Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 196

Saturday September 20: Arrived in Porto at 8am, only to find out that Portugal is in a different time zone an hour ahead of Spain! At 7am on Saturday, nothing was open, so we found a nice park to sit in and eat the sandwiches that our host families had prepared for us. In Portugal we realized that we didn’t know the name or address of the hostal we had booked (oops! Live and learn, I guess). We found our way to the historic Ribeira District on the river and explored a bit before finding our way to an internet café to look-up the info that we needed to find the hostal. While exploring we walked along the Ponte de Dom Luis I (bridge) that was inspired by the Eiffel Tower; it gave us a great ... read more

Day 11 - 12 - 13 - 14: Lisboa After our nice cocktails the night before we got up...again...too late. Nevertheless we got the chance plan Lisboa in the late morning. Lisboa is too elaborate to talk about actually....this is a city that deserves a 10 out of 10! Absolutely! And you should visit it to see it yourself! Beautiful.... Anyway, we met some nice, be it alternative, people from poland and some nice girls/guy from Leuven there. One of them was crazy after one cocktail, the other one started to put ice cubes down my blouse...again after one cocktail..and the third one had a nice smile and was really funny. The bodyguard, Jonas, was probably one of the most relaxing guys I met and he just lingered around the girls just being dry.... Again...after to ... read more

Day 15 - 16 - 17: Lagos - Faro First of all I would like to apologize. Yesterday evening we head into town just for a drink...you now how it goes....you meet some nice people, this time a little bit older than us, and you start sharing experiences...especially because they live in Alicanta You buy one...they buy you two back....you buy one again....I lost count. I swear to the liquor god, Dionysus and to Bacchus, that I will never, and mark my words, never touch the stuff again! So after five or so too strong cocktails somebody said us that the bar had wireless!!! Blogpost time!! Tapping away on the laptop I realized immediately that it was pointless to continue in this state so I posted it and all the picture just to rid of it ... read more

20 - 21 September Saturday was the end of our first week at the villa and our first ‘weekend’. Naturally we had to leave paradise for a weekend adventure tour so we were off early to Figueia da Foz on the coast about 60 kilometres South of Porto. One of our group had suggested this destination from the commentary in one of the Portugal travel book. “The Foz” was described as having a beautiful beach and many shops and restaurants. From the villa it was about a two hour drive and we set off in two groups planning to meet for lunch. One thing about Portugal is the obvious investment in infrastructure including an amazing network of new highways and freeways, most of which are tolled, but the tolls are minimal and probably and efficient and ... read more

Hey all!! I am really sorry about my delay on writing here... I have been CRAZY busy these past few weeks, such as orientation, staying with my cousins, and then finally with my family! First of all, my trip to NYC was really short, easy, and not too difficult. As for waiting for other AFSers and my room card... that was NOT fun. Besides that, I met some amazing people that were going to other countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Italy, and Spain! There are 11 other Americans in Portugal, and they all (of course) are younger than I, but they are all very kind and worldly. I am the ONLY Ohioan in the entire country (that I know of).. how cool is THAT!? Anyway, the flight to Portugal was sleepless, and I was so ... read more