Well it's been a while since my last blog, but it has been a very busy week this past week!

On thursday night/friday morning at 2 am 15 of us boarded a train and headed for Portugal!! The train ride was 6 hours long, and with the time change we arrived in Lisbon bright and early at 7 am! We woke ourselved up by visiting a cafe and ordering our first cups of portugese coffee, which is basically espresso. After loading ourselves with caffeine, we started our trek towards the hostel we were going to be staying at for the weekend. The hostel was a decent walk from the train station, but the walk was right along the coast and gave us a very nice view of the beautiful city of Portugal. When we arrived at the hostel, we were very impressed because it was very nice and modern! It had a kitchen, laundry services, a bar, computers and wifi! There was 6 of us to a room, then the three guys were put in a room with other people who were staying at the hostel. After settling into our rooms and unpacking, we immediately set about to see the city by going on a walking tour that was being offered by the hostel. We walked around for about 2 hours and were able to see much of the main part of the city, and some of the old part. We climbed up a very tall building were we got breathtaking views of the entire city. The walking tour concluded in one of the main squares, and from there some of us set out to a supermarket to get lunch for only 2 Euros! We also got out first of many portugese pastries, which are some of the most delicious things on this earth. After filling ourselves with chocolate crossaints and what not, we walked around the city alone taking it all in, and of course we had to go shopping! We visited the fabulous store of H&M where we all bought something more or less! We then found ourselves at the coast line where sat and simply breathed in the ocean air and came to the realization we were actually in Portugal!! After our long day we returned to the hostel to take a siesta and get ready for the night! The hostel was serving dinner and then a pub crawl, so we tok the opportunity to be able to see Portugal's night life. Their pubs are very different, and everyone smoke about 50 cigarrettes a minute in them, but all in all we had a good time having some drinks and dancing to portugese and us music alike. We then returned to our hostel once more aroune 3 am and went to bed!

We got up nice and early on saturday to enjoy the delicious free breakfast that the hostel offered! We stocked up on bread and other delicious foods then headed off to the flea market. It was a very crowded street filled with the most interesting items, from scarves to keys that had no lock to accompany them, to cell phone chargers and stuffed animals. The only purchase I made was a cup of hot chocolate that was supposed to be the best hot chocolate in Portugal, and it was truly delicious! Thet took pure chocolate and melted it right into the cup with hot milk, YUM! After everyone had finished looking around the market we went back into town for lunch and to decide what to do for tha rest of the afternoon! Half of us decided to visit the old castle while the other half ventured of to the beach. The castle was a huge area of basically ruins, but it had the best view of portugal that we had seen yet. You could see the town, the ocean, the brige, and the statue of Jesus (a mini version of the one in rio de janeiro). After admiring the views, we ventured into the castle ruins where we stumbled upon peacocks doing some sort of mating ritual. This amused us to say the least. We watched for about 30 minutes while narrating a story and pick up lines for them, After annoying all of the other visitors around us we continued on into the ruins of the castle. It was kind of frightening because it was all very high up and one could easily fall off, but we managed to escape it one piece after making numerous jokes and laughing as hard as i ever had. We trekked back to the hostel once more and got ready to celebrate Christina's birthday. We went to a restaurant, that was good but very different from american restaurants! After a delicious dinner we once again went back to the hostel and while most people stayed there, Molly and I decided to go to another pub crawl with our new british and new york friends! We had a great time, staying out dancing until 6 am! We then went straight to bed, only to have to get up 3 hours later!

Sunday was our last day in Portugal and after packing up all of our things and checking out, we stored our luggage in the hostel and went to Belem. Belem is a city very close to Lisbon known for their famous pastries called natas. We first visited a beautiful monestary, then went to the coast line once more and climbed the tower of belem to have a view of the ocean and all of the city. We then set off to the famous pastry shop of Belem to purchase natas! I was not a huge fan but everyone else seemed to love them, so after stuffing ourselves full, and leaving with a few natas in hand, we hopped back on the tram and headed back to the hostel one last time. Some of the people then went to the beach, or sight seeing, but after 3 hours of sleep I was absolutely exhausted so I hung back in the hostel lounge with a few others and chatted away with our british friends once more. As the day came to a close, we went to the supermarket and got dinner, then grabbed our luggage and set out for the train station. The train left at 1030 pm and arrived in Caceres at 505 am. Katie and I got into our beds at home around 530, then slept for two hours before a very tiring morning of classes.

Although I could barely keep my eyes open in class monday, I had had one of the best weekends ever, in one of the most beautiful cities ever :)

Obrigada, Ciao!