Portugal

Hi all. Well, Jennifer and I went to Faro, Portugal, this past weekend with two other friends, Shelley and Brooke. It was nice to sleep in a quiet hotel and to be on our own schedules rather than our host parents’ for a few days. I wish I could say Faro was absolutely fabulous, but that would be a lie. It was actually a pretty boring town with a pretty regular beach. Google images lied to us! Fortunately, I am the kind of person you can guarantee will be content if given some sand, water, and sun- and I had that. It was overall, a weekend of rest and relaxation. The hands down, best part about the weekend was a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant where we ate Saturday night. It was there that we ate not only our best meal in Portugal, but we all agreed that it was the best food we had eaten since we’ve been in Europe. A Mexican restaurant in Portugal- who would have thought?? To top it off, the margaritas were great as well and our waiter kept bringing us free shots of different kinds of tequila. And when I say kept, I mean KEPT. By the end of the night we had 3 bottles of tequila on our table, sombreros on our heads, and salt everywhere else. Our motto was this, “When in Portugal, do as the Mexicans do”. There was live music most of the evening via a cute little Mexican man walking around playing guitar and singing until the place turned into a karaoke bar later. There was a karaoke contest where the winner would take home a fifth of tequila. It may shock you to learn that no, I did not sing in this competition. As much as it pained me, all of the songs were in Spanish and I clearly didn’t know any of them. Granted, I could have read the words on the tv screen and just sung my own made-up melody, but anyone who is a singer knows that we, as singers, have too much pride to get up and do what we do best off key. So, sadly enough but with my pride in tact, I had to watch a pretty Portuguese girl walk away with the coveted prize. Thus was the gist of our weekend in Portugal.