never understanding

Uncle Al…not funny at all and it never will be. 

Some things are not meant to be kept a secret but how would you say it after hiding it for so long? 

And here comes the first wave of exams…sigh

(Source: jetsxgang)

Lisbon was definitely quite the experience. The travel there alone was quite something. I flew into Porto because at the time the tickets were cheap and then from Porto I had to train it down to Lisbon. I didn’t even stay in Porto because one of our professors said that there wasn’t much in Porto and since I was on a time crunch I thought skipping wouldn’t be that big of a deal. So from the Porto airport I had to figure out how to get to Lisbon. There was this metro from the airport but everything was in Portuguese and the people there didn’t speak much English. I started to freak out so I made myself calm down and just looked at any pictures and see if I recognized any of the words. There weren’t many pictures but there were a lot of different colors so I tried to match the colors with the route I wanted to go to. Eventually I just pushed a button and out popped a ticket. Then trying to get onto the metro was interesting too because there were several exists to get to the metro stop but only one of them worked. The first exist I went to no one was there and then on my side the board it didn’t say anything and on the other people’s side it did say the destination. I figured that my side was probably broken so I went to the other side. It was a good thing I did because where I was standing originally was where the metro dropped people off at the airport and the other side was where it picked them up. It was interesting to see how the metro turned around though. Since we were at the end of the metro stop like there was nothing else there the tracks just ended the metro just out of the tracks over the grass and into the other side of the tracks. That was the first time I had seen anything like it! From the metro I found the train station to get me to Lisbon. I made it just on time too because the next train to leave to Lisbon was about to leave in 5 minutes. So I just hopped on the train. Probably not the best idea because I needed to have a reservation. Luckily the guy that was checking tickets was really nice and just let me buy a reservation on the train and he didn’t charge me a fee! I think that was the cheapest reservation I’ve ever gotten because it was only 4 euros! Well when I got to Lisbon I had to find a bus to take me to the hostel but I couldn’t find the 28 bus. Every number of the bus were in the 70’s and I started freaking out again! I tried looking at the map and where there was suppose to be a 28 bus there wasn’t a sign for it. Eventually I found that there was a bus 28 stop diagonal from the train station. I spent over 30 minutes trying to find it and it was literally a 1 minute walk from the train station. HOW DUMB!! Everything there looked so old and it seemed like something out of a movie. All the roads were cobblestone and there didn’t seem to be any definite streets. Not many people spoke English there and I didn’t know a lick of Portuguese so trying to find things got interesting…I wanted to get food at this shop and I saw a menu on their window so I went in and attempted to say something that was on the menu but the guy looked so confused so I ended up just pointed to the menu posted on the window but then he just started shaking his head. At first I thought it was cause they ran out of the food, so I tried to say another thing on the menu and he shook his head again! I was like ok seriously there’s only 4 things on that menu and he just shook his head to half of them! Then he was like “no” and started to lead me out of the restaurant and started pointed to somewhere…at that point I was like fine I guess they don’t serve food anymore which was dumb because it was 6pm! Who doesn’t serve food at 6! After that I found a restaurant by the hostel and decided to just eat there. These people are tricky! They serve you all of these sides with your meal before your meal comes out so I thought that it came with my meal but it didn’t. They charged me for whatever I ate and I had no idea until I got my bill…

I got a traditional pork dish with potatoes and it really wasn’t my favorite thing that I have eaten…

My first night there I just walked around the area but it was pretty late so I didn’t really get to see as much and I was really tired from lugging my stuff around for so many hours. I went to bed early and the hostel I stayed at looked really nice and peaceful. It was hard not to want to fall asleep early. I went to bed around 10 that night and around 11 all my roommates started coming in…they tried to be quiet but when they weren’t doing that great of a job. Eventually they left but then I was woken up again around 4am because they came back in. I was like what? it’s 4am! The next morning I was up before they were, so I decided to go out and explore and get food. I had the best fish since being in Europe at a local restaurant that looked very small and family owned…it was delicious and definitely worth every cent!

By the time I got back they were just getting up it was around 1pm. There were 2 girls from Amsterdam and 2 girls from Germany. They were so sweet. I spent most of the day with one of the girls from Amsterdam and learned so much about her. She spent 3 months in Brazil and that’s how she learned Portuguese. She said that no one in Brazil spoke anything but Portuguese and because of that she became fluent. This girl was so amazing and down to earth and add to the fact that she was gorgeous too. She was 24 and never had a boyfriend either. She said she wanted to save it for someone special and I thought that girls like that didn’t exist anymore especially someone as smart and as pretty as she was. We spent about 3 hours just sitting in a cafe and talking to each other. Originally I  never understood how people could sit in a cafe for so long and that night I finally understood. After the cafe we went back to the hostel and everyone that was at the hostel, which was like 15 of us, decided to cook dinner. We were all going to pitch in and buy the groceries and then cook together. We made hamburgers, potatoes, salads, cheese peppers, and goat cheese on toast. My favorite was the goat cheese on toast. It was soo delicious and I want to make it again because it was such a simple to make. After dinner everyone went out at midnight to go party but I went to sleep because I had an early flight. I woke up at 4:30am to get ready and my roommates where just getting back. 

Madrid was so different from Lisbon. The atmosphere was more lively. When I got to my hostel there were already 2 people there. They were also students studying abroad like me but they were studying in London. I spent the whole day with them. They were so nice. The girl was from Australia and the guy was from New York. We went into all of these shops and most of them were old vintage looking. After the shops we went to the big park in Madrid.

It was gorgeous and there were so many street performers. Some were so weird but others were quite funny but most of them were weird. I loved the music being played in the streets when we were walking around. It was so soothing and it really made me enjoy walking around and not want to stop.

We walked around so much so by the end of it we were like ok we need a nap/break time which was perfect because in Madrid they take naps or close shops from 3-6pm which was about when we got back. When we got back to our hostel there was a french family in our room too. They had 2 boys who were quite loud. They also smelled quite bad too…I felt like I was suffocating. People in Madrid don’t eat until 8 or 9pm for dinner and it seemed like I didn’t have a problem with that because my body seemed to just flow with it. I had my first paella and sangria with my 2 roommates and it was delicious!!

omg possible one of the best things I’ve eaten in Europe. After dinner we just walked around and went in to a bar. The drinks that they serve in Madrid are quite big. It was a big change from Switzerland. I ordered one drink and it was the biggest drink I’ve ever gotten for the price that I paid. We just sat at the bar and talked some more. There was this old guy that was just chilling there and he tried to make conversation with us but it felt kind of weird trying to talk to him. I think he was Irish but he was creeping on everyone. It was so strange…The next day the London students left but I met up with some of the Tech students. We went on a pub crawl that night. I had tapas for the first time and it was pretty yummy. I liked that I got to try so many different foods and still get full. We also met these 2 Japanese guys with us on the pub crawl. They were really nice and funny too. But seeing them made me really want to go to Japan. Next travel I do will be going to Japan! One of these days. Anyways, after the tapas we got to see a flamingo dance. It was so interesting to see it because it was like a combination of tap and salsa dancing. Their facials were so intense. I could have just stared at their faces because they were really into it. Although the music they played didn’t seem like there was a rhythm to it.

After the flamingo dance the tour guides took us to a few bars and that was the end of our night. The next day we went on a walking tour of Madrid. The things that the tour guide told us were really interesting but eventually it started to rain and I started to zone out and what he was telling us because I was so concerned about staying dry and keeping warm. The tour was about 4 hours and about 3 hours of it we were in the rain.

We stayed with the tour guide after the tour ended and he took us to a really nice local restaurant. A few of our guys tried snails and pig ears for the first time.

I was really excited to see that they were interested in eating something else other than the normal things they are use to eating. After dinner we tried to find a Jazz bar but that was a fail because we couldn’t find it, so that was kind of a bummer. We ended up just relaxing and enjoying the night in the hostel. When I woke up the next day I definitely felt sick. Walking around in the rain for 3 hours was not very good for me because I just did not want to get out of bed. Needless to say I spent a lot of the rest of the trip in bed. 

Today after class we went on a hike to the top of a mountain called Mt. Generoso it was soooo sooo pretty it was so gorgeous I wish I could have stayed up there forever! I tried to take pictures but the pictures can’t capture how amazing it was up there you have to do it one day…oh and on our way down we saw some goats!!! I got sooo freaking excited!! haha that was the first time I ever saw a goat so close! I threw one of them my apple core and they ate it whole! and then we witnessed some fighting going on…so there was this female goat and she was peeing and then all of a sudden this male goat comes up and tries to hump her and she runs away and he runs after her but then a bigger male goat came and rammed the one that was chasing her!! I was like omg! did I really just witness that?! IT WAS SO FREAKING COOL! although I was a bit scared not going to lie…I started running away a bit because I didn’t want to get rammed by a freaking goat down a freaking mountain that would have sucked! 

Hopefully I’ll have pictures up soon :)