To some of you, living in Spain for four months to "study abroad" is really only an excuse to go on an extended vacation. Truth: you're absolutely right. Yet living the hard of life being lazy and eating all the time sometimes requires its own mini-vacation.
Portugal is about a two hour drive from Sevilla, and as soon as you cross the border the landscape is completely different, and nobody will speak in Spanish to you. Only English or Portuguese. Actually, even the people are quite different... maybe a little nicer?
Although this spring has been quite rainy and cold at times, we made it onto the beach all three days; but Sunday was picture perfect, not a single cloud. With only two weeks until I head back home, Portugal was by far the best way to end the term. Lagos was lovely and calm. Not a lot of people in the city, and its almost impossible to get lost. Our itinerary was basically to do whatever we felt like doing; so that included a lot of sand, sun, and sangria.
Lagos is at the southernmost tip of the country, and its coastlines are incredible. We had the opportunity to hike out onto the massive cliffs that hug the ocean, and we even tried to catch the sunset at Cabo Sao Vicente (aka the End of the World); which is the closest tip to the United States; but that didn't really work out as planned because it was extremely windy and cloudy. On Saturday we all hopped on a boat, drank some sangria and got an awesome view of the grottoes. Those things are MASSIVE, and create a cool network caves. And of course the beaches were beautiful, the sand was different; it kind of looked like sesame seeds.
If I lived in Spain I would be going to Portugal every single weekend.
But of course, the best part of any trip is the company. Even though we filled three buses, it didn't seem like there were that many of us. Everybody was on the same page; to have a relaxing weekend and have fun. At night the city came alive, all the locals and tourists go out dancing in the clubs... in which you can apparently still smoke. We weren't sure what the typical "Portuguese cuisine" was, but it seemed like it was similar to what we eat here in Andalusia, so of course we find the best places with burgers, ribs and Mexican food.
At the end of the day, its always so nice to come back to Sevilla. Going out of town for a little bit definitely makes you appreciate all the good things about "home", wherever that might be at the moment.
It also makes me wonder: leaving all my soul mates for a few months in Canada was hard, but I always knew I'd be seeing them again. But now that I'm leaving these new soul mates that I might actually never see again... how much harder will it be?
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