I wrote this blog a few weeks ago, but was unable to upload pictures until today.
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So far, I’ve been here 54 days. It doesn’t seem like that long, but I feel like I’ve been here a while. Things that were once exciting are starting to become ‘normal’. It’s weird to think that I will be coming home in about 8 weeks.

Rock formations everywhere!

Well, since I’m a bit behind, I will update you on latest travels. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Lagos, Portugal and WOW is it pretty! If any of you ever get a chance to come to Europe, you must visit Lagos. It’s on the coast, so we were right on the beach. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I can imagine that the beaches of Lagos are just as beautiful as the ones in Hawaii.  I went with two other girls from our program and it took a six-hour bus ride to get there. Once we arrived, we went to find our hotel, but to our dismay…discovered it was out in the country somewhere. The description online had said that it was close to everything, but I guess they meant by car. So you can say.. we weren’t exactly happy. The hotel however was very nice and only one other couple was actually staying there, so we had the whole joint to ourselves. It was super small, but it had a pool AND a hot tub, which we really loved.

Our hotel

                                                                                I could go on forever about Lagos, but basically it took us about 45 minutes to walk to the beach and a little longer to walk downtown. We visited many different little beaches…all of which had gorgeous rock formations around them. We even took a boat ride on the ocean and through the rock formations and the tour guides pointed out different rock formations that looked like elephants, King Kong, Michael Jackson and other random things. Then at the very end, we were able to jump off the boat and go swimming in the middle of the Atlantic. I’ve never swam in the ocean, so that was a neat experience. The boat driver even let me steer the boat on the way back. =)

What does this rock look like to you??

 

The sunset on the walk back to the hotel

             A few weeks later, we went to Huelva, a small little town about an hour from Sevilla. It’s where Christopher Columbus began his journey of discovering the new world. So we visited a museum commemorated for Columbus and then got to see exact replicas of the Niña, Pinta and the Santa Maria.

The Niña

Climbing up the rope (I wasn't supposed to)

Last weekend, we visit La Mancha, which is from the story Don Quixote. Not sure if you guys know the story, but basically there is a guy who thinks he is fighting giants, but was really fighting giant windmills. 

Afterwards, we visited Toledo for a few days (which I have already blogged about) and then two girls and I split off from the group to visit Madrid, the capital of Spain. It was a really fun weekend—we got to visit the famous Prado art museum, the Palacio Real, which is the king’s old palace and a bunch of other pretty places. It was a good weekend overall, except that a random guy tried to kiss me and we didn’t sleep super well in our hostel. Great experiences nonetheless!

The Palace!

            Now this week is over, and yes I am glad. Full of 3 tests, three papers, and one presentation—you can say that I’m happy to do nothing right now. I am hoping this upcoming week will fly by fast, since Matt will be here on Saturday! Our plans may have to change. We were planning on visiting Paris, but France is in the midst of a strike right now and there is an enormous shortage on gas. I am hoping that the strike will be finished by the time we are ready to visit France, but we will see. Either way, Matt will be with me.. and for that I am soo soo excited!