So I'm on a bus tour now.
Madrid to Cordoba
Whoa. First awesome place and it was done well. Smack dab in the center of town is the mesquita which is an old mosque from when the Moors were ruling. It's huge! Apparently an old king of Spain wanted to turn it into a cathedral so he ripped put the middle of the mosque and put in his cathedral. Unfortunately June 30th in Spain is some sort of religious holiday so we couldn't go in. I was really looking forward to seeing the Muslim and Christian world living together in harmony but not this time around.
Next a group of us went looking for fancy patios and saw a couple of really great ones. Ate some quick tapas. Not a bad afternoon.
Seville!
We got a walking tour of the city by the guy who showed Rick Steve's around when he was in Spain. He was great but we were tired. My highlight? I saw the old cigarette factory and prison that were made famous by Bizet in the opera Carmen. It's now a university but I could totally picture all of the songs being performed there.
It was a nice evening of tapas and drinks. Made some friends too! A couple of great Americans (one from Fresno the other from Riverside), handfuls of Aussies, and a great couple of kiwis.
Holy cow, I'm in a different country and they speak yet another language: Lagos, Portugal
Ah Lagos. What a fantastic little place right on the water. It was a cute beach town and our group made the most of it. Instead of one big hostel we were split in "nana houses" which were little apartments and homes all over the city owned by grannies. They weren't there so all 10 of my group got a lovely place to stay for two nights to ourselves. A great backyard patio, a swimming pool (which was freezing but we went in anyways), and a plum tree just bursting with fresh plums that were falling off the tree ripe. It was a good group of people in Nana P's house. Our first night there was epic! Several bars had "challenges" and many in our gladly accepted the challenges. The first bar offered a tshirt if you downed 9 different shots as fast as you can (it was free if you eat your home country's top time). The only person to do it solo was Joe-the-Busdriver. A couple others did it in pairs. I somehow talked a couple of Americans guys in Lagos for holiday to buy the full nine shots so all five us Americans could celebrate our nations independence together. I got the shirt too! I ended up with the creamy shots but the two I had tasted pretty good. At the next bar the challenge was to drink 7 jäger bombs as fast as you can (same rules apply for fastest times for your country). Many of the guys on our trip did that one and Joe-the-Busdriver did it too! He's a pretty sturdy Hungarian guy and could handle his liquor easily. Thankfully he wasn't driving the next morning even though he was feeling fine at 9am. There was dancing on pool tables and general silliness at the second bar. A good time was had by all. I even went in the pool back at out nana's house!
The next morning we did sea kayaking to some caves. It was an amazing experience to be in those semi grottos as the ocean swelled us up and down even it meant I was wicked sore the next day. Needless to say after that I needed a siesta. Siesta's are amazing and now I know why they are needed. The Spanish population can't work too much in the "frying pan" of Spain during midday so take a quick nap. Apparently the amount of time a siesta should take is 23 minutes. Lagos was a great experience. I'd love to go back sometime, it was very relaxed and most everyone spoke english which helped because God knows if I could ever wrap my brain around Portuguese.
No comments:
Post a Comment