Finally once more

Wow, as time goes along, I’m doing this less and less. It’s kinda like writing in a journal. Haha. Anyways, I will bring ya’ll up to speed about the past week.

So, last Thursday (the 9th I believe), we went to a nearby part of Lisbon called Belém (at least I think it still counts as Lisbon there…) and went to see this huge monastery called Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, which is basically just an extremely elaborate church place that kinda was made close to the river to show all the other people the awesomeness of Portugal back in the day. It has a couple of tombs for Luís de Camões (a famous Portuguese poet) and Francisco da Gama (the first European to reach India by sea). Then we bummed around at some shops and went to the Coach Museum. It is literally a floor filled with tons of old carriages. Some were for the good old common folk, but others were for royalty and nobility, so they were extremely gold and elaborate. Super cool. Then me and a few other girls went on a walk for one of our classes. We follow a book which tells us where to go and what to look at. Before going, we stopped to get food. My roommate and I split “Steak on a Rock”. It is literally a huge chunk of raw steak on top of an insanely hot rock. So you cut and sear your steak. It’s really fun. And then we did the walk. Saw cool monuments and a chicken made of tile.

Friday we took a day trip to a few near-by cities. We went to Óbidos, which is a walled city. Like, it’s a legit city with a massive stone wall around it. Super cool. We only stayed there for like an hour because we had to take the bus to another city called Mafra. There we ate our lunch (which was super fancy). They gave us all the utensils, and I had to figure out which knife was for the butter and which for the soup, etc. The struggle. But we had this rice kinda stew with shrimp and prawns. And we had this roast/potato/vegetable dish with it. Along with like soup and bread and a few other little fried thingies. And olives. They provide olives with a lot of meals here. Then we got desserts. I wanted the chocolate mousse (obviously), but they were out of it, so I got this pumpkin jelly, pudding, cookie sort of trifle thing. Then after all that fanciness, we went to the Palace of Mafra. And that thing is huge. Like Palace of Versailles place. But without many tourists. It has like over 800 rooms, 6 organs, a ton of little outside courtyards, etc. Also, there were some random owls, which I got to pet a small one. They were really soft. Anyways, so we got to tour parts of the palace. It was extremely fancy. Our tour guide talked about sleeping arrangements, toilet procedures, the history of the royal family there, etc. And that was only like a summer/hunting home for them. Pretty neat. Then we went to a nearby beach and bummed around there for awhile. Put my feet in for awhile. Then went home.

Good old Saturday I went to a kinda closish beach in the morning. It was fun. A little chilly. We made an awesome sand castle and messed around in the water a little. The waves weren’t crazy or anything. Then we ran home to take showers and go to the opera. Oh so fancy. It was The Thieving Magpie. However, it was the orchestra and singing with minimal acting. Still it was really good. I think there were quite a few Italian singers, which was fun. Then we finished and got food (which is always a blast once we finally figure out where to eat).

Sunday! Oh so chill. Church. Food. Come Follow Me discussion. Food. Studying stuff. Food. Watching the devotional from last week. Food. Sleep.

Monday. Awesome day. Amazing. We got up at like 3:45 am to take a plane to the Azores for our vacation within a vacation. I mean, I know I keep raving about about mainland Portugal, but the Azores is something else entirely. Many describe it as a mix between Hawaii and Ireland. It is so beautiful. I mean, it’s an island right, so you always see the ocean (unless you’re in a valley with a huge lake or in a gigantic garden. Whatever. So Monday we all got picked up in Jeeps (amazing start already), and started going up into the mountains. Let me tell ya, Portugal lives off of tourism, agricultural…… and COWS! There are cows everywhere in those amazingly green hills. They are completely free range just doing what they want. Bless their hearts. So that means cow products are amazing here. Anyways, we went up to this amazing pond/lake surround by trees with pink flowering bushes. I mean, it was beautiful. Then we went to some outlook places. It’s amazing. Beautiful green. Tons of lakes within like valley everywhere. And on the top of the mountain you can see everything. Then we went down to a big lake that we had been looking over, ate dinner, and went kayaking on the lake. Then we went up the mountains again and went to some more lookouts. Each was breathtaking. Then we got back into our Jeeps and kept going up and up and up the mountains. The roads were sometimes super bumpy and steep, so if we hadn’t been in Jeeps I would have been scared out of my mind. But we survived. Then we slept, thank goodness.

Tuesday we got right back into the Jeeps and went to the tallest mountain in São Miguel (the name of the island we’re on right now). Then we went to a tea plantation. It’s one of two on the island, and those are the only tea plantations in Europe. They offered us free samples, but none of us took them up on it. Surprise. Then we went to this thermal sulfur area of the island (because the place is a volcano), and they showed us how they put pots of food into the hot ground to slowly cook them. It’s full of meat and vegetables. Then we went to a restaurant to eat that. It was really good. Then we had pineapple for dessert. It was unreal. I mean, in Brazil I thought I had tasted some really good pineapple, but that was above and beyond. They have a different type of pineapple here (called ánanas) which is smaller and sweeter. Then we went to some thermal pools. They are surround by a huge and amazing botanical garden. So all of us wandered through the garden then changed and went to the pools. The main one is orange from a ton of iron. It was so hot. After awhile I couldn’t handle it anymore. But it was super nice. Now that swimsuit is kinda orange. There were a couple other smaller, hotter, non-orange pools then I stepped into. Then we changed and left. We stopped by a bakery which we ate some queijadas at (some sweet dessert made with some cheese or something). Then we came back. Some of us went to this sushi restaurant right off of the dock. It was amazing. Surprisingly amazing. I guess from all the fresh fish. But it wasn’t that expensive either. So good. The rolls were pretty simple, but all the ingredients were awesome. So that’s enough obsessing. Then that was about it.

Now, finally today was pretty amazing also. It was a free day. Some of us walked around a looked at nearby shops. Then we went to the beach. When we first drove up it didn’t look like much. It was all dark looking. Then as we started to walk on it, we figured out it was black sand. And that sand, other than really cool looking, was so soft. It was a little chilly, but so fun. The water was cold, but the waves were awesome. There was kelp everywhere. And there was almost nobody at that beach. Ugh. The Azores are awesome. Then we crossed the street to this strip of restaurants. I love restaurants here sometimes, because a lot look very unimpressive from the outside, but really their food is fancy. So a few of us went to one place to get some beef because (obviously), all the beef comes from the island. Then the server was like, you should try the regional beef option, it’s very popular. So it’s in Portuguese, but underneath it’s in English. So I looked at the Portuguese name and prices. The full piece was 18 euros (about $20), and the half was 12 euros (a little over $13). Then I look at the English name. Filet Mignon. So I obviously ordered the half. The classic plate is the meat with some sort of sauce, a ton of french fries, and a fried egg. Dude, when it came out, I was amazed. It was probably like a 9 oz piece of filet mignon. For like $13. And it was so good. I can never eat steak again. I did not need any sauce or anything. That was so flavorful and tender. Come to the Azores just for that. I mean, can you believe that. $13. Ugh, so good. Then we went home and showered (so much black sand). Then some of us went to these lava tunnels. It’s underground tunnels which were made by lava going through the earth. Then we went to a pineapple plantation. It was so cool to see all the pineapple plants and read about how they are grown. Then we all got pineapple, pineapple cake, pineapple juice (which tastes nothing at all like the can), and pineapple icecream. Ugh that icecream. I mean, the pineapple was great. The cream was obviously local. The amount of amazing food that I have had in the past couple days is amazing. Then we came home. My roommate and I got a couple salads from a nearby restaurant. Then we came home and relaxed a bit because of the long past few day.

Wow, I so recommend the Azores. Please, please, please visit them. It’s perfect here. And tomorrow we’re going to visit a different island. Then a different island the next day. What is life anyways?