That means "Hello! Good day! Do you speak English?" in Portuguese, a language that I don't speak a word. I had to look up what I wrote
in my Let's Go: Spain and Portugal guidebook. This weekend (the 6th, to be exact) I turned 21 years old. I don't usually make a big deal out of my birthday. I like to spend it with people I love, but I usually don't need a lot of things to make me happy. Even though I am so blessed to be in Europe, I was a little down because I knew that I wasn't going to see many of my BEST friends on my birthday. I also knew that I will never have the cliché Boulder birthday where you go to Pearl Street with all of your friends, you don't pay for a single drink and you kiss the buffalo (it's a Boulder thing). Obviously, if I had to pick between spending my 21st birthday in SPAIN vs. Boulder, I would pick Spain. Before I left for Spain, the study abroad office taught us something called the "Cultural Awareness Curve". It basically showed us that it is normal to have highs and lows while you are abroad. I am rounding the half way point and I think that I was in one of the lows last week. I was walking around the city and I just didn't appreciate it in the same way that I did the few couple weeks I was here. I'm getting to the part where I miss certain things about home more than I used to and find certain things that annoy me about Spanish culture that didn't bother me before, even though Seville is still breathtaking. For all of these reasons, I wanted to have a good birthday. I decided that it would be nice to take a bus down to the beaches of Southern Portugal and spend my birthday on the beach.That's right, Steph, Kels and I went to a beach town called Lagos, Portugal, which is located on the Southwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula. It's known for its beautiful beaches, breathtaking cliffs and lively nightlife. It's about a 4 hour bus ride from Seville so on Friday morning, we woke up and caught the 7:30 bus to Lagos. Most of the bus ride was along the coast so it was so beautiful to see the ocean. When we arrived, we took a taxi to the hostel I found online. We stayed at the International Youth Hostel and it was amazing. It was 12 EUROS a night including breakfast. It was really close to the center of town and only a short walk to the beach. The people that ran it spoke English and it was clean and neat. Also, because it was the off season for the town, the 3 of us got a 4 person dorm all to ourselves. Overall, it was an awesome pick. Unfortunately, the weather on Friday was not that good and too cold to really go to the beach. We were going in a weird time of year, so it was a toss up of whether the weather would be nice or not. Just because it's on the beach, doesn't mean that it's warm and sunny all year.
We got there, settled into our hostel. I went to go check the internet and I came back and Steph and Kels had set up a little surprise birthday for me, complete with a cake and a birthday card (somehow they snuck a cake onto the bus without me noticing). After singing and eating a little bit of cake, we went to the center of town where we had a drink and a snack. It was here that Steph and Kels bought me my first beer as a 21 year old. After that, we walked around town a little bit and walked down to the beach, just to see it. That night, we got all dressed up and went to dinner. We went to a place that the
guy at the hostel recommended and it was amazing. We got 3 HUGE plates of food for cheap cheap food and a cheap cheap bottle of wine. We had pasta, prawns and filet mignon and potatoes (it was unbelievable). After that we went to the bars. A few funny things about that night: First of all, we didn't know that there was a time change between Spain and Portugal, for the first 30 hours or so of our trip, we thought it was an hour later than it really was. Second of all, Lagos was in its off season. So we out that night and not that many people were out. We also knew that all the bars closed at 2. So we left at "2" to go back to our hostel (it was really just 1pm). Plus we didn't find out until the next day that the bar were at closed at 4, not 2, so the bartender must have thought we were crazy when we said we were leaving cause it was too late. We went to a few bars and had a few drinks that night, which was nice but we definitely could have stayed out a lot longer.The next day I consider my real birthday because it was absolutely perfect. We woke up to an impeccable blue sky and 72 degree weather. We ate a quick breakfast and headed down to the beach. We got there and there was the cutest little bar/restaurant on the beach. Before actually going down to the beach, we stopped and had a margarita (my first). Then we stayed on the beach for the rest of the day, listening to music, reading, sunbathing, relaxing and talking. At about 3 o clock we had an AMAZING meal at that same restaurant. We still the whole sha-bang: appretizer, meal, desert and coffee; All of it with an amazing view of the Atlantic ocean. That night, we went out for real (we had changed our clocks and everything). We got dressed up and went to the bars. This night was a lot more lively than the first. The first bar we went to, we met some Americans and a British guy who we spent the rest of the night hanging out with. We went to probably 4 bars that night all around the center of town. We also did everything you would do on your cliché 21st birthday. We sang, danced, drank, played pool, laughed, etc. I also had my first Long Island Iced Tea. After this night, I felt like I really had celebrated my 21st right.
We had planned to leave the next day but realized that we just couldn't. The only bus we could take would be in the middle of the day on Sunday. We didn't have class until later on Monday and the hostel was only 12 euros, so we decided to stay and take the bus home early on Monday. Sunday's weather was even better than Saturday and we decided to go to a different beach this time. The walk to our beach was amazing. We had to hike upward and as we did, we could see the whole ocean sprawled out before us. They call the town "Lagos" which means "La
kes" in Portuguese because there are almost no waves. It isn't even located in a gulf or a cove; It's situated on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the water is as calm as a lake. The beach that we went to on Saturday was Meia Praia, which was big and flat. On Sunday, we headed to the beaches that were west of town. These beaches were divided by large cliffs and huge grottoes. We went to Praia de Pinhâo, a beach that we had to take a huge stone staircase built into the cliff in order to get to. The beach on Meia Praia was beautiful but this beach was BREATHTAKING. Because it was situated between cliffs, the wind couldn't get to us so it was nice and warm. We stayed there for the day just relaxing. We finished the day with another meal on the beach, but this time, the restaurant was on a cliff, not just on the sand of a flat beach. That night, we went out again to many of the same places with the same guys that we met the night before. We stayed out until 3 o clock in the morning and got back to the hostel with just enough time to sleep for about 2 and a half hours, pack, clean up our room and head to the bus station for our 6:30am bus ride home. Needless to say, when we got back to Seville and I had to go to class, I was DYING, but I think that's expected after the weekend of your 21st birthday.By the time this semester ends, we will have traveled many places in Europe. Some trips will be more culturally based where we see how many museums and landmarks we can fit in one day. This weekend was not like that at all. My wish was to have a RELAXING beach weekend with no rushing or worries. That is exactly what we did. We ate, drank and completely relaxed. Not a single museum or landmark was seen. We just took in the breathtaking atmosphere that Lagos has to offer and I cannot think of a better way to spend your birthday. Hopefully for my 22nd birthday I can take a plane back with all my friends from the states. That won't too expensive, right ;)? This upcoming weekend, I am staying in Seville which is good because I have midterms next week and I will be studying. Also, I just checked the weather in Seville for the next 10 days and, no joke, it is supposed to be between 70-75 degrees and sunny EVERYDAY. I am so thankful that spring has finally come to Seville, because the rain and the clouds were really beginning to bother me. Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes I received! Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys next week!
Here are links to better pictures:
awww michelle! i apparently haven't checked your blog in like 3 weeks! your birthday sounds PERFECT. i'm so so so jealous. i want that. :) and i'm glad it's finally warm there. :)
ReplyDelete