Last weekend I went to Portugal! It's about time, right? I live so close to Portugal but just got over there recently. Oh well, it was really fun, and it's probably best to visit when it's warm out anyways. So last Friday morning I headed over to Portugal with a group called Discover Granada. It's a group that hosts trips mainly for American study abroad students like me. So me and about 20 other people from my program decided to sign up for it, because it was an organize trip, provided transportation and a place to stay all for a decent price, and it was a beach trip, who doesn't love beach trips. So on Friday we all woke up at the crack of dawn to meet our bus across town at 6. We had to leave by 6:30, drive to Sevilla and then drive to Lagos, Portugal, our final destination. Overall, it took about 8 hours. Normally it would only take like 6, but Spain has this stupid law that you had to stop every two hours for 30 min for the bus driver, and the drivers can't drive more than 9 hours in a day....so...naturally it took a lot longer.
Oh, and in case you haven't heard Ai Se Eu Te Pego is all the rage here in Europe, and it was made in Portugal. So we all got to Spain in January and heard this song, obsessed for 4 months and finally got to go to Portugal where it was acceptable to obsess over the song. Needless to say I listened to this about 6 times over the weekend, sang it every day with my friend and was overall very excited.
So that's just a clip of what my life has been like here, they play it in all the clubs, and it's awesome. I'm going to miss hearing it everywhere.
So Friday we got to Portugal at about 1:30 and headed over to look at
the "caves". They're not really caves, more like giant rocks that form
smaller areas of water so you have to take a little boat to look at
them. The rocks are really pretty though. The whole coast line looks
like that, it's gorgeous. We got to hang around there for about 30 minutes and take pictures and basque in the sun. It was finally warm there! It had been rainy and gross on our way there, raining on and off and we didn't know what kind of weather we'd get. We saw rain on the forecast, but it's hard to tell here. So we were really excited that it was nice outside. It was a wonderful view to see right when we got there, especially since that was our first impression of this beautiful city.
We got to look at the rocks from afar that day and were told we'd get to get a closer look the next day if we did the Sangria Sailboat Cruise. So I was pretty excited to get to see them from down below since they were so pretty from up above.
After we looked around for a bit we left for our hotel. Our hotel
wasn't very far away at all, only about 5 minutes from here, so we
hopped back on the bus to walk out to our hotel, which turned out to be,
literally, right on the beach. We got so lucky. The Discover
Granada/Sevilla group had two hotels, and ours was the one that was
right on the beach, it was so nice. We were given our rooms and told
that we had until 7:45 when they would bring us downtown for dinner and
the club that night. We also got to sign up for the Sangria Sailboat
Cruise the next day. So of course Bree and I rushed into our room and
changed into our bathing suits. We were able to spend the rest of the
afternoon laying on the beach, and exploring the beach a bit. It was
still pretty breezy though and a bit chilly, so we only laid on the
beach for a good hour or so and then decided to head back up and change
so we could walk around. We walked up and over the rocks from our beach
and walked down towards more beaches. We found other private "beaches"
and areas to explore and got gorgeous view meanwhile. I took way too
many pictures of rocks and the views, but it was just too pretty to not
take pictures of.
Picture my friend took of me on the beach
Me and my friends at the Nah Nah Bah
We spent about an hour walking around exploring and these are only a few of the picture I took. I took a lot, but I think these are some of the better ones. After that we went back to the room, changed and got ready for the night. Our tour guides walked us down to the center of town and brought us to an awesome restaurant called the Nah Nah Bah, which incidentally served some of the greatest burgers and had American girls as their waitresses. I got a delicious pasta and everyone else had the burgers. We ate at a table together of 8 and had a great time. We left by about 9:30/10 and headed over to a small bar that they took us to to wait until it was time for us to go the club later that night. However, they thought that bringing about 50 people to a tiny little bar was a good idea, so me and a few others from the program decided to go exploring and find the club ourselves. Of course, it was deserted when we arrived and we felt a bit awkward. So Bree and I left to explore for a bit while we waited to go back at the proper time. We walked around town with our friend Gracie and then went back to the club at around 11 when people were actually there and hung out for a bit.
Me and Bree at the club fooling around with the camera
However, by the time 11:30 we decided to act like old farts and head in. Mind you, we had gotten up at 4:30-5 and driven 8 hours to Portugal. We had been up for way more than should be normal and were exhausted. Plus we had to figure out how to get back to the hotel. So we peaced out, gave our free drink cards to people who could use them and found our way back to the hotel. Unfortunately for us it was at least a 20-30 minute walk and it was raining....great. We didn't have an umbrella or any sort of cover, so we decided to make the best of our walk and just walk and enjoy being wet. We got a bit lost, followed some girls to their hotel, which wasn't ours, asked for directions and finally made it back by 12:30, wet and tired. But we made it and went to bed real quick. We had a full day ahead of us and we thoroughly enjoyed our first day in Portugal.
Next post, the second and third day in Portugal. I just have too many pictures to put it all in one post.
So Friday we got to Portugal at about 1:30 and headed over to look at
the "caves". They're not really caves, more like giant rocks that form
smaller areas of water so you have to take a little boat to look at
them. The rocks are really pretty though. The whole coast line looks
like that, it's gorgeous. We got to hang around there for about 30 minutes and take pictures and basque in the sun. It was finally warm there! It had been rainy and gross on our way there, raining on and off and we didn't know what kind of weather we'd get. We saw rain on the forecast, but it's hard to tell here. So we were really excited that it was nice outside. It was a wonderful view to see right when we got there, especially since that was our first impression of this beautiful city. 
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