Things i've missed that excited to get back to

Even though I've loved spain and embraced the differences as best  as I could, there are many things that I miss about home and am happy to be returning to

• Ice
• Free water at restaurants
• Peanut butter
• Bagels
• Long showers
• Gyms and fitness classes
• Driving 
• Refrigerated milk and dairy products
• Cafes (like starbucks) and libraries that are open late to study!
• Stores that are open on sunday (what I consider to be a big shopping day!)
• Eating lunch and dinner at a normal time rather than at 3:30 and 9:30pm
• pandora.com music
• american/english tv shows
• country music
• toilets with seats
• toilet paper in public bathrooms
• soap in public bathrooms
• good customer service in stores and restaurants
• a full breakfast (here they just eat a slice of toast and have tea or coffee)
• cereal
• USD (not a pleasant surprise when I forget to convert the euro to dollars.)
• normal business hours

Las Alpujarras

This hiking trip was included in our program fees so it was an easy decision to go! Las alpujarras are made up of multiple small towns on the south end of the sierra nevada moutain range, with hiking trails connecting them. (pampaneira, bubion, capileira, y capilerilla) We hiked for two full days and stayed in the town of pampaneira over night.

The first day was absolutely perfect. It was 70 degrees and sunny. We hiked for a couple of hours and then stopped for a picnic. It was a really pretty hike with wild flowers and small rivers everywhere!

At the end of the night we all had dinner together in town. A lot of people got rabbit but I got steak since it was free! The interesting thing about the rabbit is that it wasn't just the legs it was the entire rabbit. teeth, brains, stomach all included.

The second day was much different than the first! It was very cloudy and rained off an on the whole day. It was fun because we literally hiked over the tip of  a mountain to get to the other side rather than going around the side.
Instead of having a picnic we had to eat our lunches in the ONE gym of the town. We even left a little early because the rain became too much of a problem. 

Y.O.L.O (you only LAGOS once)

Before leaving for Portugal, I realized I didn't know really ANYTHING about the country besides that its official language is portuguese and that drugs are decriminalized. So I decided to look into that a little more and after talking with a friend, I came acorss this Time article "Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?" It's from a few years ago but I thought it had some surprising information...
 http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

Lagos was one of the most FUN weekends I've had. It was like a mini spring break at PCB. About 50 people from my school all registered to go on the same trip through a company called Discover Excursions. It was great because they organized everything! It was really convenient to have a bus pick us up from Granada and bring us to Lagos (after picking up people in Sevilla). We left really early friday morning and we were there until sunday afternoon. We go there around 2pm and we checked into Aqua Luz hotel! It was a 4 star hotel which was a MAJOR upgrade from the non-so-classy hostels I've been staying in on vacations. Our room, which was apartment style, had a balcony that overlooked the pools and sundeck.

hotel

flowers outside of my room

hanging out pool-side

View from my room at night

When we were on the bus to Lagos we were able to sign up for a sangria sailboat cruise on the souther Portuguese coast. The cruise included unlimited sangria and a Grotto tour (of the rock/cave formations). We went in groups of 10 on a smaller boat to go in and out of the caves.

Hanging out on the boat

The sailboat 

Ready to go into the coastal caves

it's an elephant!

Inside the cave

After the sailboat cruise I went back to the hotel and we made a big pasta dinner in our room with some of the other girls on the trip!  It was delicious! That night there was a kick-off party at one of the bars in town called Grand Cafe.

The guy in the back, Manu, was one of our guides

After breakfast at the hotel in the morning they arranged the buses to take us to one of the best beaches in Lagos. But first we went to Ponta de Pedade to check out the cliffs. (the ones we took the boat through the day before) After an hour pit-stop there we continued on to Meia Praia for a day at the beach!

Ponte de Pedade caves

Stairs down the cliff

JEN!

Everyone At Meia Praia

A view down the beach

After a long day at the beach we had a couple hours to cool off and clean up in the hotel before going to Cabo Sao Vicente to watch the sunset. Cabo Sao Vicente is also known as  'the end of the world'. Before Columbus discovered America they thought that this skyline was the end of the world. It is the most south west part of contiguous Europe. It was really windy and the cliffs were similar to those of the cliffs of moher in Ireland. 

driving to the cape!

as you can see with my lovely hair style, it was SUPER windy

our group sitting on the edge of the cliff

the 'end of the world'

sun starting to set

After the sunset we decided to stay in for dinner once again and cook forourselves. It was so much fun to be in an apartment setting where we could all eat drink and be merry INSIDE! in spain, were always out when were together. (It isn't as common to have guests in spain, plus our apartments are really OURS) and it was nice to just get our comfortable sweatpants on after dinner, drink some wine, and talk the night away!

With a few of the girls

In the morning we went to the west coast of Portugal to the beach called Praia Do Amado (loved ones beach). Because it was on the west coast it was a bit more windy than the one we visited the previous day. It was definitely a surfers beach. We had the option to go surfing for 35 euros but the water was freezing and I just felt like relaxing. 

Amy sitting on the sand dunes

surfers from our group

took a little excursion to a hidden rock beach 

Half way through the day we hiked up to the small beach-side restaurant. I got a hot dog for the first time in months and it was delicious! We sat outside and had a great view of the beach. It was a true paradise!