Portugal, part II

Alright! So. Monday.  We got up around 10 and headed down for breakfast. So good. :) There was a lady there from a walking tour group that said if we wanted we could go on a free walking tour of the city at 11, so we figured why not?! It's by a local girl so she'd be able to tell us a lot about the city.  So we went on that which ended up to be 4 hours long, but I think it was time well spent.  We went past many of the places we went on Sunday, but got a more in depth description of the significance of the buildings and bridges and such.  We got to go into the bookstore called Lello, which was the bookstore where J.K. Rowling was inspired to describe the library in Hogwarts in Harry Potter.  It was an amazing bookstore. They wouldn't let you take pictures though! It was sad. I still took some with my crappy camera on my iPod though. ;) shhh....don't tell anyone! But this link has an awesome gallery of breathtaking photos inside the Lello bookstore: http://www.pbase.com/hphdk/lillo  Very pretty. We went past the old prison which is now turned into a photography museum. We didn't have time to go in, it probably would have been pretty cool.  We went past a shrine for a saint on a wall of a building that was meant for good luck, but someone stole it! They must have needed the luck very much.  There's also a guy who loved Porto so much, his body was buried in another city, but he asked that his heart be left in Porto.  Creepy, but very interesting. Porto like I said was very pretty! The roads are a lot like San Francisco though as they are almost all steep hills. Their streets are cobble stone though instead of asphalt.  It was weird not being able to speak the language there.  I felt helpless haha, for a long time I just sat there silently until someone would say they spoke English.  I was very relieved to be back in Valencia on Wednesday, Spanish is much easier for me to understand haha.  Anyways.  After the tour, we decided to go to the beach! We took a bus for what seemed like forever out to a nice beach.  Nice sand! I brought some back for my collection.  The water was freezing!! I haven't been at the Atlantic ocean for a long time! Carol really wanted to see the sunset on the beach, which meant chilling at the beach for about 3 or 4 hours, but that's okay.  How many times can you do that?! Who knows.  In Valencia you can only see the sunrise on the beach.  Like I'm going to EVER be up that early to watch the sunrise in Valencia. hahaha.  We met this guy from Oregon who was with a group of people from Germany, the states, Portugal, and who knows where else.  He has been traveling around Europe for 5 years.  He got a one way ticket to Switzerland and just has been couch surfing and finding places on the street to sleep at night.  They also go and ask for old food from bakeries and other stores for free and also go dumpster diving.  After saying so he pointed to a big bag of food and said we were more than welcome to any of it....um. No thanks. They were all extremely loving with each other.  There were some girls that decided to kiss in front of us, but then later were holding guys' hands. It was all extremely weird.  They were all very free spirits to say the least. But having a lot of fun, doing capoeira and singing at the top of their lungs.  Very interesting characters.
The sunset was fast! We watched the sun go down and then all of a sudden disappear.  It didn't even disappear beneath the ocean, it disappeared much before it touched the ocean.  Weird.  So then we took a bus back to the hostel where they had dinner for 8 euros of the local dish called Francesinah.  It's a sandwich with 3 or 4 layers of different meat, melted cheese, and a fried egg on the top.  Then it is drowned in this spicy kind of sauce, not really like barbeque sauce, but that's the closest equivalent I can give you guys.  then they put out a huge bowl of french fries and you put fries in the extra sauce around your sandwich.  Very heavy meal, but very delicious!!! We then met some people that were also staying at the hostel with us, 2 girls from Quebec, Canada that were studying in France and Italy,and  a girl from Brasil that was living in France with her boyfriend from France that we met as well.  We all decided to karaoke to some songs that Paula (Brasilian girl) John (French guy) and Josh knew on the guitar.  That was fun, and then we found out that the hostel actually had a karaoke game on the Playstation we could play so we pulled that out.  Josh got a guy from Australia to come join us as well.  Since there were so many of us, we split up into teams.  I got to know the Australian guy better, his name was Reilly, and he lives on an island in Australia that's only 60 or 70 km long.  He said that it's only a 2 minute walk from where he lives to the Great Barrier Reef. I am so jealous.  He went backpacking in New Zealand last year for 4 months, and now he is traveling around Europe at the moment for 3 months.  He doesn't have a set plan, he just picks where he wants to go a few days before or goes to a train station and just picks a destination.  Jealous!!!  He still has a month and a half until he goes home to Australia.  Really cool kid! Also extremely cute! ;) We went out and walked around the city for a little bit, and went to go get McDonalds! We all sucked at speaking in Portuguese.  Pretty funny.  Mcflurries taste the same where ever you order them by the way. With the extreme humidity there (it felt almost like you were breathing in clouds) it was really cold so I didn't stay long and wanted to go back to the hostel so Reilly made sure I got there safely.
Tuesday!! :
I didn't sleep very well on Monday night, but I still reluctantly got up around 9.  Josh decided he wanted to sleep, so Carol and I ate breakfast and then decided to go shopping.  We went first to this tower over by the photography museum where you can walk up to the top of it and have a breathtaking view of the entire city.  It was very beautiful and well worth going up the 240 steps it took to get to the top.  While we were up at the top we even got to hear a cute little song that the bells on the tower played at 1 o'clock I believe. That is something you can't hear in America! We were going to go to the photography museum, but they were closing for the afternoon.  We instead went back to the Lello bookstore and I bought "The Count of Monte Cristo" because I really wanted a book from that bookstore and it was in English! I can't wait to start reading it.  Carol and I then after getting a bit confused at which direction to head, went to the big shopping street in Porto called "Rua Catalina."  We also got some pastries at a bakery. Yum! Then we went through the different shops on the street to see if there were any good deals! I bought a shirt for 4 euros, but that was about the best deal we really found.  I did find a gift for Cortney there. We then had hot chocolate at the Cafe Majestic, since that was one of the top 10 things to do in Porto.  It has an absolutely beautiful interior! Very old and ornate.  We met 2 older couples from New York that we chatted with for a little while.  We then went back to the hostel to get Josh.  We left and went to find a store that had the best chocolate cake in the world supposedly.  I wanted to go to a chocolate store but it was really far away from our hostel, so it didn't seem worth going so far, but the store with the chocolate cake was only about a km away.  Well we got lost on all the windy, hilly roads!! It said it was a 10 or 15 minute walk, but we ended up walking for about and hour and a half! hahaha I almost got run over by the archaic trolleys they have that go around the city, I didn't hear it right in front of me! We finally found it.  The cake is made with 70% cacao. Wow. It was pretty good, very good.  We then headed back to the hostel and had fire roasted chorizo and olives for dinner at the hostel.  :) We chatted with a guy from Porto that worked there, he was pretty funny.  We then just hung out and played Uno with the Canadians and Reilly.  Paula and John had left earlier that day.  Josh and I ended up talking for a long time, until about 2:30 and we had to wake up at 4:30 to catch a bus to the airport so we wouldn't miss our 7:30 a.m. flight! That was a bad idea.  But we got up, and said goodbye to Reilly, he was Josh's roommate at the hostel, and headed back to Valencia.  I slept in the airport, this time there was no hassle getting on board, no extra fees! haha
We got back to Valencia, and I was so happy to be hearing Spanish over the intercom!! I never thought I would say that.  So relieved.  We took the metro into town, so much cheaper than the 30 euro taxi drive we had to take TO the airport when we were going to Porto.  I then took a nap and went to my dorm to bring all of my luggage over to my flat.  Thank heaven my roommate was there.  Every time I asked if I could come over and get my stuff last week she was "never there" which made it frustrating since I had half of my stuff there and couldn't go get it.  So I got all my stuff and now I don't have to deal with the residence hall anymore!! Yay!! I went and paid for my Andalucia trip and then my friend Natacha and I went to a meeting about the Andalucia trip to decide which bus we were on and who we were going to room with.  Natacha, Clare, Shanon, and I are roomies!! Yay! We are leaving at 2:15 a.m. Friday morning to head to Grenada first, Seville on Saturday, and Cordoba on Sunday.  Cool!!! I am excited.  I then went home thinking of all the things I should get done before I leave tonight, tomorrow morning, however you want to see this 2:15 a.m. thing!