Sweet Home Salamanca

This past weekend, our group traveled to Portugal for a weekend at the beach. After a 5 hour bus ride, we arrived in the town of Figuiera da Foz. It was… quaint. In a paint peeling off the crumbling buildings kind of way.

Also, it was cold- around 50 degrees that night. Thank goodness I brought a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt! That first night a group just brought a bottle of wine down to the shore and we hung out by the water for a few hours. The next day started out foggy and cold, so Taylor and I walked around the town and found a little flea market place with cheap beach towels and souvenirs. Later that afternoon it cleared up for a little while, so we got a few good hours of beach time in. Our hotel was relatively nice, but the walls were very thin and there was a very loud Portuguese family in the room next to us. Also, on the first night we heard rumors from other people in the hotel that there were bedbugs in their rooms. Luckily we found out that they were only on the 5^th floor, and we were on the third. Still, I feel like I need to disinfect everything I own! The best thing about the hotel was that all the meals were included, and they were all 3 course gourmet meals- butternut squash soup, roasted hen, pasta, rice, broccoli, crème brulee, etc. They even packed us a picnic lunch for the day we left! We ate so much that weekend; the food was way better than the funky ham and eggs everybody eats all the time in Salamanca.

Sunday we headed out to another town called Aveiro. It was MUCH prettier than the first place. Apparently it is known as the Venice of Portugal for its great canal, so we took a gondola ride through the city! By far my favorite part of the weekend.

 After the gondola ride we found a little craft market. I bought a handmade silver ring with a pink and green stone and a little handmade silver hedgehog. Stuff is SO cheap in Portugal- the ring and hedgehog together were only 15 euros. Over the course of the weekend we learned one Portuguese word- “Obligada”. It means “thank you.” Apparently the Portuguese and Spanish hate each other, so if you make an effort to use Portuguese instead of Spanish they are much nicer!

We tried to go to the beach in Aveiro, but the wind literally could have knocked us over. On the bright side, I guess we got free microderm abrasion from all the sandblasting. The group only lasted about 5 minutes at the beach, then we found a grassy area and took naps in the sunshine.

Overall the weekend was fun, but I was glad to get back to Salamanca where the winds are less than hurricane strength. Sweet home Salamanca!