best burger I have ever had. It was HUGE but amazing! We saw some more of our new English friends at the burger place and talked to them for quite awhile. And then left to go buy some more green wine. 


This time we headed down to the beach to drink our wine and watch the sunset. This was by far the best thing I did in Lagos. The sunset was beautiful! We all sat around in the sand and laughed about anything and everything. Shaina sang some ridiculous coffee song. We made up songs and raps about the most ridiculous things. Kyle went streaking and yelled like a chicken. We made up goofy games. We all told secrets that no one else know- hilarious secrets. I wrote a message and put it in the wine bottle and threw it our into the ocean! This was defiantly one of the best nights of my life hands-down.


After it had gotten pretty late and too dark to see each other we decided to head back up to the town and tell the rest of our favorite places good-bye! After redeye and Joe's Garage, Katie and I headed in for the night. After we were all ready for bed and had a nice long chat about life, we heard Kyle yelling downstairs "Amy, Katie! You can go to bed! Its the last night in Lagos!" Katie and I decided to go back out for a little bit. We weren't out long at all when Angie and Maggie ran into us when we were on our way to come meet back up with them. Apparently they had went to the hostel to drop something off when they noticed that Katie and I were not there anymore. They though we got kidnapped or something and were franticly search the city. Katie and I felt really bad but we were not planning on staying out long and were coming to find them anyway so we didn't think about them coming back to the hostel before we found them. We felt really bad, but looking back it is really funny to all of us!  


We all called it a night and woke up early the next morning to pack up our backpacks, check out, grab breakfast/lunch, and head to the bus! 


It was the most amazing weekend ever! Lagos is hands-down the greatest place I have ever been in my whole life. It was hard for me to get on the bus and leave there to head back to Sevilla! But I will go back one day! Maybe I can win the lottery and buy me a house there one day! We made it back to Sevilla and headed back to our house to see our mama! It is CRAZY to think that we only have one more week left in Sevilla! It makes me sad- I feel like I'm just getting used to everything here.