This last week was a fun one! It's been over a week since my last post, but it won't take too long for me to cover everything. Wednesday was my roommate's birthday, so we had a week of celebrations. It started Wednesday with gifts and an afternoon snack with friends, tortilla de patata, and tarta chocolate (chocolate cake). Also to celebrate her birthday, all of us girls (11 of us) booked a weekend trip to Portugal to celebrate! We Love Spain was the travel company we used, and it was a really great time! 10/10 do recommend to future study abroad students.
We left Friday morning for Albufeira, Portugal. This city is a neat little beach town in between Faro and Lagos. We showed up and checked into our hotels before heading straight to the beach! We took this time to lay out and get started on our tans (or sunburns). The sun and the beach were so refreshing, and it was a great way to relax after a test week. Our hotel has kitchens in the room, so we had spaghetti for dinner before getting ready to start our weekend in Portugal!
On Saturday, we loaded up the bus early to go to Sagres, Portugal to see the End of the World. Before people knew the Earth was round, they believed that this place was the end of the world, and it was very sacred to the Romans. They believed that the sun set into the water here, and this was place where the sunset was the widest and biggest. The cliffs were so huge, and it was breath taking to see a place so old and rich with history. The mythical beliefs and stories around this place are fascinating and worth a google. After this, we went back to Lagos to enjoy the beach there for a few more hours. Santa Maria beach was where we went to first to spend four hours sun bathing, exploring caves, and looking at the sea life like an octopus and some shells! After this, we went into the heart of Lagos for dinner and relaxation before heading back to Albufeira.
The next day, we went to another part in Albufeira, and the bus dropped off some of the people at one beach. The rest of us who signed up to kayak and paddle board went to a different beach to do those activities. I've never paddle boarded before, and now that I've done it, I can't imagine how I have gone 20 years without knowing about this. It was so fun and so relaxing. This is going to sound really corny, but I felt very at one with the ocean, the expanse of the Earth, and life while I was in the coves and cave. That doesn't really make sense in writing, but at the time, all I could think about was how everything made sense. There is so much to our world, and we only live in a teeny, tiny part of it. I'm so lucky to have the opportunity to travel and see all of these places and be on the ocean and feeling like anything is possible. It was an adrenaline rush minus the feeling of urgency. I could've just sat on the ocean all day, and I would've felt fine just being there. I was also on the same ocean that touches America which is a cool thought. It made me feel close to home.
We grabbed lunch after that then made our way back home. We all parted ways a little red, a little sandy, and a little sun exhausted. I slept better that night than I have in a very long time.
Yesterday was the dress rehearsal and last class for the Sevillanos dance that I've been learning this semester. We put on our dresses, and the teacher did our make up in el estillo de Féria. We danced and had such a great time! It was sad saying goodbye to our amazing teacher, but we swapped Facebooks. Thank God for social media now because it really can connect the world. It's a cool thing. I have pictures from all of this past weekend and yesterday in my 2017 pt. 2 album, so check 'em out! This is a short post, but the next one will be super long because I'm going to Ibiza, Barcelona (again, I know), and Málaga next week! Until next post.
xoxo,
Caroline
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