Usually, I'm a myspace kind of blogger so I'm just cutting and pasting my blog from my trip to Portugal in March of this year. I'm going to start out by explaining something first....my college has this amazing travel program where every semester students are required to travel for 2 weeks to places around the world with a professor and other students..and it counts as a class and you get college credit for it. Pretty cool huh?? You have class for the "academic travel" once a week before you go on the trip to learn about the country you're going to and what the focus of the trip is. Each trip has its own focus, whether it's art history, international relations, or just history and polictics..the list goes on...but basically you get to take this educational adventures to places all around the world and it counts as school!!!! So now that that is explained you will see all the blogs I wrote about the places I've traveled to on academic travel or just on my own. Here is one about Portugal...........


As for Portugal, the trip was amazing. We had an awesome group that meshed/partied well. We had many hilarious moments which mostly included 2 boys of the group being drunk idiots half the time:sigh: those boys. Anywho...we went to Lisbon, Porto and Lagos (by the coast) and back to Lisbon to the Sintra area. Lisbon city was great. My friend, Lauren had her big 2-1 and we all went to Hard Rock and had a blast. The bill ended up being over 400 euro for less than 10 people..trust me it was mostly on drinks.

Overall, Portuguese people are really friendly. They aren't as sleezy as italians but they got the dark hair/mediterannean look. We went to a contemporary art museum in Porto which was amazing. They had cool gardens in the back designed by a landscape architect with a french and english style garden. It was so peaceful; and wonderful. I felt like I was in a music video. The weather on the trip was relatively really nice. It rained one day and the rest were sunny and clear. Kinda like Lugano here these days. We met these cool locals in Porto that we chilled with and they took us to this really cool underground reggae club. Man was that cool. We got a serious taste of the culture. First of all I want to say that the kids we met were all art students of sorts. My favorite was Andre who was a theatre student. Being around them made my brain work more. I felt the creative cool energy for sure. I ended up having an fabulous time with one of them, who I became very fond of after a few days. I always seem to find the charming ones all over the world don't I?

The language is so weird. I've heard portuguese before..but it was the Brazilian kind. Totally different. These people sounded like they had their mouths full. It even sounded slavic sometimes.

I climbed a tower with 197 steps where the same crazy drunk boys, Mikey and Vince, danced to Balkan Beat Box--which essentially was the symbol of our trip. We would just bust a move(10 of us) on the sidewalk with these dinky lil speakers an ipod and some people wanting to dance. Because we had lots of people willing to get down and crazy it was fun to make shows for people. The old women on their balconies, cops, fisherman, they all joined in and danced and clapped with us. It was awesome. We did a cool river cruise and got to see the city of Porto from the water: talk about seriously cool. Also, went to the beach...wish we had more time there. Although I must say, we pretty much cleaned out the liquor at that Beach bar in Lagos. Delicious Mango Coladas and Mojitos. I decided that my favorite drink of all time, if I could choose one, would be a Mojito. Those things are so delicious. The problem is, drinks in Switzerland are so expensive!! I had a bunch of Caprinhas too when I was in Portugal. Also, I tried an apple martini for the first time. I felt so sophisticated with that glass in hand. Hmm..what else..OH! My 2 friends got married on the trip. My other friend Jake conducted the ceremony, I was a bridesmaid and I made the bride, Chelsea, a pretty wedding flower crown. It was done on the beach and there was a fire and everything. The groom, Phil, always would joke around about it but he was serious time and asked her that night to marry her. It happened. Barefoot, on the beach in Portugal. Priceless.

Overall the trip ended up nice. Although it was my professor's first academic travel it still flowed well. The last few days he had like 2000euro extra in our budget so he was taking us out to restaurants and was just like "get whatever you want" oh and we did. Fillet Mignon, steak of all sorts, lobster, king crab, king prawns, expensive wine, champagne, the works! It was awesome.

Oh and random thing, I was sitting in an indian restaurant for lunch and who did I see out the window in the short second I glanced out..but...my best friend, Lindsay's, dad!! I just about wet myself. I ran out and it was him! Of all places, of all people. How the hell do you just run into someone like that in the small town of Cascais!? He was in Lisbon on a conference and happened to be in the town I was in, walking by my restaurant, at the exact time that I looked out the window. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!!!

Anyways, I would have liked to put more in this blog but this is ok for now but one last thing...while I was reading "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac during my trip I came across this awesome quote that really is the epitome of what I believe and think to myself all the time:

" But why think of all that when all the golden land's ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see."





so everyone out there: dont put up with any crap, life's too short so take a look around at this awesome place and soak it all in. It's beautiful and every day is a new and exciting day.