This past weekend was sadly the last big shabang for my friends and I for our semester abraod. Quite a few people from my program and I took advantage of a cheap travel company that is specifically for college students studying abroad in Europe. It was definitely the most non-cultural experience I have had considering it was all Americans, but I was okay with that for one time because we had an absolute blast spending the weekend on the beach. :)

Friday morning, some of the girls began to regret our fun wine night from the night before as we met at the bus stop at 6am and began our 7 hour bus ride-yikes! 8 hours later we arrived to our hotel in Lagos, Portugal. We were assigned our rooms which were all very close to each other and super nice considering we have all been used to staying in questionable hostels. Our rooms had a kitchen AND a private bathroom!! The hotel also had a pool (aka the pre shower before our actual shower after the beach). How exciting. :)

That evening, we sunscreened up and made the 5 minute trek to one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. The water was all different shades of blue and crystal clear with random rocks speckled across the view of the ocean. We spent our time swimming, laying out, drinking FREE sangria that was included in the program, and jumping off the rocks that we swam to from the shore. I even ran into my friend Troy (who is studying in Sevilla, Spain) who happened to be on the same trip! We had no idea that we would be there at the same time so that was really exciting. When the bugs began to eat us alive, we went back to the hotel and hung out by the pool there. Next, Molly Maegan Hannah and I went to the grocery store to get food to cook for dinner that night. We had a delicoius meal of pasta, sauteed fresh vegetables, and wine. All of us miss being able to cook for ourselves so it was fun and CHEAP! Afterward we were super tired so we decided to stay in for the night to be ready for the following fun-filled day. :)

Saturday morning we hit up the breakfast buffet at the hotel (bad idea to have a buffet when you will be spending the day in a bikini...) and then hopped on the bus to go to a different beach. This beach wasn't as pretty but still awesome. We found a star fish, dug a hole, buried me in the hole, swam, and used up a lot of sunscreen!

In the afternoon, it was our turn to go on the kayaking tour. It was my first time kayaking and I absolutely loved it! (not just because of the super attractive guides that we were with the whole time) ;). It was so fun being out in the open ocean, cruising along in the kayak. We got to jump off of them and swim in the middle of the ocean too! Unfortunately, it was too windy so the waves were really rough by the caves because we were unable to go inside them like they normally do, but I would rather be safe than sorry! I don't think Ashton Kutcher was going to be able to come and save me if I got stuck in there like he saved people in the movie "The Guardian." :) We made a pit stop at a small secluded beach where we swam and took lots of pictures together. After that we headed back to our starting point and then went back to the hotel to clean up to go to the end of the world sunset.

The corner of portugal was a 40 minute bus ride away from our hotel, which is the spot where we went to watch the sunset. We were on this giant cliff, literally on the corner of Europe, surrounded by water on three sides! The sun looked frigging gorgeous going down over the what seemed to be never ending ocean. Before Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, the Europeans truly thought this point was the end of the world-and I can see why they thought it was! After the sun went down and lots of pictures were taken (of course) we went back to the hotel.

The four of us girls made the rest of the pasta from the night before and had another mouth watering meal together. Afterward, we hung out in our hotel rooms together before going out to the bar/club where the program had free drinks for us. We danced and sang and had a great time together. Before we knew it, 4am had rolled around and we decided to go back to the hotel. The 8am breakfast came a little too soon the next day, but we once again really enjoyed our buffet. :) We packed our things and checked out of the hotel, bought some more sunscreen, and then went to the beach for the last time. We stayed for a couple of hours, had some last minute swims, and tried to soak up the beautiful view that we soon had to leave.

At the hotel we spent some more time at the pool and ate lunch before we had to load up on the bus at 4pm and head back to Granada. By 1:30am, we had arrived (with only minimal sleep received on the bus) and rushed home to our apartments to get some sleep before class in the morning. It was extremely unfortunate timing for me because I had to do an hour long presentation in my 8:30am class the next day! But that ended up going really well so no worries. :)

I had an amazing time with my friends in Portugal, but it started to really sink in that our semester was coming to an end and we were all really sad about that. I decided I'm not going to think about it and enjoy the crap out of the little time I have left in Spain. :)