My first non-program trip of the semester was to Faro, Portugal with Caroline the last weekend in February. Monday was a fiesta so we didn’t have class. I was excited to spend a long weekend at the beach. Unfortunately the weather didn’t quite cooperate and I ended up wearing a coat everyday but it was a good time nevertheless. This was also an exciting weekend because on Saturday night my friend-from-home Lily, who’s currently studying in Paris, met us in Portugal and then spent the week with me in Sevilla!
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| Faro, Portugal |
We took the bus from Sevilla to Faro and it was nice
and easy, only two hours. We got to our hostel no problem and were pleasantly
surprised by how nice it was. This was Caroline’s first non-program trip ever so I
was excited to show her the ropes so to speak. Faro is a pretty small town and
it’s definitely a summer town. There wasn’t too much to do but we met this kid
named Miles who was staying in our room that night (it was just the three of
us) and decided to spend the evening with him. We went to a chapel of bones which
was SO creepy. I don’t know man, I did not like the feeling of being surrounded
by bones and having a bunch of skulls staring at me! While we were walking
around we found a vihno biblioteca (wine library) that was having happy
hour, only 1,5€ for a glass of wine. It was super cozy and we spent forever
there and bless Miles for being genuinely interested in hearing about Sweet
Briar. If you get two SBC girls together, especially with wine, you’re going to
hear all about the time that it almost closed…even if all the people in
question were there. After we had our wine we went out to an Italian place and
then to this upscale bar that Caroline found online. They had a super snazzy
music video advertisement so we obviously had to go. We ordered our ridiculously
priced drinks; mine was a warm berry butter something or other drink. Amazing. It
was cold and rainy but luckily they were well prepared and had blankets to keep
us warm! Also, don’t let them know but I stole the cup (it was a nice ceramic
one).
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| Deserted Island, Faro |
Interesting note: when we were walking from the
restaurant to the bar I experienced probably the most blatant example of gender
conditioning ever. Miles was joking/playing around on one of the weird
playground things on the edge of a parking lot. Caroline and I noticed that a car had driven by us
several times, rather slowly before speeding around the parking lot. Then they
stopped and two men got out of the car…though they were pretty far away from us. We
told Miles that it was time to go and we power walked to the bar and the two men
followed us the entire time, stopping only when we went and sat at the bar. We
asked Miles what he thought about them and he hadn’t even noticed them
and had been wondering why we wanted to leave to abruptly. Maybe we were
imagining things but the fact that we both thought the same thing without even
speaking to each other while he didn’t notice anything speaks volumes about
gender conditioning.
Saturday was pretty relaxed, Caroline and I walked
around the town until Lily got there it the evening. It was a bit sad because
so many of the buildings were basically falling apart. A sad sort of beautiful.
That night we had dinner at the hostel. They were having a special 5 course
meal. It was amazing, but very filling!
Carrot cream soup, avocado and tomato, creamy
spinach and mushrooms and peanut chutney, a grilled pepper stuffed with cheese
and cous-cous, mango mousse. Obviously with Sangria.
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| Sacramonte, Granada |
I met this Danish couple at dinner that was cycling
through Portugal. They have a son who is living/working/volunteering in India
and a daughter who is going to Colombia University for their journalism
graduate program. After we ate we played a bit of “drinking Jenga” with some of
the people at the hostel and then we headed out to a bar that Caroline had
found online. There was a band that was going to be playing called “Six Irishmen and a
Fiddle”. They weren’t particularly good but it was fun to sit in a nice bar and
order fancy drinks (Sex on the Beach and Strawberry Daiquiris, can you tell we
were wishing for warmer weather?)
Our game plan for Sunday was to go to this desert
island. We headed down to the dock bright and early in our shorts praying that
it would warm up. The island was about a 35 minute ferry ride away and was
really cool. There’s nothing on it besides one restaurant and a couple of
storage shacks. During the high season they only take 400 people out a day but
there were way less when we went! We had a bunch of fun walking around the
island, laying in the sun, and dancing around in the waves. Oh and I also made
Caroline and Lily join my mini beach cleanup…there was an awful lot of trash
for an uninhabited island. After a full day at the beach we went out for
Mexican food complete with margaritas.
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| Sacramonte, Granada |
We headed back to Sevilla on Monday. Lily spent the
week with me and my host family My host mom is an angel, apparently a lot of
people charge if their students have someone over but it wasn’t a huge deal
because I have an extra bed in my room this semester and we didn’t really eat en casa. I had
class all week so I didn’t get to spend much time doing touristy things like I
did when the family was here but since I didn’t have anything to do on Friday
we spent the morning at a café and paseando por la ciudad. We got
French fries from this place I’ve been dying to try and then got bocadillos
and spent the afternoon at the park by the river just like I did when my family
was here. It was great.
The next day was my program trip to Granada. I went
last semester so just like with Madrid I kind of got to do my own thing. Lily
and I spend the afternoon eating on an outdoor staircase in the sun trying to
see how much we could remember about the people we went to high school with. It
wasn’t that long ago but you forget a lot and fast!
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| Sacramonte, Granada |
The next day, while
everyone else was at the Alhambra I decided that I was going to check out
Sacramonte which is a neighborhood of Granada famous for its caves. The gypsies
traditionally lived there but now they are home to professional squatters, the
poorer population, and the hippie type. It was really cool to walk through the
area but at the same time it felt like I was intruding on their lives. It’s a
part of the city I had heard about but had never been to. I was surprised by
how expansive the area was and also the diversity. Some houses looked normal;
they were built into the caves but had entrances that looked like normal houses
while others were literally just the cave with maybe a blanket hanging over the
front. The normal looking ones were really nice and I could totally see myself
living in one but the others were just really dirty. You could tell that the
tourists normally walked around the nicer area, there were bars and locals out
playing their guitars and kids outside. The other area was very hard to navigate
and you could tell the only people there were those who lived there and the
slightly more adventurous tourists. I really do like Granada, especially the juxtaposing landscapes...palm trees and snow capped mountains! As usually though I was happy to get home to Sevilla <3
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