Rain in Spain stays mainly in the Plain: A Weekend In A New Country

I am finally able to sit down and write a blog that I should have written yesterday! I'm afraid I won't remember as much, but I am going to try anyways.

After I posted my blog Saturday night, I did absolutely nothing except watch a not very good American movie on tv. I tried to find Holly, but she had fell asleep so I figured there was nothing wrong with being lazy for an evening. It wasn't completely necessary because we didn't do anything too extensive the next day. For our tours in Lisbon, we did bus tours with our tour guide talking as we passed different landmarks. It was nice to be out of the hot sun, but we all have been trained to sleep on the bus. For the first week and a half we were in Spain, the best sleep we got was on the bus. And when we left Friday, they expected us to go to sleep. So, is it really the students fault that we weren't was attentive as we should have been? I definitely tried to pay attention, but with the warm air, I didn't last terribly long. Thankfully, we had opportunities to get out and see a few sights which helped break the monotony. It was really disappointing to not be able to pay more attention because our tour guide knew so much about Lisbon and all of Portugal for that matter. She kept pointing out apartment buildings that the government built to replace the slums people had been living in. It was very interesting to see this metropolitan area that looked to be very up to date and think about slums being all throughout the city. Portugal is in a bad place as far as economy goes; its interesting to see that other economies are hurting in the world, not just in America.

On Sunday morning, we left the hotel at 9:30 to start another bus tour. First of all, we stopped at a coach museum. I cannot describe the intricacy of these coaches, some of which were only used once. Don't worry, I'll include pictures! After this, our focus was on communities outside of Lisbon (basically suburbs). I was very excited because I knew at the end of the day, we would get to spend time on the beach. I love all the history in these old cities, but it doesn't mean I can enjoy my UV rays too! (don't worry, i wore sunscreen!) The towns outside Lisbon were really very pretty. We stopped in one around noon and everyone went and bought pastries. Oh my goodness, pastries in Portugal are amazing! I had a strawberry pastry that was to die for! Anyways, we got back on the bus, listen to Margarita (our tour guide) talk about meeting Bush Sr and how Barbara wears pearls lol and headed to the beach! We dropped people off the casino first (the largest in Europe I believe) and then the bus took everyone that wanted to go to the beach to Carcavelos. That evening, we went and watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4 in English! With Portuguese subtitles haha.. It was a nice way to end the day...

We left at 9:30 again yesterday morning. The first part of the trip wasn't too bad because we stopped after 2 hours for a tour around a beautiful medieval city on a mountain. Our tour guide said it only has around 60 inhabitants today, so it was very small and quaint. The view from the top of the mountain was breathtaking! Unfortunately, that was our last good stop of the day. We got back on the bus at 3 and didn't arrive in Ciudad Real until 10:30. Thankfully, we had two stops on the way back, but that long on a bus is still rough on anybody. I'm excited for Barcelona in 2 weeks, but the bus ride will again be extremely tedious. Oh well, that is not what these trips are about!!!

Anyways, I loved my weekend trip, but I am happy to be back with my host family even if it does mean classes have started again. I will try and post shorter blogs this week, but if nothing interesting happens, there might not be any blogs lol. I love and miss everyone and I hope you enjoy the following pictures!!

beautiful coach at the coach musem... so of these coaches were used for a few hours and then never used again!

Portugal loves their roosters! I'll have to post the legend later because I bought a postcard with it typed on there (although the translation was a little rough lol)