PORTUGALlivanting around SPAINtacular

Some lessons learned:

I’m scared of waves

I’m beginning to think I’m narcoleptic.

They don’t wear sombreros, eat quesadillas/burritos or drink margaritas in Spain.

Tapas are for skinny people.

First stop: Madrid, Espana!

We arrived to Madrid EXTRA hangry (hungry/angry) and we’re sent to a nearby restaurant for traditional Spanish paella. Not our best meal… unidentifiable seafood and greasy rice… one has to wonder why a city nowhere near the coast would specialize in seafood dishes…

We took our first of many siestas (naps) and headed out to a HUGE 7 story club called Kapital. They had different music playing on every floor but don’t worry we managed to find the American 90s jams floor and I even go in some Destiny’s Child Kareoke. The Spanish don’t go out until 1:30am and casually leave the club when the sun rises at 7am. Nocturnal-ism. I gave it my best shot but my internal clock is still hating me.

I woke up Saturday morning with yep, you guessed it pink eye. -__-

The group tried to be nice but I could tell they wanted to put me in a giant bubble. Not a happy Spaniard but I pushed through and made the best. We went to a great tapas place for dinner called El Tigre. They served huge mojitos and unlimited tapas along with it. It was crowded, sweaty and loud but delicious and worthwhile.

Sunday the guys had tickets to the Real Madrid and Spain soccer game so we tagged along to try to scalp tickets. I was the girl who played soccer as a youngster strictly for the orange slices at half time… Long (not really) story short I ended up falling asleep for the entire game. Not just the casual head on the hand eyes getting heavy, full on laying down with my scarf as a pillow. In my defense we were in the nosebleeds, I was running on roughly 2 hours of sleep, and was still pink eye inflicted. Not my proudest moment but don’t worry great pal and Delta Gamma sister, Jill managed to catch pics at every angle and even a video of me nodding off.

Stop 2: Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon was BEAUTIFUL. I start every blog that way but something about Portugal was especially pretty.

Miles, Bryan and I took a surfing lesson Tuesday morning and it rang in as almost as frightening as night sledding. It occurred to me as we were walking out to the waves with the oversized board I wasn’t even capable of carrying that BOOGIE BOARDING scares me, let alone surfing…  Our instructor was blunt about the terrible water conditions with comments like “these are not waves for beginners ” and “hopefully we don’t run into the rocks”.. I did a lot of nervous laughing and silent praying but it ended up being a more than worthwhile experience. I was the only girl and clearly scared out of my mind so our instructor stuck with me and helped keep control of my board/my head above water.

Once we got back we visited a small fishing town outside of Lisbon called Cascais. We walked up to a place called “Hell’s Mouth” a little cove on the coast that makes a growling sound as water splashes it. We watched the sunset, caught some amazing views and got dinner.

Last stop: Barcelona, Spain!

Favorite city so far. Another repeated blog phrase... We took our first bike tour of the city which was awesome- minus almost being mowed down by moving traffic several times.. I had NO idea what a huge deal this Gaudi fella was. No doubt, his architecture was beautiful and unique but come on he’s talked about like he single-handedly BUILT Barcelona. He was killed by a tram in the 1920s and ever since they have been outlawed.

My favorite thing in Barcelona was the the Boqueria, an open air market with fresh fish, fruit, candy, chocolate spices, waffles etc. An outdoor Wegmans, essentially. Our last night in Barcelona we bought shrimp and supplies at the market and cooked a dinner together at the apartment. Group bonding/ major teamwork activity. I stepped up to make Sangria (cut up fruit and dropped it in the premade sangria…….) Really made me question my cooking abilities. It might be time to expand from easy-break Pillsbury cookies when I get back.

Our last night in Barcelona we stayed up to watch the sunrise on the beach. I was limping on one heel and freezing cold. The sand felt like SNOW. Jacob was nice enough to give me his pants to stay warm (mostly to shut me up..) We were quite a sight to see.

Our journey back to Lugano didn’t go as smoothly as planned… and wasn’t planned at all to be quite honest. We took a 17 hour overnight train from Barcelona to Milan and then realized there were no outgoing trains to Lugano for the next 4 hours. We made the best and hung out at a nearby unlimited Chinese buffet. Stuffed ourselves with unlimited sushi, Chinese, pizza and managed to waste sufficient time. We met a women straight out of “Eat Pray Love” who is traveling around Italy by herself for 3 months. She travels purely off of where people tell her to go and says yes to EVERYTHING “within reason.” It was clearly some kind of mid-life crisis, but inspiring, nonetheless!

Ciao For niao!