Sunday October 2 – Lagos Day 3/ Return

                Most of the group took the bus for five Euros to another beach for the day and some chose to surf as well. I chose to save some money so I found my friends from Córdoba and spent the day with them. We were all like zombies, everyone said their minds and bodies were in two different places from the excess of sun and lack of sleep. Whatever we did we had to concentrate hard on what we were doing, it was such a struggle.

                Finally it came time to leave at 5:30, and as soon as they said the bus was open I hurried to get the right side of the bus, the side with air conditioning. It was a long ride home because we were burned, tired, and smelled from swimming in the water. Regardless of those facts, I managed to sleep for a good amount of time, unlike on the way to Lagos. We made it to Granada at 2:00 in the morning.

Saturday October 1 – Lagos Day 2

                There was a big breakfast buffet with eggs and other breakfast meats, I had one of everything one the buffet, it was so nice to be full at breakfast. I made a sandwich from the buffet to take with me for lunch but I did not know that you could not leave with food so one of the staff made me leave it.

                The bus took us to another pretty area that had lots of cliffs and caves and you could walk out a ways in the water because there were a bunch of rocks that were there to walk on. We only stayed for thirty minutes because we went to different beach for the day. This beach was huge and it was very, very windy. We played soccer and through soccer I met some Americans that were studying in Córdoba, which is perfect because I was planning to visit there after Lagos because I have a class break until this Thursday. After soccer we went to wash off the sand and the waves were even bigger and stronger than yesterday, one knocked me over and flipped me around near the shore. That was fun and scary and I swallowed a lot of salt water. The water was surprisingly warm. We then started a game of American football; I loved playing it because I had not played it for the longest time. Nearly the entire API group went back to the hotel but I wanted to stay so I spent the rest of the beach time with the group from Córdoba. I also left the beach for a little bit to walk to see a replica boat of the one that found India, I thought it would be cooler but it was still fun walking a short ways to see it. I was happy at the end of the beach day that I had only been slightly burned, no pain just slightly itchy burn.

                After we got cleaned up, they took us to “The End of the World” to watch the sunset on the ocean. It was a really weird site seeing the sun go behind only water, it was very pretty as well. We then returned to go eat, this time we ate at a burger place called Nahnahbah, it had one of the top 50 burgers in the world and of course it was really good.

                For this night’s club we went to Joe’s Garage, again it was small but fun, but was only open until 2:00 so we walked to another that was free called Inside Out and it was small as well. We stayed up until 5:00.

Friday September 30 – Leaving for Lagos, Portugal

                We booked our trip through Discover Granada, a travel agency for students but it was pretty expensive, 139 Euros plus another 30 Euros for the bus trip. The bus trip took seven hours and the left side of the bus, my side, had broken air conditioning so I was sweating the entire time and did not sleep with only two hours of sleep the night before. We stayed at a four star hotel about a five to ten minute walk to the beach. The set up in the rooms was really cool.

The beach had a bunch of cliffs and it was very pretty, the waves were big and they were knocking people over. A few of us swam around a cliff which was fun, hard and slightly scary at the same time because the waves were fun, but it was difficult to swim in and we had to make sure we did not get too close to the cliff. On the other side of the cliff there were just more beautiful sights, we decided not to swim back around the cliff but instead climb up it and that was easier. After the beach we went and swam in the pools at the hotel before showering. The showers there had the removable shower head and I had the faucet pressure on full when I switched it to the shower head. That was not good because the force of the water made the shower head go from pointing down to directly backwards and making a mess.

For dinner I had Portuguese, which I am not sure how to describe but it did not seem much different from regular fancy food. I could not figure out what their signature food was. It was a fairly expensive meal and it was the first place in Europe that I have been to that put food on the table and if you touch it you pay for it. We knew that was the case but we were hungry so we ate it anyway. After dinner there was a really good street performer that was able to speak many different languages and got the crowd involved with his act. He did a bunch of juggling and was really, really funny. He even rode a five foot or so unicycle.

After that we went to a bar and had a drink before we went to the Gran Café, a club that the travel agency included in the price, they also gave us two small drinks for when we were at the club. It was small and fun but not as much fun as I have had before at a club in Europe. I got to bed around 3:00.

Thursday September 29 – Exam Day

                I took the exam this morning as well as the oral portion. My partner was Sander and he is pretty good at Spanish, better than me, and the teacher said I should get a Spanish speaking friend to practice more. The first part of the written part of the exam was easier because the nice teacher made the first part and the second part I scribbled some things down just to say I finished it because the second part was so long.

                For dinner I had tapas with some Spaniards that API had set a group of us up with, we spent time at a table speaking Spanish then switched to English, then switched to another table and did the same thing. We were there for a couple of hours and now I finally have Spanish friends, seven to be exact that I added on Facebook, so I can now improve my Spanish! Most of the API group hung out because most of us did not want go to sleep before the bus trip to Lagos, Portugal since we were leaving at 5:00.

Wednesday September 28 – Day before the Final

                All I did was study after class, working out and lunch.

Tuesday September 27 – Slow Day

                I got up went to class, worked out, studied, and then nothing.

Monday September 26 – New Information on Bull Fight

                Today my teacher told us that the corrida de toros (bull fight) that we went to was of amateurs because we described how they killed the bulls and she said that good matadors kill them with one strike. Also I learned the reason they let that one bull live was because the matador can ask the president of the event to change bulls if he feels the bull is not right or good enough for him.