Thursday was Mara’s 21st
birthday so the mams (Anna and Mara) and I went to Elizabet's for yummy tapas
and celebrated with delicious, and very potent, home-made sangria, champagne,
and cake. We went to Le Cyrano with the St. Jordi crew, but Anna and I had to
leave before going to the club with everyone because we had a 7:30am flight to
Portugal the next morning. So after less than 4 hours of sleep Anna and I went
to the airport. We were pretty exhausted/ hungover sitting in the Barcelona
airport and resorted to eating egg mcmuffins and splitting the magical muffin.
It's okay, we survived.
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| Lisbon from the castle overlook |
We arrived in Lisbon
pretty early in the day, had some coffee, and made our way to our hostel. After
dropping off our things we started our day by walking to the Sao Jorge Castle. On our
walk to the castle I noticed that Lisbon is covered in tiles. If you are not aware, I
LOVE tiles. I loved all of the cute tile stores and buildings covered in different
tiles. I was in tile-heaven. Then we got to the castle and had the loveliest
time walking around the grounds and enjoying the views of Lisbon. We also
walked along the edges of the castle and went to the archeological site. Then as
we left the castle we had the most traumatizing experience…
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| AHHHHHHH |
When Anna and I entered the castled we noticed a bunch of peacocks and peahens (female version of a peacock) sitting
in a tree. It was so odd, but also really cool. We took some pictures and moved
on with our lives. Then as we were leaving we saw a peacock with all of this
feathers raised. Again, we thought this was really cool so we ran over to see the peacock and take some pictures. Then it dawned on us: peacocks raise their feathers
as part of their mating ritual. Next, we saw a lone peahen in front of the the
peacock. The peacock was standing on its toes, twitching its feathers, and rumbling
it's butt. The peacock had the peahen in site. Then the peacock pounced,
mounted the peahen, and bit the peahen's neck. Anna and I literally SHRIEKED
and ran behind a tree--we were genuinely scared (and scarred). Meanwhile, tons
of peple rush over to watch this horrifying experience and take videos. We had to run away as the peacock continued its terrifying ritual. I will
honestly never think of peacocks the same way.
**if you want to be scarred, just youtube "peacock mating ritual"...beware.
After this life-ruining
experience, we went to lunch. We left the touristy part of town and found a nice
restaurant with outdoor seating. We had some buffalo mozzarella and I had a
cannelloni with wine (kind of pretending I was back in Italy). Then we walked around and and
shopped until I found the plate of my dreams. It is this giant
sunflower plate and it warms my heart (I love glassware).
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| Bolos & cappuccino |
After a short nap Anna and I ventured to Belem, for the famous Pasteis de Belem bolos. Bolos are these
amazing Portuguese pastries, and this shop is famous for making them. On
our bus ride to Belem we encounter a grumpy old geezer. I was sitting next to
an old man with my legs crossed and he hit my leg with his umbrella (as a
signal for me to uncross my legs). I was not a fan. Then he proceeded to sprawl
out and invade all of my leg room. Such a grumpy geezer. It was okay because we
had such a positive experiences at Pasteis de Belem. We had cappuccinos with our bolos
and were so happy. Our waiter was also really friendly and put brown sugar and
powdered sugar on some of the bolos for us. We just had to buy the cute little teacups
after our meal because we were so pleased (and they were really cheap).
Anna and I walked around Belem for the rest of the evening, saw the monastary, the torre
(lol), and we really enjoyed this giant fountain that changed colors. We also
liked making weird sound effects to the colorful fountain as it exploded.
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| Fountain and monastery in Belem |
The next morning we got
our free breakfast at Yes Hostel and we left for LAGOS! We had to take a
4-hour bus from Lisbon, but the time passed quickly and was so worth it. We got
to the place we were staying and realized it was literally a 4 minute walk from Praia Dona Ana beach,
which just happens to be the most beautiful beach in Lagos. We were also
shocked because our hotel/hostel/villa (?) was so cute! It had these pretty
gardens all around the pool (it had a heated pool...) and a cute little coy pond.
We also had a private room with our own bathroom. And the best part was that we
only paid 12 euro a night!!!
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| Mmmm seafood |
Our first stop in Lagos
was Prato Cheio, which was a highly rated Portuguese restaurant. We became best friends with
our waiter and talked to him for about an hour about Portugal and Spain, and he
was so sweet. We also had the best seafood ever. I had squid (with
tentacles) and shell fish. I've never had better tasting seafood in my life.
UHG SO GOOD.
Next, we went straight to
the beach. We were simply blown away. The pictures of this place really don't lie, it
truly was the most beautiful beach I've ever been to. We laid there until the
sun went behind the cliffs and it got a little chilly. But don't worry, we got to lay by our pool and
had direct sunlight. The happiest of times.
For dinner we went into town and walked around all of the little streets before settling on a pizza place. We are only slightly ashamed of our choice to eat pizza in Portugal...but it was really good! We both had Hawaiian pizzas and I had a White Russian with my pizza. I'm laughing out loud as I recount how weird/hilarious this meal choice was (but no regrets). We decided to be adventurous and try an Alexander brandy after our meal. We had to make stank-faces as we choked down these nasty dranks, but it's okay.
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| The groom-to-be Chris |
After dinner decided to
stay in town and do some bar-hopping. We went to this one low key bar with live
music, which was really great. Next, we went to MJs Bar, because it was highly
rated on trip advisor. When we arrived we notice the bar is completely filled
with 40-50 year old men, one of which is wearing a dress. I have no idea why I
didn't think this was this was weird at the time, but Anna and I waltzed right in. We soon realized we were crashing a gay british man's bachelor party. We became the hit of the part because we were the only girls there and were the only people under the age of 40. We met the groom to be, Chris, who was wearing the white dress and boxers. We took some tequila shots with him and danced the night away to songs like "We are Family" and "Celebration". Wow such a great night.
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| Wine at Camilo Beach |
The next day we had a full
day in Lagos and planned to spend the entire day at the beach. I'm going to start off
by saying this was the most magical day ever. We woke up and went into
town for breakfast at Oedon Cafe. It was only 3.50 for a giant pancake, 4 pieces of bacon,
and 2 eggs on toast. Yesssss, Then we went to Praia Dona Ana and laid. It was pure bliss. I even
leaned against a rock and read on the beach. Man, we were SO happy.
We then bought a bottle of wine and explored the next beach, Camilo Beach. This
beach was much smaller than Praia Dona Ana, but there was this cool little cave that
connected to another beach where's we laid, drank some wine, and chatted. We
could not get over how beautiful our surroundings were, or how beautiful this
day was. We did however have one small mishap when a big wave came and almost washed all of our belongings away. Anna went into fight or flight mode and saved her camera, and her phone went for a little swim in the ocean (but it still works!!).
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| Ponta da Piedade |
After regrouping, and
laughing about how much worse that could have bee, we walked back to our villa
and laid by the pool. More bliss. Next, we went to a little snack-restaurant that overlooked the Praia Ana Dona beach. We got a pitcher of
sangria and had hamburgers/hot dogs as we got to look at this incredible beach.
Once again, we were SO happy! This was followed by more laying by the pool,
until we mustered up some energy to jog to Ponta da Piedade. Our cab driver told us to
visit this place, and it wasn't too far from our villa. We had to go down a bunch of
stairs, but the stairs led to these incredible grottos. I really wanted to visit
Capri while abroad, but Ponta da Piedade filled my Capri-fix (at least for now). We then
walked to the edge of Portugal and watched as the sun began to
set. Also, there were these fields of little cacti/flowers surrounding us,
which was beyond cool. We agreed that we HAD to come back here the next morning with
our cameras. So we finally left this beautiful area, jogged back to the villa,
and got ready for dinner.
We walked into town with a
restaurant in mind, and then we passed a restaurant called "Nah Nah Bah". We saw that there were a ton of
people inside. and decided to just go there instead. Here we had the most delicious fish
tacos. Just picture this: corona battered fish with avocado, cotija cheese, spicy salsa and pineapple sauce in a corn tortilla with lime chips and a piña
colada. The mams were SO pleased.
The next morning we were
depressed because we knew we didn't have much time left in Lagos. We went back
to Ponta da Piedade to take our pictures and then we then went back to the restaurant that over looked the Praia Dona Ana beach
for breakfast (lol hamburgers for breakfast). We held back tears as we said goodbye to our
beautiful beach and took the bus back to Lisbon.
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| Stunning Praia Dona Ana Beach |
Once we arrived in Lisbon we
were on a mission to quickly find bolos and find the Aerobus. It was magical that we found both simultaneously. We grabbed our bolos, got on the bus, and headed to
the airport. This time we tried almond bolos, which were so0o0o good. We
chilled at the airport for a pretty long time while studying for our finals, and then we drank some Porto on the plane
(because we failed to drink it in Portugal and were curious as to what it was).
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