Thursday, May 24, 2012

The final trip: Lagos, Portugal and a 20th birthday

Lagos is a trip I've been looking to and dreading for the past few months. Looking forward to it for obvious reasons, but dreading it mainly because I knew it would mark the end of my 5 month period of traveling around Europe. So with mixed feelings, I woke up at 6 am Friday morning to catch the 7:30 am bus to Lagos. After a quick breakfast of cornflakes, and Pilar waking up cause she "couldn't sleep" (We're fairly certain we woke her up and so she came in the kitchen to snoop on us...it was very odd. She drank a juice box, mopped the floors, and fluffed the pillows....at 6:30 in the morning. Things have been slightly odd at home to say the least and we're not exactly sure why. But I will tell you one thing: I'll be glad to get back home to my real house with my real parents in two weeks!), we caught a cab with 2 other girls to the bus station.

After a slight mishap with one girl who lost her ticket and ended up having to buy a ticket for the 4:00 bus, we were on our way to Lagos. Five and a half quick hours later, we had arrived. I eventually tracked down the lady we were renting a guest house from. Kevin had recommened CasaAmarela as a great place for a big group of us to stay in while we were in Lagos. The only problem was that this lady was very slow to respond to emails...a problem that grew more and more annoying as I was trying to organize a trip for 12 people. But with out too much trouble, we found her and got the keys to our house. It turns out we had all the rooms rented out for ourselves and even had a pool and terrace to enjoy!

Once we had picked our rooms in what reminded me of racing my siblings to pick rooms at a beach house during the summer, we all headed down to the beach to take advantage of what was supposed to be the best weather day we would have. I ended up staying out for four hours or so. I can't tell you how relaxing it was to just lay in the sand and listen to the waves. There really is something special about beach vacations.

Some of the girls!
With Priyanka and Gabi
Beautiful water and cliffs
Later that night we all made a group trip to the grocery store. Two euros a person later, we had all the materials for a gourmet feast: chicken, mounds of pasta, tomato sauce, mixed veggies, cheese and bread....plus some wine for good measure. Rachel and I put ourselves in charge of cooking the chicken. I quickly realized I know very little about charcoal grilling so we had to resort to cooking them on the stove. Not to worry, they were still delicious.

Trying to be manly grillers
After dinner, we went out to enjoy Lagos's infamous nightlife. Drink specials surrounded us and we definitely made the most of it.

Splitting a "fish bowl"
The next day, the weather was cloudier so I spent most of the day relaxing at the house with everyone. We also tracked down this little place my friend Lauren had told us about that had a 3 euro breakfast that consisted of 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and bacon. Then for only 50 cents more you could get a pancake. Breakfast food is definitely something I've missed while in Spain so, needless to say, I went 3 times while we were there....I mean whats not to love about a cheap breakfast place that also has fantastic milkshakes?
At the hole in the wall breakfast place

For dinner that night we all went to a restaurant called Nahnahbah which has been ranked as having one of the 50 best burgers in the world. I'm starting to drool just thinking about it.

Delicious burger
After dinner we took advantage of having a house to ourselves and had a "friendly" game of flip cup. With cheeseburgers and a house party, I truly felt like I was back in Chapel Hill.

On Sunday 9 people left to go back to Sevilla, but Colleen, Marissa and I decided that spending an extra day in Lagos was easily more important than going to our Monday classes. We spent the day at the beach soaking up all the sun we could. We had a movie night at our empty house and woke up early on Monday to spend the morning at the beach. I really didn't ever want to leave. Not only is Lagos absolutely beautiful, I knew that once I was back in Sevilla, my next trip would be home. I have such mixed feelings about this. I am so excited to see everyone again, but at the same time I know that after a few weeks home I'll wish I could be back in Europe traveling around.


Never seen anything like this beach!


Toes in the sand and a new seagull friend

Colleen, Marissa and me

The city of lagos



Yesterday was my 20th birthday…a birthday I honestly kept forgetting was coming up. Pilar had mentioned at least 3 times that my birthday was May 23rd and had even pulled out a cookbook to show me what cake she was planning on making for me. Now I know birthdays aren’t a big deal in Spain (as I saw firsthand with Luis and Maria), but once she said she was making me a cake, I thought there would at least be some sort of mini celebration at home. Turns out she forgot…a fact I quickly realized when no one in our family mentioned happy birthday to me and there were no signs of a cake to be found. I didn’t want to let it get me down, but I must admit it got to me. I don’t think I’d ever had a birthday without a cake or some sort of special dinner….but Spain is different. I ended up eating a ham sandwich for dinner. Quite different from the filet mignon we normally have. But I have decided that my real birthday will just be celebrated in two weeks when I see my family and have a chocolate chip pound cake. Now I don’t want to pain the picture that my birthday was all bad. I did get to get some drinks with most our program the night before and again at around 6 on my actual birthday. Then Colleen and I went on a late night icecream run to McDonalds to act as my birthday desert. Plus tonight I’m going out with a big group of friends (we couldn’t last night because we had a final this morning). So all in all it turned out alright.
Some of the group celebrating my bday at Cien Montaditos (On Wednesdays everything is a euro!)

Oh and the best present of all (besides the great box of chocolate my friend Jess gave me) was that my exam that was supposed to be on my birthday was switched to be a take home exam. The Spanish students have gone on strike to protest increasing tuition and have called for an academic stop in classes and exams from may 24th to june 7th….which believe it or not passed. This country is absolutely ridiculous, but it is working out in my favor right now! Hopefully my exam that was supposed to be this coming Monday gets moved or cancelled too. We’ll see! Tomorrow Colleen and I are off to spend the day sitting on the beach at Cadiz. I'm going to miss this!

No comments:

Post a Comment