Portugal: Day 1

I woke up this morning to rays of sunlight shining through my porthole. Rolling over, I looked in the mirror at the end of my bed. It reflected a castle up on a hill surrounded by houses cascading downwards with red tiled roofs. I blinked, not sure what I was seeing was real. Then, I remembered I was on Semester at Sea and that what I was seeing was actually real. Hard to imagine nine months ago I didn’t even know this program existed and now I’ve spent the last 3 weeks in 5 different countries in Europe.

Rolling off my bed, I crashed on the floor and crawled my overtired, sore (decided to do an intense group workout yesterday, could hardly walk this morning) body to the bathroom. Finally pulling myself up to my feet I looked out the window again. This time seeing the MV Explorer make its way under an enormous bridge that looks identical to the San Francisco Bridge in California….not that I’ve ever seen that anywhere but TV. Scrambling for my camera, I became the ultimate tourist taking picture after picture of the bridge and landscape through my porthole.

When we were cleared for unloading, we made our way off the ship and to a bus stop where we paid and headed 5 or so miles Northeast to the largest Oceanarium in Europe. We spent hours there exploring the ocean life from all the oceans in the world. We saw aquatic life that we will be continuing to see throughout our entire journey.

 Leaving here, we ate lunch and heading down to the pier. After this we caught a bus back to the ship to regroup and rehydrate. After a quick nap, Lauren and I headed out to find some shops. Amazing how many creeps there are in one area in mid Afternoon. We were hit on my many groups of Portuguese men and called to out of many car windows. Finally, finding a few shops in a non-sketchy area of town we bought some items and headed back to the ship for dinner.

From here, we walked back out into Lisbon, climbed a hill, and watched the sunset. Then we headed back to the ship for some much need shower and relaxation time while passing the crowd heading out to enjoy the nightlife.

Tomorrow, we are headed to Costa de Caparica for 2 day on the beach staying in a Bungalow! Cannot wait!