Monday, Monday! How I hate you... Last night I got back to Seville from a wonderful weekend in Lagos Portugal! But that wonderful weekend came to a screeching halt when I stepped back into my apartment and realized that I had a shitload of hw still left to do...WHOOPS! Luckily I was able to finish it before my classes today and no classes tomorrow! A lot of the people here talk about their majors and studies, etc...and they always ask me what do you do for homework?! I explained to them that we're always busy working on something and practicing for something, ridiculously long days, with the occasional reading or paper. But last night as I was doing my homework, which really to be honest wasn't even that bad, I missed my Elon homework! I missed actually LIKING my homework! How weird is that?
Anyway, on to Lagos! Or as mom said before that some people pronounce it Lagoosh. But Mom- I did not hear that said once! :) We left Friday morning from Sevilla with a group called Discover Sevilla. It's one of the student travel agencies in town and we had heard fun things about their trips and it was a good price. We took a 3.5 hour bus to Lagos and made a stop once we crossed the border in Portugal to grab a coffee/pee. It was so weird being in a country where they don't speak Spanish! In fact it seemed like the majority of the people spoke English over Spanish even though they are so close to Spain! I'm sure it will be weird once I go to Italy and France and Morocco too! We got to our hotel in Lagos, checked in and walked around. Now this whole trip was advertised as a beach getaway so needless to say we were all pretty disappointed that the weather report called for rain almost the entire weekend :( Here's a pic of what it looks like in nice weather!
Regardless, the beach was beautiful and the first day we hung out by the beach right near our hotel. No swimming, the waves were HUGE and the water was kinda murky because of all the rain runoff from the cliffs! I was really bummed about that because the pictures of the crystal water in Lagos seemed amazing!! That evening we went to a store down the street and bought some drinks and some cheese and crackers and had a mini feast in Christine and Sahar's room which was a perfect way to start of the evening festivities! There were two huge buses of kids that all came through Sevilla to take this trip from other cities in Spain, but all American students. We met everyone down in the lobby where the guides took us to some restaurants and then later to a bar where it was just kids with this travel agency. Lots of dancing, lots of fun!
The next day Scott and I slept in a bit and grabbed breakfast downstairs in the hotel. Now I'm not a big breakfast person, but when i do eat breakfast I like a big omelet and home fries...not just a piece of toast! That's what they do here in Spain and Portugal...not one of my favorite customs! But I do enjoy the other big meals! :) Anyway, we met everyone in the lobby and headed to a couple of locations around Lagos. We went to this one set of cliffs that was incredibly beautiful and saw where we were supposed to go on our Sangria Sailboat cruise! (It was canceled because the waves were so high and we were supposed to go through the grottoes. They showed us where we were would have gone and I was a little more at ease that it was canceled because we legitimately would have died!) We also went to another beach closer to the downtown harbor area. The beach there was much calmer and during a moment of sunshine I decided that I had to go swimming. The water was freezing, but swimming in the waves reminded me of swimming at Silverpoint beach and it made me very happy! HUGE WAVES, like shit you see in the movies! But so much fun. After that we went to a cafe along the beach and I had the must unbelievable bruschetta in the world. Made up for the lack of a spinach/feta/mushroom omelet at breakfast ;)
That night we went to Cabo San Vicente to watch the sunset. This cape is the south westernmost point in Portugal and was what the explorers thought was the end of the world because when you look around all you see is ocean. That plus the giant waves crashing up against the cliff! I could see why it would be "the end of the world." It was one of the coolest things that I have ever seen. It truly showed the beauty and the power of nature. I was also really excited to see the sun set over the ocean! Since I live on the east coast I've never seen the sun set over a body of water and was looking forward to it. Well screw you weather for ruining my excitement! While we didn't get to see a huge sunset it was beautiful nonetheless and I was so glad that I went on that mini excursion. I certainly slept well that night after great Thai food (yes, in Portugal I ate Thai haha) and lots of fun that night!
The next day we had breakfast and headed to the beach closest to the hotel again to try to test out the weather. After about an hour of sun it started to rain so we decided we would walk around downtown instead and grab lunch there. We were all exhausted from the past couple of days so we had a pretty relaxing last day in Lagos before heading on the bus back to Seville. We got back at around 10:15 and as I crossed the bridge walking home from the bus station I realized how frickin beautiful Seville really is. All of the places I have traveled to so far have been magnificent and unique. But to me, there is nothing like Seville. It felt good to be "home."
Oh, click HERE for some pics!
Hasta que volvamos a ver!
in fact you mom is right, and those "some" persons, that pronounce it in a very similar sound as "lagoosh", are the portuguese ones. in portuguese the word "Lagos", that means "lakes", is pronounced as "lágush" as the "á" pronouced like in "are" and the "u" pronounced like in "to".
ReplyDeleteSo in fact your mom learned, somehow, something about the portuguese language that is diferent from spanish.