Portugal

So Friday night I went out with Kelly M., Lauren W., Maria, Lauren F. and Allison. We decided to botellon (buy our own alcohol and drink it in the Plaza Mayor). So we were relaxing in the Plaza drinking our wine when suddenly these two boys, probably around 12, started shooting spit balls at us! We were in complete shock and Lauren W. was angry, so she started chasing them...it was pretty much hilarious. After that we went back Kelly went to go pack for Portugal and we went to the little tapas bar under Burger King (Bambú) and discovered that their tapas change every night, so we got our sangría with new tapas. I decided that it would be a good idea to take a picture of all of us sitting there, and after many tries of trying to take the picture with me also in it, a waiter kindly offered to take it for me. In the background of the picture, there is another table of guys smiling and waving. One of them came up to us and gave me a card that says salamancatonight.com and he explained that he takes pictures from around Salamanca and puts them on the site. So he took another picture with his camera and many of the waiters and other people in the restaurant jumped in it too. After Bambú, I decided it would be a good idea to get an hour of sleep before I left for Portugal. So this was probably around 2 or so, and my train would be leaving at 4:51 am. I got back home, made sure everything was ready to go, and went to sleep for an hour. I got up, got my lunch that my señora packed me (which included 4 sandwiches, 2 peaches, an apple, and 3 water bottles), and meet Kelly M. in the Plaza to walk to the train station (at 3:45).

On our way to the station, we ran into Lauren W. and Maria who were just going back home.
At the train station, we met up with 6 others (Laura, Rachel R., Gene, Steve, Christine, and Beth). I think now would be a good time to point out that out of the 45 in the program, 5 are named Rach(a)el (and I am, of course, the only one as Rachael) and 6 Laurens (and 1 Laura) and 2 Kellys.
The train was super cool because it looked like the Hogwarts Express inside and we were all pretty excited about that. There were 8 seats per car, so we all fit in one and attempted to sleep for the 7 hour ride (I don´t think any of us were very successful).
When we arrived to Lisbon, Kelly and I parted from the other 6 to go to our hostel, which we were sharing with another 6 people from the program that got there a day before us. Our hostel was actually really nice, with a huge common room with a huge flat screen TV, a kitchen that we could use, a computer, free WiFi, free breakfast, and it was pretty clean -- and it only cost 18€! We were pretty content.
Kelly and I got on our swim suits and went to the metro station to take a 20 minute ride to a little beach town south of Lisbon called Cascais (which is where the 6 people that we came on the train with were staying). Cascais was super cute and had a ton of beaches everywhere. It was a beautiful day, so Kelly and I decided to go hang out at the first beach that we could find, and to our suprise we found the rest of the people from our hostel at the first beach in sight (just for my sake, their names are Rachel F., Rachel B., Julie, Kathrine, Janie, and Lauren ?).

Later we walked around Cascais and then went back to Lisbon for dinner. Portugal is super cheap, like everything there is cheap. My dinner was huge (an omelette, fries, salad, and water) for 5€ -- and I just want to point out that this omelette and fries business was a specialty of Portugal, not something that I asked for specially, although it really worked out to my favor.
We went back to the hotel to play some games before going out and we met these two Irish guys, Robin and Emlyn, who were staying at our hostel too. They joined in on the gaming fun and then came with us to the bars. In order to get anywhere worth going to from our hostel, you had to go up this HUGE hill (I mean it is basically a baby mountain). Along this hill is a bunch of little bars, and EVERYBODY hangs out in the street, drinking what they got in the bar. My friends and I toasted to the 4th of July and stayed in the street for a while.

The next day we went to a cathedral with a monestary attached. The church was pretty, but as it was Sunday, there was a service going on, so we could really only peak in. There was an open courtyard surrounded by part of the monestary with two levels of balconies to look down on it. We were lucky enough to enter the courtyard as a gospel choir was performing. They were from Belgium and were really entertaining (all of their songs were in English, interestingly enough).
Next, we went across the street to the ocean and saw some discovery monument, which was pretty cool. Then we walked down the street by the beautiful water and went to this castle in the sea. It was a battle station castle thing and it was really cool. It was free and you could climb up all the stairs to get to the very top. It was awesome.

The last thing we did before leaving to go back to Salamanca was go to this pastry store and buy this amazing pastry thing. I don´t even know what it was, but it was the best thing ever. It kind of reminded me of the french toast that Paco made once...I don´t know, but it was amazing.

Final thoughts about Portugal-- fun, cheap, but a little smelly.