Saturday, October 15, 2011

Catch up time: Portugal

Well, a picture paints a thousand words, and since it keeps getting harder to stay on top of my blogging, I figure I'll just let them do most of the story telling. 

Bus trip with the group to Lagos, Portugal:

The girls room at the hostel... notice the wall... (if you can see that much detail)... this is the princess room, and she's holding a beer bong. That basically sums up the culture of traveling in Lagos. There was also a cow room, a buddha room, andd I can't remember the other themes, but they all had quite the depictions.


 Sam and Sam and Frankie, who graduated from UW and now works at the hostel and hooked us up with good deals.


Anel and I:

The boys at dinner. We ate at.... Nah Nah Bah? Apparently its rated top 50 in the world for its burgers and has been on food channels before. Of course, I ate the burger. It was pretty good I guess. I'd like to know what makes a burger top 50 in the world though.


And the girls at dinner...


This was breakfast at the hostel. Amazing. In Sevilla, there were literally signs in the kitchen saying "mama is not here. Please do you dishes."In Portugal, we were told to literally call this woman Mama, and she made us crapes for breakfast, and homemade apple sauce! And this magic tea that was yellow, but when you add a couple drops of lemon to it, it turned white. I think she called it ticky ticky.





















Lagos had some really cool coves...








It was a little scary... the wind was blowing like crazy through there and the rocks weren't very nice either. Good thing I didn't slip!










and there was this random hanging ball in the middle of Lagos... landmark? We thought we'd take a picture just in case. - and try to move it too :)
A big ball in the middle of Lagos. I have no idea what it was, but we figured we'd take a picture with it just in case it was some landmark. And of course, we tried to move it. Successfully. 




 you probably can't read that, but it talks about ....




... these two pictures. One of the historical things in Lagos is this place. It used to be a slave market, where slaves and goods were auctioned off. The picture above has goods they used to sell in those boxes.



I was a little shocked.

and then a british guy came out and tried talking us into having a beer. We were in Portugal and this bar was run by a british guy. I hardly felt like I was in Portugal all weekend.

Yeah, I wasn't having it.




This is the Memos of Portugal. Open at the wee hours of the night, it gets pretty popular before people head home, or to their hostel. Amaaaaazing Kebabs! Kind of like Gyros in a pita... are those called Kebabs in the states? hm.


The Rising Cock was our hostel:



On our way home, our bus got a flat tire. As we waited:


Portuguese triple A:






Almost sat on some baby cactus -



Some of us were good students and worked on hw... notice I'm not in the picture. I did try though. Did you see the book in my hand earlier? Except every time I started reading on the bus I fell asleep.



Four hours later....

Just kidding :) I actually don't know how long we were sitting there. Maybe a couple hours. We got home really late though, and I was surprised at how happy I was to come back to Cadiz. I guess its starting to feel homey.

Ok, so more to come. I still need to post Barcelona pictures.

Other updates:
1.) First exam in my Spain and the European Union class last thursday. Piece of cake.

2.) An "adventure" that started out a humbling experience and quickly turned irritating, and eventually frustrating. Whoever thought that because I speak Spanish this would be easy for me thought wrong. Cadiz is... I don't know the stats, but very small, and all they had to do was throw in a holiday to mess me all up with the bus system to get home.

3.) finally emailed guitar man, but no response. Phone call next. I want lessons.

.... mmm thats all I can think of for now. Miss you all!

Friday, September 23, 2011

Cadiz, alligators, and surfing



I don't think I've posted any pictures of Cadiz yet... I still have much exploring to do, but my last class yesterday got canceled so I did some walking. 


Plaza Sevilla... I think...

This is a park right in front of the University. I've seen it everyday leaving class and finally went to check it out!!


That's my school...






They have dinosaurs here!!! ... haha I have no idea what those are doing there...








Cody: Its a good thing you weren't here for this - I would've had to take this thing out. ... gator or crock? I can't tell.




ANDDD since I had no class today, I had my first surf lesson :) and did quite well I think. That's what the guy said, but he's trying to make money so who knows. I was able to stand up twice in a row though! I'm not sure if that typical of the first lesson or not. The waves are small, which I heard is better for practicing technique and can be harder than big waves (once you know what you're doing) because it leaves less room for slop. The waves are supposed to be really good tomorrow. They told me that winter is the best time to surf in Cadiz. That's when they get the best waves - and the beach is a lot more clear of people (even though the Cortadura beach is pretty much only surfers, wind/kite surfers, and such anyway). I'm debating how much money I want to put into surfing, so we'll see if I go. These people are funny - wetsuits. They don't know what cold water is. Today was a little cloudy and breezy, but still nothing like Washington. I won't complain though. I was nice and warm.