Day 1 in Lagos, Portugal- 
So the journey began at 9:30pm on Thursday night. A few of
us from SJU here in Madrid decided to sign up for a group trip to Lagos,
Portugal through a program called Discover
Seville. The trip started at 10 am on Friday in Seville so we left Madrid
Thursday night in order to make it on time. Our bus was at 11pm and lasted
through the night. The seats were extremely uncomfortable which made it
impossible to sleep. The bus driver also drove super-fast, but after a long
ride we finally made it to Seville at an absurd hour during the night (5am).
The kids of Seville were still going home from the night before at this hour.
My little group had 5hrs to kill so we were not in a rush to get anywhere. We
sat in the bus station until 7:15am. After that we snagged a taxi to the
Portuguese Consulate where we were due to meet at 10am. Obviously no one was
there so we walked over to a small park with lights. The place reeked of
garbage and pee mixed together. Trash was everywhere. The “teens” left beer bottles,
and cans in every direction you looked. The only cool thing was a huge tree in
the middle that reminded me of the “tree of life” from Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
I decided to bring some humor into the situation by saying, “hey look at that
horse and carriage over there!” when really it was just a street sweeper. The
funny thing is at 8am when the breakfast place opened, we were sitting down
eating and all of a sudden a horse and carriage went by. Everyone laughed so
hard. We just sat in this little breakfast bar for the remaining two hours then
walked back across the street to the consulate. A lot of other students did the
same thing we did: take an overnight bus to Seville and wait 5 hours for 10am
to roll around. The bus ride from Seville to Portugal was not that bad. I
enjoyed the scenic cruise through the countryside of Portugal. The leaders of
the trip even played great music the entire time so my iPod was never needed! Once
we arrived at our white semi oceanfront hotel, we changed for the beach! (How
appropriate) This beach (Praia Dona Ana) looked like paradise the way the
pictures would display it.
So the journey began at 9:30pm on Thursday night. A few of
us from SJU here in Madrid decided to sign up for a group trip to Lagos,
Portugal through a program called Discover
Seville. The trip started at 10 am on Friday in Seville so we left Madrid
Thursday night in order to make it on time. Our bus was at 11pm and lasted
through the night. The seats were extremely uncomfortable which made it
impossible to sleep. The bus driver also drove super-fast, but after a long
ride we finally made it to Seville at an absurd hour during the night (5am).
The kids of Seville were still going home from the night before at this hour.
My little group had 5hrs to kill so we were not in a rush to get anywhere. We
sat in the bus station until 7:15am. After that we snagged a taxi to the
Portuguese Consulate where we were due to meet at 10am. Obviously no one was
there so we walked over to a small park with lights. The place reeked of
garbage and pee mixed together. Trash was everywhere. The “teens” left beer bottles,
and cans in every direction you looked. The only cool thing was a huge tree in
the middle that reminded me of the “tree of life” from Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
I decided to bring some humor into the situation by saying, “hey look at that
horse and carriage over there!” when really it was just a street sweeper. The
funny thing is at 8am when the breakfast place opened, we were sitting down
eating and all of a sudden a horse and carriage went by. Everyone laughed so
hard. We just sat in this little breakfast bar for the remaining two hours then
walked back across the street to the consulate. A lot of other students did the
same thing we did: take an overnight bus to Seville and wait 5 hours for 10am
to roll around. The bus ride from Seville to Portugal was not that bad. I
enjoyed the scenic cruise through the countryside of Portugal. The leaders of
the trip even played great music the entire time so my iPod was never needed! Once
we arrived at our white semi oceanfront hotel, we changed for the beach! (How
appropriate) This beach (Praia Dona Ana) looked like paradise the way the
pictures would display it. 
Except after about 20 min, the beach was infested
with college students. The water was chilly as expected because I learned about
the cold Canary Current that comes down the coast from the North Pole.
As the
beach scene died down, we went back to take refreshing showers. After showers, Zach
and I decided to explore a little and stumbled upon some more great views. He
was hungry so we somehow hiked down the cliff to the restaurant on the
beach/lodged in the cliff. There we found our friends, Dom and Darnell! Nothing
exciting happened until our entire group on the trip congregated for dinner.
The trip leaders led everyone into downtown Lagos to choose a restaurant for
dinner. My SJU group originally wanted to go to the Nah Nah Bah which is one of
the top ranked burger places in the world. This place was small and already
packed as it was so we compromised on a Thai restaurant. This was my second
time eating Thai cuisines and it definitely was a lot tastier than the first
time. I had chicken and egg noodles which was pretty delicious. We also tried
the famous “Vino Verde” (green wine that looked like white wine). Once dinner
was over, the leaders suggested everyone go to the Grand Café which essentially
was a small club-like place. Before arriving there we stopped at this
Australian surf bar spontaneously which was probably the best decision ever. The
first night was fun. People stayed out until crazy hours of course, but we
called it a night at a decent hour because we had a lot in store the next day!
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