Lisbon, Portugal

This past weekend, I took a 6 hour bus to Lisbon, Portugal with my school. There were about 35-40 of us that ended up going, and it was a blast! The first day, we arrived in Lisbon a little later than expected, but we got there around 1:30pm. From there, we dropped off our bags in our hotel rooms, and got situated before we had to meet up in the lobby at 3:00. Little did we know, the time there is an hour different, so Heidi (one of my closest girlfriends here) and I arrived in the lobby right on time, not realizing that we had an HOUR before we actually had to leave! Instead, we pulled out a deck of cards and started playing games with in the lobby. Before we knew it, we were off to our first guided tour around Lisbon.
Our first tour was given to us by a local woman. However, I barely heard any of the information because there were about 35-40 students for this ONE woman to talk amongst and tour. Although it was a fun tour, it took FOREVER! When I say that I walked around Lisbon, I mean that I saw ALL of it! I don’t think there was a single street or alley for that matter, that I DID NOT go down. After the 3-5 hour tour was done, we were all exhausted and headed into different directions to get dinner. When we finished dinner we tried to hop on the subway that the woman told us to take to get back to the hotel, but little did she know, she accidently gave us ALL the wrong subway! So 9 girls and I were aimlessly searching for the right station AFTER we hopped on the first metro! However, once we got back and showered up and ready to go, the night definitely picked up.
The second day we woke up early so we could hit the free breakfast! Although I BARELY ate a single thing at the designated time for breakfast, I stole enough for them to think that I was feeding a family of 6 back in my hotel room! However, it was refreshing to have my meals all included for me and everything after I have been planning for my own trips. Not only were the meals good, but we also had an itinerary for our entire day, it was wonderful! All of us hopped back on our Mercedes Coach bus and had a guided tour around local areas in Lisbon and actually travelled to, what the earlier days thought to be, the end of the world located on the coast of Portugal. There we actually got to scale the side of the hill/mountain thing and it was the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen! There was a waterfall that literally flowed through the center of the mountainous area and you would NEVER KNOW IT! It fell right from the top, down to the beach that we climbed down to. From there we could see the ENTIRE coast of Portugal. If you looked in the distance, you could see a little island that almost looks like you are looking off the coast of San Francisco. We learned that after Columbus set sail and realized that they “surpassed the end of the world,” the Portuguese made a small island off of the coast because the fog was so bad, that when people would try to sail inland they would run into the coast line and their ships would sink, thus creating, their coast prison. This was a very interesting/beautiful site in Portugal. After that, our school just gave us free time to roam about, but the only thing around us, really, was a shopping area. So rather than wasting money, I stayed in with a few friends to play cards back at the hotel so we could be ready to go when everyone came back from shopping for dinner. The next day, we left early in the morning since nothing is open on Sunday (common theme in Spain/Portugal). A long 5-6hour bus ride later, we were home. Aurora, happy to see me, and same with Maya. Time is running down and I’m just awaiting my family’s arrival in a little over a week!

Coming up next: crazy family week long vacation, Amsterdam, Italy, and much more!
Miss you all!

Lauren
Quote of the Week: “I thought we were going to Lisboa, but now we’re going to Lisbon?” --- Dougie