An education in promotional hug giving plus much more

Destination: Lagos, Portugal

Nights: 2

Days: 3

Hours of Transportation: 13.5

# of Hugs: 3

# of nude families/couples at the beach: 6 a day

# of times I was scolded by a Portuguese person: 4 (which is 4 more than I ever expected)

But alas, # of awesome memories: endless

This weekend I set out on my first adventure into another country. This rather last minute trip to Lagos, Portugal was poorly planned and executed but none-the-less I enjoyed almost every minute of it. At 11:45pm on Friday night Kate, Corrie, and I decided that we should go to Faro, Portugal because it wasn’t that far and we could get some quality time there. Well after reading hostel reviews and discovering that it isn’t really close to the beach after all we decided to scratch that plan and go to Lagos. The weekend before a bunch of my friends from CIEE went to Lagos and had an AMAZING time. I was so jealous that I attempted to create their trip as best I could. This started with booking the same hostel, The Rising Cock. Great hostel names almost always lead to great stories. Well after consulting my fellow companions we decided to go with a cheaper hostel in hopes that those few extra Euros we were going to save would make up for the lack of party atmosphere that the Rising Cock promised. We were feeling ambitions when planning our transportation and decided to attempt to catch the 8:45am bus from Huelva to Lagos so that we could sleep on the bus and not have to worry about getting on and off throughout the trip. The only problem is the earliest bus from Valverde to Huelva was at 7:45a so it would be close. Our back up plan was a bus to Ayamonte (a town in Spain that is right next to Portugal) at 9am.

Well in true Damas (only bus company in Huelva) fashion, the bus got to my stop (the first in Valverde) at 7:50a so already it wasn’t looking like we were going to catch the bus straight to Lagos. We pulled into the bus station at 8:55a. I sprinted to the ticket counter to purchase our tickets while Corrie tried to flag down our Ayamonte bus and ask them to wait. The line for tickets was so long (errr). Corrie called me and said run to the bus, we can buy tickets on the bus. We run back to the bus and the impatient bus driver grudgingly gave us tickets and let us aboard. Go figure we get on the only Damas bus that wants to leave on time. “The bus leaves at 9. I want to leave at 9. You tell your friends to run.” What a grouch. Since I was rushed I grabbed my two bags and walked to the back of the bus and as I went down the aisle I think I successfully hit everyone with my bag. It was a great start to our trip. We got to Ayamonte in an hour or so. We walked around the cute city in search of the ferry to Portugal. We got there just in time to make the 10:30a ferry. While our plan of attack from here on required different means of transportation, we were open to the experience. On the ferry we talked with this older lady about Lagos. She told us that the Portuguese people are extremely friendly and that almost all of them speak English. She told us that Lagos was beautiful and that we should really try and eat Portuguese food while we are there. The last piece of advice she gave us was to try and go to this specific beach but we later found out that the only way to get there was by a car. After the ferry ride we arrived in another tiny town in Portugal called Vila Real de St. Antonio. They had a Saturday fair going on so we walked through it to pass the time. The people were selling pottery, rugs, jewelry, food, and other interesting goods. We found a waffle station and Corrie couldn’t help herself and got one while Kate got a churro filled with chocolate. After the fair, we walked to the train station. When we got there it seemed abandoned upon first glance. The windows had the binds down and there was no person in sight. Wtf? We found a man and he told us that the train we wanted wasn’t going to be here for another hour and that the ticket window would open about ten minutes before the train’s arrival.

Something I’ve learned through my short travels thus far is it is really hard to plan ahead in terms of transportation because schedules are not online like they are in America and they often change or are unreliable. We passed the hour by reading. When our train came we boarded and settled into our seats. Unfortunately we had to transfer trains at Faro so we couldn’t just doze off because we didn’t know how long it would take to get there and we couldn’t afford missing our stop. The lady at the ticket office said our total trip should take around 2.5 hours. She was off by two hours. The train at points moved slower than people on bikes. Why, I couldn’t tell you? Normally I would have been really upset about the whole situation but really we weren’t in a hurry and I’m trying to act more like a Spaniard, so that requires not stressing about time. My first encounter with a Portuguese person was not an enjoyable one. The train ticket man yelled at me when he walked by to put my feet down. Excuse me but nobody was within four seats of me and he could have at least said it in a nice tone. Well after changing trains I tried to get some sleep since I only got 4 hours the night before. I dozed off for a good two hours I think because when I woke up a large old man was sitting very close to me. Haha I had no idea. I noticed that Corrie and Kate were now sitting next to each other and that the train was now quite full. It seemed like everyone was heading for the same destination: Lagos!

Two hours later than we had expected we finally arrived. We knew that our hostel was within walking distance to the train station but we didn’t know which direction. We followed the heard of young people also toting traveling bags and then eventually asked for directions. A young man told us approximately where our hostel was and told us a handful of useful landmarks, all being bars/nightclubs. Interesting….. the guy’s directions only took us so far because after ten minutes we still couldn’t find our place. I was hoping that someone with the actual address of our hostel written down would take charge and make a decision, but I was mistaken. I really just wanted to put my bags down and go to the beach so I stepped up and lead the rest of the way. We made it at last! We walk into the lobby to a screaming match between the owner, the cleaning lady, and some man from Rwanda. Nobody addressed us as we approached the check in counter but continued to yell and make a scene. We didn’t know what to do so we just waited for it to dissipate. Finally the two ladies got the rude man to leave. What a welcome. Even after the man left the lady at the counter still wasn’t helping us so we spoke up. She took our passports, copied them, gave them back, and then took like 15 minutes to figure out our rooms. She never said anything to us the whole time so we should stood there waiting for her to give us some instruction or tell us what she was doing. What seemed like ages later, she finally gave us our keys and we got to put our stuff away and change into bathing suites. It was WELL worth the wait because the beach was stunning! Claire was not exaggerating when she said the beach looking like the beach in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The water was clear and the prettiest shades of blue and green. The only problem was you could see the little fishies swimming all around you. It kind of freaked me out so I only stayed in the water for short increments but I did go in even though it was on the colder side. The sand was soft and a light shade of tan, close to white but not exactly. It was very pleasant to walk on. There were cliffs of rock that jut out into the ocean, enclosing the beach. You can go to the top of the cliffs and get an awesome view of a sunset or sunrise. The beach is also rather exclusive so not a lot of people hog all the sand and I would say it was tailored more towards families than everyday young people, which I actually kind of liked. That being said the beach was full of nude kids running around. I got a kick out of that. Oh and the kids were not the only ones. It was a clothes optional beach so most of the women went topless and a few guys went bottomless when tanning at least (mostly the old men, gross). We found a spot on the beach and just relaxed until the sun went down. We sat next to this dad and his son. They were British and the cutest pair I have ever seen. I swear if that dad had left the kid alone for a second I would have swiped him he was so damn cute. And the dad wasn’t so bad himself. The way he played with his son made him ten times more attractive. I was really hoping to see him out that night hahaha.

After a few hours on the beach we headed back to the hostel, showered, settled in, and relaxed for an hour or so because it was too early to have dinner yet. I noticed that we didn’t have towels so I asked the front desk for some. He came back with three towels and he said unpleasantly, “you aren’t suppose to get towels but I will make an exception this one time and only one time”. I get the point, thank you?!!?!? Any who, after showering we gossiped about our day and stared stories about our schools and tutoring sessions. Once we ran out of things to talk about we got all dressed up, put on some makeup (I haven’t worn any makeup since I arrived in Spain so I was kind of excited for that. This would be my first night out since settling into Spain. To most this would be shocking but for me this is pretty standard), and headed into town for some local Portuguese food.

We started a little to early even though we delayed dinner as long as possible. Because of the location of our hostel we ended up walking past the same streets all the time and therefore we pasted the same bars, restaurants, shops, and people. We decided to walk around everywhere, come back to the start and then decide on a place. Well our second time through we passed this guy, Ben from Britain, and his job was to promote the bar Johno’s the whole night long by means of hugging people. Well he chatted us up and we assured him that after dinner we would go to his bar. We then asked him for a recommendation of where to eat. He did us one better, he took us to the hidden local spot. On the way we talked and found out a little more about his lifestyle. He has been traveling for the past year promoting bars in various countries. It sounds awesome at first, but then I thought it must get so monotonous. At one point in the walk he lead us down this dark side street and Corrie was like, you better not be leading us down a dark alley to nowhere. He was like “I would never”. Then I said, “good because there are three of us and one of you” and his reply was “there are 3 condoms in a pack”. Haha good answer.

So after he dropped us off at the restaurant we talked it over and decided that we didn’t want to go there because it was so secluded and we wanted to people watch and eat outside. After all that….haha. Well we didn’t want to see Ben so we chose a restaurant that was farther down the street from our hostel and away from Ben. The food was really good but the service was questionable. The waiter was kind of surly from the start but I didn’t really pick up on it like Corrie did. We split a rosy wine and shared each other’s meals. We all got some kind of seafood since that was recommended to us by everyone. We had milked the meal as long as we could and decided to go back to our hostel real quick so I could drop off my food. So I signaled the waiter and my instinct made me say “La cuenta, por favor (the bill please in Spanish)”. He came back with the bill and said to me, “by the way, one of the rudest things you can do is talk Spanish to a Portuguese person. It is a spot of national pride that we speak our own language so next time don’t do that. The Portuguese and the Spanish don’t like each other so when you speak Spanish I get offended. But don’t feel bad.” EXCUSE ME?!?!? I was so close to crying. I did my best to play it off like it didn’t affect me but he basically reviled me in front of everyone. I understand his point but at the same time it was a simple mistaken, I was trying not to speak English which was apparently the wrong choice, and he could of told me this is a polite manner. Corrie was outraged and about to speak only Spanish to him for the rest of the night but I told her it wasn’t worth it. He kissed his tip goodbye though. It was awful because I was in such a good mood and then I felt like hiding myself in my bed and not resurfacing until the next morning.

Cue Ben. As we walked back to our hostel we saw Ben’s partner and he started giving us the spiel about Johno’s when BOOM out popped Ben shouting JOHNO’s at us out of nowhere. Corrie and I jumped a good foot into the air. Inadvertently he made me more susceptible to tears. Now that we had finished our dinner he said we owed him a hug. I asked what kind of hug? He replied with 5 kinds: sexual, daddy, promotional, cuddle, and the Mackenzie hug. (this is named after the little girl that was kidnapped in Portugal recently and has yet to be found. This hug consists of him lugging you over his shoulder and running away with you---I think it was too early to laugh at that one). I was up first and I said I didn’t know which hug to ask for so he insisted on the sexual one. He made me put out my leg like you do when your being dipped in dancing and then told me to lean back and then he hugged me. What I didn’t notice was that after the hug he dropped his pants. Corrie and Kate busted out laughing. I didn’t know what happened but I laughed as well. Kate got the daddy hug and then Corrie got the cuddle hug. At that point he was going behind her and she said “are you going to come from behind?” and his reply was that “its going to take a little more time for that to happen honey.” Someone really has a one track mind. After Corrie’s hug I asked how do you give a promotional hug? Without my consent he picks me up (he’s 6’5”) and brings me up to his level where he hugs me and whispers into my ear (come to Johno’s bar tonight for half priced….blah). Now I know. Well after all the hugging we told him we needed to put my food back but we promised to come back. After dropping the food off we had a drink at The 3 Monkey’s. They had a deal for two Sex on the Beach’s for half off so Corrie and I got that and Kate got a Caprihini (traditional Portuguese cocktail). Well neither Corrie nor Kate drink all the much so after our split bottle of wine and very strong cocktail they weren’t in the mood to drink much more. I didn’t want to spend any more money and had a buzz so I was okay with no more drinks. After mingling with some locals we ventured over to Johno’s as promised. I got a pina colada (b/c I felt obligated to buy something) and split it with everyone. Last drink I promise. It was awful but I paid for it so I felt obliged to finish it and get my money’s worth. We danced for awhile but the music wasn’t that great and nobody else was really dancing. We walked outside and asked Ben where we could go dancing. He told us that the best dancing places don’t open until 2am and it was only 1am. He assured us that it would be the same on a Sunday night so we decided to wait until tomorrow for dancing because we were tired and wanted to put in a lot of hours at the beach the next day.

The sun was strong early on. We got to the beach around 10:30 and stayed out there until 5:30p (long day). There weren’t a lot of people out yet so we picked a good spot and just enjoyed Lagos. Every so often I would go into the water but it was to cool to go in all the way so I never put my head under. Also I could not get over the fishies. I tried but every time one got too close I bolted. What’s to keep it from biting me? I still haven’t decided if I prefer clear water where you see everything that’s around you or cloudy water where you stay oblivious to what could be swimming right next to your foot. What would you prefer? I enjoyed reading my book, listening to music, and occasionally sleeping on the beach, but I got restless after some time. I would rather do something active than just lay out but I didn’t have anything else to do. I walked around the beach and enjoyed the scenery as best I could but I was running out of things to do. I was tempted to find the other beach that the lady on the ferry told us to go to but Kate and Corrie were quite content where they were so I stayed put. The highlight of the day was this very affectionate couple. I thought they were Dutch but Kate predicted they were French. I don’t know what they were but they were ALL OVER EACH OTHER. She was topless and he would rub sunscreen on her bare ass and kiss and make-out in the ocean and the sand. I almost thought they were paid entertainment for the beach goers’ haha. The couple was attractive so I wasn’t completely complaining, I just wasn’t use to it. As you probably already guessed I did not go topless. I would need to be drunk to attempt that. It’s just not in my DNA….not yet at least. I did snap a picture of them though (haha creeper I know).

Once we were satisfied with the amount of sun we had gotten we returned to our hostel. We took a power nap and slept until 8:30p. We were determined to start the night later than the night before so that we could party like the locals. At that point we dot dressed and ready to go by around 9pm. Corrie and Kate ran out of clothes so they had to wear whatever they had that didn’t smell like smoke or beach while I, being the smart packer had a nice dress to wear on our last day. Corrie had to borrow my scarf for the night because her neck and only her neck got really sun burned. Thinking that this night wouldn’t be as eventful I didn’t put as much effort in my makeup as the night before. We needed to find an ATM because Kate and I ran out of money. On our way to the ATM this street performed was trying to get out attention. He was like “pretty ladies, come watch my show, it starts in 2 minutes”. When we ignored him he replied, “oh they must be lesbians that don’t speak English.” We couldn’t help but smile, but we still didn’t stop. After getting money we had to walk by him again and this time he was like, “ahh the lesbians are back. Come watch my show! I promise you a striptease if you stay”. He was pretty funny so we decided to stay. What else are you suppose to do on a Sunday? He asked where we were from and for the rest of the night he referred to us as England and America (Kate and I were lumped together as one). He was very funny and got a lot of people to watch his show by commenting on them and asking where they were from. Every time someone said England he would say “oh your daughter is over there” and he would point to Corrie. Corrie would smile and wave. Lol I can’t even tell you all the funny things he said throughout the show but he improvised a lot of it and he spoke like every language. Example: a dog ran through his act as he was on a unicycle with flamed batons and he shouted “ah, hot dog!” Sounds corny but it was really funny. Part of his act was to speak different languages while attempting his tricks. Sometimes it didn’t work so he would improvise with something else. Over all his interactions with people and his clever one liners were what kept people around verses the act and tricks themselves. When a trick wasn’t too impressive he would come out with “I LIKE YOU, YOU LIKE ME. IT’S 50/50. Then he would do this little wiggle and go OLAY! He would make the whole crowd say it with him every time. The show was over an hour long. I was getting kind of restless but in the end I’m glad I stayed. And like he promised he gave us a little striptease at the end. Keep in mind that this is a homeless looking 40 year old man. Funny as hell but not attractive. His act was called Helium High btw. I think the most impressive part was the crowd, he had over 50 people watching which I think is a really high number for one of those side street performances.

After our show we walked back up the main street in search of a cheap meal of pizza. Again we spotted Ben’s partner so we approached again to ask him for a recommendation and again BAM! out popped Ben screaming at us again. I’m normally really observant but he got me again (fool me once….). Again like the night before he escorted us to another restaurant. Once we got to this small place we realized that he thought we wanted traditional Portuguese food again rather than pizza. Just like last night, we ended up going to another place for dinner. The pizza joint was so good. By the time our meal was over it was 11:30p. I really wanted ice cream before we left so I didn’t eat all my pizza in hopes of saving room. Corrie and Kate took their sweet time finishing their pizza so by the time we got to the ice cream place it was closed. Errrr On the way to the ice cream place we ran into the street performer. He walked with us to the ice cream place and when I told him I wanted ice cream he was like “it’s only going to make you fat.” Ouch, zing #2 from the Portuguese. I had enough of the scolding. He was joking but I was still a tad offended. Well he walked us all the way to our hostel. At one point we was like “it might seem like I am following you but AHA (he jumps in front of us), now it seems you are following me!” hehehe After getting to know him he was actually a really interesting guy (more on him later). After dropping off my food, the overall consensus was that we were all kind of tired and since we had to wake up early (6:30a) to catch our bus Corrie and Kate were ready to call it a night. ----At this point you’re thinking, OKAY?!?!? when does it get good right? Ha-ha I like to keep the suspense going but honestly this is how it happened.

I felt the same way but for some reason I was too wound up so I said I needed to walk around a little before I went to sleep, I told the other two that they could join me if they wanted to, no pressure. They decided to join me. BEST DECISION of the trip :) We made our way back to the main street but from a different side street. I told them I wanted to take a picture of Ben and then we could go back to our room. Well we saw the performer again so he came up to us and starting chatting away. He knew everyone in the street and was telling us about all the people he knew in this town. He then introduced us to this guy who was also at the show. His name was Paul and he was a junior at Yale studying abroad in Sevilla. He had come with a huge group of American students to Lagos for the weekend. He ended up staying with us the rest of the night despite the fact that none of us were drunk or planning on drinking, which says a lot about his character because trust, there were plenty of drunk, falling over themselves, obnoxious drunk girls from his group to go around. I was actually really embarrassed to associate with them because these girls looked so foolish.

The performer, Helio entertained us with some magic tricks and crazy stories about his travels. He also talked to us about all kinds of things. We got into all the subjects that are taboo in America in public. For instance, orgasms, waxing our private regions (both guys and girls), nudity, what girls prefer their partner to be like and vice verses. I know I was blushing through parts of the conversation. I don’t really like to talk to anyone about those kinds of things unless I know them really well so it was a tad uncomfortable to me but yeah, that was actually the point really. You know, that American’s are so prude and won’t discuss stuff like that. What started out as one last 5 minute walk before bed ended up as a two hour conversation on the side of the street with this fascinating, hippy, organic, environmental 40 year old Portuguese man and a college guy from Yale. Who’d a thunk it? We would get these looks from college guys as they walked by. Their facial expression conveyed their thoughts: “why are three cute girls talking to this old man and not me?” haha it was pretty funny. Helio told us that he was in the middle of writing a book about the places he’s been and the people he’s met. Corrie and I were hoping we’d make it into his book under the names England and America :) His four goals in life were: 1. Plant a tree (did that) 2. Write a book (in the process) 3. To move to Brazil and live there forever and 4. To find his soul mate and make many babies so they will become street performers as well. Lol

We had been talking this whole time in front of this three story bar that was the fork in the road of the main road in town. Helio insisted that we see it before we leave Lagos so he accompanied us in. At this point I was trying to convey to Helio and Paul that we had to wake up really early and that we should probably head back soon. It was now 2:30a. I know Corrie was trying to do the same thing. They ignored our hints and ushered us through the club. We walked up the stairs to the second level and Helio waved at some other friends he knew that were talking at a table. He told us that they were from Italy and they had come to his show the other night. We continued onto the third level and saw the amazing view of the moon, the beach, and the town. It was really nice up there but we decided to go back to the second level for some reason. As we passed the table of people again one of the Italian guys turned around and asked us where we were from. Helio told him and then he asked some more questions at which we were now entitled to answer for ourselves. Mind you this was all in Spanish, not Italian oddly enough. One thing lead to another and we ended up sitting down and chatting in Spanish to these Italians with Helio and Paul in tow.

We started talking to them and they introduced themselves. After that, I remember looking over my shoulder and noticing Helio giving Corrie a foot massage. What?!?! Haha I think I said something like wow your lucky to be getting that kind of treatment in a bar. Helio asked if I wanted one and I was like no thank you. At that point one of the Italian guys got up, motioned for me to sit, and told he was studying to be a physical therapist and could give a really good massage. What??!! A massage by a gorgeous Italian man in a bar in Portugal? WHAT??!? Omg, he was so good. He wasn’t kidding around, he went all up in my neck and back of the head. It was heavenly. The only problem was I couldn’t relax. I mean I had the rest of the table taking pictures of me, starring at me, and obviously talking about me in another language. I was embarrassed so he kept taking my hand and placing it palm up and said “tranquila” or “relaje”. Easy for you to say, I hate being the center of attention. At this point Helio was like, “Kate you should get a massage too”. He motioned for Paul to give her one and he did. It was a strange sight. It was a massage train in a bar. The other Italian guy was left out so Corrie offered to give him a massage, but he declined. After a while the two guys and Helio started talking really fast in Spanish and I was pretty sure that they were negotiating my payment for me. I firmly said “no, no, NO! I can give you a massage back. “ He seemed satisfied with that answer, thank god because that was THE ONLY form of payment I was willing to agree to.

I was getting hot because of the lights and the smoking all around me so I asked if people wanted to go upstairs into the fresh air. From there on I spent the whole time talking (in Spanglish) to the Italians. There was this girl from their school named Juliette who spoke Spanish and English and she acted as our translator at times. It was pretty funny. She was really nice though. I learned that they rented a car from Sevilla where they are studying for the year to Lagos for the week. They have been sleeping in their car this whole weekend. Pobresito! One guy lives in Rome while the rest live in Napoli or Bologna and they have only been studying Spanish for three weeks. HOLY CRAP! I’ve been studying for a combination of 5 years all together and I didn’t speak as well as them. Good Lord that made me feel like a complete idiot. Some people can just pick up languages and others (like me) REALLY can’t. They didn’t speak English but they understood words here and there that I interjected between my Spanish. At one point one guy turned to Juliette and asked her to translate that he thought I had very very very beautiful eyes. Awwwwwwwwwwww, WAIT. This was a only a pickup line. Dammit! I’m suck a sucker, but you can’t help but think that perhaps he’s being sincere. It wasn’t until the next day that I decided the next time I hear that line (cuz I heard it three more times that night) that I would close my eyes at that point and ask what color are they. A-ha! That would be the real test. Why can’t I think of these things when they count. Ugh.

So I couldn’t help but yawning all the time because by now it was 3:30-4a (We had given up on the idea of sleep and said f* it were stayin up all night). I didn’t want to go because I was enjoying trying to speak Spanish to someone who isn’t a native speaker. It kind of loosens the pressure to know that neither of you speak that language fluently. In order to prolong the fun that we were having Corrie suggested we go to the beach since nobody from the Italy group or Paul had been to the same beach as us and they were truly missing out. We walked back to our hostel and Corrie and Kate changed into bathing suits. F* that I wasn’t going into the water. Its cold and do you know how many Shark Week stories start off with “I was swimming at night when suddenly I noticed….”. I was perfectly happy on shore, thank you.

Some people went in the water others stayed dry (ME!). We talked into the night (and perhaps some birding action) until it was getting really late so we finally walked back to our hostel at around 5:30a (good lordyyyyyy). There we exchanged emails, phone numbers, and names with everyone so we could stay in touch. It was an awesome night. This is the kind of thing I was hoping I would get the chance to do while over here in Spain and traveling; meet people from around the world and use Spanish (or English) as a common language to talk to each and learn things. Once everyone said their goodbyes (and ciao’s!) we decided not to sleep since we had less than an hour before we needed to leave anyways. To pass the time we talked about what we had learned about our new friends because some of us understood more than others (that was directed at me) so I was mainly comparing what I thought I understood with what they had actually said to us haha. Some things I was completely off hahaha. At 7am we checked out and walked the ten minutes to the bus station only to find out that we missed our bus. FUCCCCCK (sorry for the language but that’s what I was feeling at the time)!!!! Corrie thought the bus left at 7:30 BUT that was in Spanish time and Portuguese time is an hour earlier. So yeah we missed our bus because it left at 6:30a. OMG sometimes I want to scream b/c it’s so hard to just know these things in Spain. Nobody tells you this. Our only other option was to either take the next bus at 1:45p and pray that we get a bus to Valverde or take the same route we did to get here and pray that it is faster. We chose the bus because we wanted to sleep and we wanted a straight shot there. I couldn’t tell you if we made the better decision because it’s hard to say if the other route would have yielded the same results.

Well we go to board the bus that goes from Lagos to Sevilla but makes stops at all these places (including Huelva) along the way. I board the bus and the driver tells me that Huelva people get on the other bus. So I get on the bus next to me and only Corrie, Kate, and I are the only passengers. This new bus driver proceeds to caravan with the other bus to all the stops. Clearly this is a new bus driver and he DOES NOT know the routes. AWESOME!!!!!!! Well instead of getting worked up about it I decide to sleep. Good choice because along the way we lost the other bus (so I was told by Kate) and we hit a road sign. The bus driver was incompetent. We didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t stop at Ayamonte, he just about backup into the Ocean in Portugal, and he made us arrive in Huelva two hours later than expected. Mother F*er. Since in was a holiday by the time we got to Huelva there were no more buses going to Valverde until tomorrow morning. Oh and people got on our bus who were trying to go to Sevilla and the driver decided to just end the trip at Huelva so they had to pay for ANOTHER bus to Sevilla. Don’t get me started……. So yeah we were stranded. We decided to call Corrie and Kate’s favorite teacher Reuben. He ended up rescuing us but we had to take the bus to Beas and he would pick us up there. Beas is the midway point between Huelva and Valverde. It was better than nothing but it required waiting another hour before the bus would leave. Once we got to Beas we didn’t know when to get off. Reuben called Corrie and was like “I saw your bus, why didn’t you get off?” Crap. It was ironic because I had told them that I thought we should get off at that stop because it was a good landmark. What I didn’t understand is why didn’t Reuben just follow the bus and get us at the next stop instead of making us walk all the way back to the first stop. Ughhh Spaniards sometimes. I didn’t complain since he was doing us a big favor. Once we got to Valverde I still had to walk up the monstrous hill to my house. I got home and was too tired to shower, eat, or do anything but just sleep. It was a longgggggggg 48 hours.

AND THAT WAS MY FIRST TRIP TO ANOTHER QUESTION (this is how tired I am…COUNTRY). AMEN. I’m exhausted, goodb . ……………….. ……….