El pasado fin de semana fue increíble

Around Wednesday night I realized that I had nothing planned for the weekend, so I called up a couple friends and we decided that we would rent a car and drive west the following evening. We were a bit intimidated going to a country where they speak a language that none of us speak, but we quickly found out how friendly the Portuguese are. We had to buy a map on the way and we met some nice people in the gas station who preferred speaking English over Spanish. This was actually a common theme for the weekend. We were lost then made friends with some locals and they show us the way. We ended up in Lagos, Portugal Thursday night and the next day was far greater than incredible.
Friday morning we woke up and ate Crepes prepared by the hostel owner's mother. She made us feel like family, and ever taught us some Portuguese. After Breakfast we were ready for the beach or really cliffs I should say. We enjoyed a full day of hiking around, down, on and through the cliffs down to the beautiful wall surrounded beaches. We spent 5 hours just soaking in the beauty. That night we decided to go to the owner of the hostels restaurant, which was across the street, and I had my first burger since arriving in europe. Maybe it was just my Spain goggles but this burger was one of the best burgers I’ve ever tasted. This is something that I am going to try and recreated when I get home. Our plan was to only spend one night in Lagos, but the slow pace and friendliness of the town was enticing and required more of our time, so we easily caved and spent another night before heading to Lisbon.
The next morning we pilled in to car after a wonderful breakfast of crepes and a concert consisting of banjo music. One of the guys working in the hostel played the banjo, so we convinced him we had to hear, so he played for us and even gave us his album. The drive to Lisbon was a whirl of beautiful rolling hills, good conversations, with soundtrack consisting of Banjo. Upon first arrival to Lisbon I thought I was in San Francisco due to the very large red bridge (looks freakishly similar to the Golden Gate) as well as the bay that the town is surrounding. The town is also somewhat hilly, definitely not as hilly as San Fran, but still interesting to one who is a new in using a manual transmission! I freaked out a little bit but my buddies encouraged me and kept me from losing my head, although I about lost my cool a couple times. Lisbon was incredible in a different way than Lagos. The beauty of the structures that we came across stand out in my mind. We watched the sun set from the Castillo do San Jorge, named after my father, and this was quite the view. This castle was built by the Moors around 1000 as a fortress, so strategically it was built on the highest hill around. The reason the sunset was so great was because we could see the whole bay/city in front of it.
Saturday night we met up with some friends who we study with in Sevilla at there hostel and decide to combine our group with a group of Brazilians that were staying there. Best decision we could have made. They took us to a place where live MPB (Brazilian acoustic pop) music was being played and we learned how to samba (or at least watched it) ha. At the end of the night we all invited one another to visit in our respective countries, and after exchanging information I think it may happen some day.
I hope everyone back home is enjoying their spring break! I miss you all and can’t wait to see. My time here really seems to be flying by. Already I’ve been here 2 months and I have seen so much, but I still have so much more to see and experience.


Have a wonderful week

-rob