Halloween in Portugal

Hola todos!

Today is the first day of November! I can't believe how quickly time is flying by. Today is Monday, and I would typically have school, but in Spain we have the day of because of All Saint's Day. I am glad we have today off because I am still exhausted from my weekend that I spent in Portugal.

Portugal was absolutely beautiful and I didn't want to leave! On Saturday, we left early in the morning and arrived in Lagos at about noon time. The weather was a bit overcast, but the rain held off, so it made for a fairly nice day despite all of the wind as you'll notice in some of my pictures! The oceans in Lagos are so beautiful and have a bunch of random cliffs near the coast that just makes the view ten times more lovely to look at.

Sam, Sydney, and I in Lagos :)

After walking around the beaches for awhile, we then went to the center of Lagos with the entire group to get some lunch. While on the bus, they described the menu at the restaurant to us--hamburgers, pasta, and BURRITOS. I was so excited when they said that the restaurant served burritos and my mouth was watering until my burrito was placed in front of me. Everything on the menu was 4.50 euros and the portions were HUGE.

BURRITO.. YUM!!

After lunch, we had some free time to walk around Lagos and check out some of the sites. I was noticing that Portugal, in general, has some of the largest seagulls I have ever seen. Those birds are definitely not going hungry, that's for sure.

Giant seagull!

After walking around Lagos for a bit, we headed to the "End of the World." Seriously. Before Christopher Columbus discovered North America, all people believed that the point we visited was the end of the world and nothing was beyond that point except the Atlantic Ocean.

It's the end of the world, folks.

After the visit to the end of the world, we stopped at a grocery store to buy some food. We stayed in "aparthotels" so our rooms had a full kitchen in it, so we were able to make ourselves some delicious dinner. Our purchases at the grocery store were as follows: spaghetti, sauce (for .44 euros--bargain!), Snickers, cookies, Nutella, Pringles, and Sangria. Can you tell we were having withdrawals from American food at all? And don't worry, I added some nutritional value with the purchase of a granny smith apple. Sydney made the purchase of Nutella, and she was shocked to find out that Sam and I had never tried Nutella--and let me tell you, I have been missing out all these years. What a delicious concoction! Our dinner ended up being absolutely delicious as well and we managed to eat one dinner without pan (bread). Our senoras give us pan with EVERY meal--let me tell ya, that's a lot of pan.

Once we ate dinner, it was time to put our costumes on and get ready for a night out in Albufeira, Portugal to celebrate Halloween. Sydney was an 80s girl, Sam was a witch, and I was a greek goddess. The rest of the group that we went with had some pretty funny costumes--my favorite was a banana. We left our hotel at 12AM and went to two different bars and a discoteca and we didn't get back to the hotel until about 5AM. We all had a lot of fun and I was really excited when they played the YMCA in one of the bars that we went to. They also played almost all American music, which was also great-- I was able to sing along and dance :)

All ready to go!

When we woke up about five hours later we grabbed some breakfast and then it was off to explore Albufeira for the day. It was a gorgeous day outside, so as soon as we arrived at the beach, Sam and I kicked off our shoes and rolled up our pants and went to run around in the water for a bit. Surprisingly, the water wasn't too terribly cold and there were actually people that went all the way in with their bathing suits on and everything! I definitely don't think I would have been able to handle that, haha! We walked around the beach for a bit and went up to a look-out tour which had an absolutely gorgeous view of the ocean. We then walked around town for a bit and bought a few souvenirs and had some lunch. After lunch, we relaxed on the beach for awhile longer and then it was time to go back to Seville :( I really had such a great time and I didn't want the weekend to end! Here are a few pictures from Albufeira..

Hi from Portugal!

Albufeira, Portugal

On top of the look out point--so beautiful!

When I arrived back home, Juani and I had a nice chat about my trip and I showed her all of my pictures plus some other pictures of my family, my trip to China, and pictures from Indiana when I interned there over the summer. We talked for about an hour and then she finally told me that I should take a shower and get to sleep because I was so exhausted from the weekend! Last week, I told her I was getting a bit cold at night so she added an extra blanket on to my bed and gave me an additional blanket to put over my bed. So last night, I was very toasty when I went to sleep :)

That's about all for this weekend. Like I said, I can't believe it's already November! I'm looking forward to the rest of my time here, but can't wait to get home and see my Mom and Dad AND my brother :) It will be a great holiday season. Until then, though, I plan to enjoy the rest of my time here and make the best of every single moment. I hope everyone had a great weekend and that this coming week is a great one! Love and prayers. Hasta luego!

Besos,
Lindsay