My Portugal trip

The first week of April every year in Spain is Semana Santa (Holy Week). It is a time where the streets of Seville and other cities around Spain are filled with people. Locals dress up in different religious clothes and men of brotherhoods (religious church groups) carry large floats on their shoulders. These floats are decorated with crosses and candles and a lot of them have statues of Jesus and Virgen Mary.

Since my friends and I are not very religious/Catholic, we did not care much to experience Semana Santa. If we had stayed the whole week we wouldn't have been able to even walk downtown because it would be so crowded with people. Anyways, I was able to see pictures and videos of Holy Week so I was okay with missing it.

Instead, I went with about nine of my friends to Lagos, Portugal, a town in the south of Portugal. We rented a really pretty airbnb and spent eight whole days there. On the first day, we rented kayaks at the beach and then went kayaking through some caves. It was so much fun! I enjoy doing things like this on my own with friends instead of doing a tour on a boat or something like that. We also took a bus to the most southern city in Portugal and spent the day there and then returned to Lagos that night.

The rest of the days we were there we basically spent drinking at the beach and enjoying the sea and warmth of the sun. Most days for breakfast and dinner we would cook or make food together. The beaches and grocery stores were walking distance from our airbnb, so we walked everywhere during our time in Lagos. We also walked around the downtown area and ate there sometimes. I had some delicious iced coffee at a cafe downtown as well. My friends and I also ate a lot of natas, which are the traditional custard tarts of Portugal. This trip has definitely been one of my favorite trips I have taken while studying abroad in Seville.