L-I-F-E simply put.: Portugal: Our story

I was blown away.

As soon as I stepped foot out of the station, I felt like I was in a different world.

The buildings were so gorgeous in an antique sort of way. The facade of the buildings were worn down by the neighboring Atlantic oceans humidity but the delicate pastel colors kept their territory.

As we walked farther into the center of town to find our accommodation, I continued to get goose bumps from the charm this city provided me.

Working electric trolleys (you can see the ocean in the back).

Gorgeous patterned sidewalks.

Stoned streets.

Hills with colorful houses sitting around them.

All with the HUGE Atlantic Ocean surrounding it.

Uhhhh... just thinking about it makes me smile to myself.

Then we arrived at our new home for the next few days, the 8th floor of an old building in the center of town. When we saw that we had a balcony, we got so excited, we opened it up and were wowed yet again by what we saw. To the left a castle on a hill, straight ahead the Atlantic Ocean, to the right, another hill with colorful houses sitting on it, and straight down, the CENTER SQUARE! What a sight! We never wanted to leave the room it was so gorgeous, but of course we had to start exploring the city, so out we went.

Then it started, all the misunderstandings...

It started with dinner in an area called "the restaurant", ha. We were walking down the most darling street and this PR guy for one of the restaurants came up to us and asked if we wanted to see the menu, Sure, we said. Nothing Vegetarian, so we attempted to move on. THEN he offered me a plate full of veggies, fresh cheese, bread, rice, and beans for 4,75 Euros, I was like, TOMA! So we ate there, then when the bill came, it was SO MUCH more than what he offered it to me for. I told them and they tried to change the story around about what he said "oh, that was for an appetizer, not a main course", BS I said, and didn't pay shizzit and we started arguing in the outdoor seating section of the restaurant! He called me stupid, and I said, your face is stupid, lol. VERY CLASSY and mature, I know, lol. I left without paying the full price, too bad for them for trying to screw me over.

Despite that, me & Mel left there running and laughing the whole time! It was hilarious! It was one of those "you gotta be there" moments.

There were a series of misunderstandings that followed between us and "Portugal":

2)Because Portugal is so close to Spain, we would have never thought that we would be in a different time zone, but low and behold, we found out our second day there. We woke up at 9am, and headed out for coffee. We were wondering where everyone was, Ok, it was Saturday, but come on, there was no one out, until we sat down for breakfast and saw the clock on the wall! ONE HOUR BEHIND! Sucked for us, we could have slept longer, or stayed out later the night before! lol.

3) We bought a million post cards to send to people, then found out the post offices would be closed for the next 4 days (holidays) but a nice lady pointed us to an outdoor postage machine, what an invention! We were super excited that we didn't have to wait to send the postcards, so we excitedly popped our money in the machine, pushed the button, and nothing... then we did it again, and again, and still nothing. The machine was either out of stamps or swallowed our money! Bastard machine!

4) We went to a supermarket, it was so tiny and there were so many people in it, it was crazy. All we wanted were some cookies and wine... anyway, they had all the bottles of liquor right in the front where all the people traffic was, Mel walked by and knocked over tons of liquor with her bag. Everyone was looking at us, and there was alcohol all over the floor! This was also hilarious, cause two minutes later another girl did the same thing, only on the other side! lol.

5) Our last morning there, we woke up with a slight hang over. So we decided to head out for some coffee, right downstairs from our house, no stress, no walking, just relaxing outside in the sun in a cute little cafe. Well, we asked the guy for a coffee and a glass of water (to hydrate ourselves) and he brought us a glass of coffee, this thing was huge! I was laughing so hard I almost peed. People must have been looking at us like, damn! lol.

6) The coffee didn't hit the hangover spot, so we decided to move to the next place over and get a beer to take the headache and tiredness away (I know, I know, it's horrible, but I don't do this all the time). So we ordered a beer and this HUGE beer came out! In Spain the beer comes in a small cup, so we thought, no problem, ya know. We drank the whole thing and were hungry for more, so we got another, then we ordered a HUGE plate of fries, then more beer, then I started painting my nails (again, very unclassy of me). Pretty soon we looked at the time and we had 20 minutes until our bus was to leave back to Spain, We spent over 2 hours there and didn't even realize it! WE got up, left whatever money on the table, ran to get our bags we left in the hotel (luckily we were less than a minute away), hopped in a cab and made it there right on time! AGAIN, hilarious!

So those were our misunderstandings with Portugal, they were all super fun, interesting and unforgettable!

We had a lot of fun times. We walked all around the city, we ate Indian food (which I haven't had since NYC this past December, I've been craving it), Portuguese coffee and desserts, which were all amazing! YUM! We rode on the oldest elevator in the world! Yes, that's right, this elevator is the oldest working elevator! It was pretty crazy! At night I met a wonderful guy who showered me with attention. We spoke all night, he paid for everything, he invited me to dinner the next day, it was perfect! Then I found out he was 21 years old! ughhh... Whats up with these young guys going after me? geezzz... We'll here's a few pictures of all this.

The night I met my youngin: