The beginning of the end.

Wow! A lot has happened since the last time I updated this...almost 2 weeks ago?! My life has been filled with trips, projects, test, and dance recitals! Continue reading for more...

So last weekend (April 24th-26th) I took a trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Honestly, I wasn't that excited to go. The night before I left I was COMPLETELY exhausted, from school that week and all the traveling I had done already that month! But my friend wanted to go there for his birthday, and there was a group of 9 of us going, and I ended up really really enjoying it.

We flew in on Friday morning (my flight left Madrid at 7am) which meant that I spent the night at the airport with my friend Ally. Once our whole group was finally together, we were all exhausted too...none of us had gotten more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep. We decided that we were going to spend the whole day Friday at the beach, which is exactly what we did! It was so beautiful. We went to this small town called Casi Casi (pronouced "cash-cash") and laid in the sun all day. My arms and legs got pretty sun burn and I have some interesting tan lines where you can see exactly where I stopped putting sun screen on! After we were done at the beach, we walked around the town and headed back to our hostel. We made dinner and went to bed- we were exhausted.

Saturday we woke up and toured a castle in Lisbon which I thought was really neat (but I'm not sure what everyone else thought!) :) We ate lunch, walked around some more, and headed down to the city square. April 25th happened to be some kind of independence day in Lisbon, so we saw a lot of parades and bands and booths up that were selling random things. My friends Laura and Lisa (yes, that means that there was a Laura, Lisa, and Liza on a trip to Lisbon...try saying that 5 times fast) found a jewelry store and made some bracelets and necklaces together. We went back to our hostel afterwards, made dinner again and hung out for the rest of the night. We met some fun people at our hostel and hit it off really well.

The next morning I had to get up and take a bus back to Madrid, which left at 10am, but I almost didn't get home- I bought my ticket for the wrong day! Thankfully the lady who was working at the desk just changed the date on my ticket so I didn't have to make any major travel changes. The funniest part of the whole situation was the fact that we had to use Google translator to talk- she didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Portugese! It was crazy. But I made it back to Madrid Sunday night, unpacked, and went to bed.

This past week was crazy crazy for me...I had a poster project due Monday for my oceanography class, a quiz on Tuesday for Spanish, a dance recital on Wednesday for dance class and two birthday parties to attend on Thursday night! It was quite a week and I am quite tired, except next week is not going to be any easier-- we have finals. So be thinking good thoughts for me!! :) I will post pictures from Lisbon and my dance recital later, I haven't uploaded them off of my camera yet. In the mean time, I will try to study and enjoy my final 12 days here in Madrid.

all my love--