Dia 16-18: LEHHGO Lagos

Boa tarde!

As I promised myself from the beginning, I want to use this blog to remember all of my fun adventures in Europe. This means: the good, the bad, the ugly and in this case, the topless. Alright, now that the elephant is out of the room, I shall start from the beginning:

On Friday we hopped on a bus headed to Lagos, Portugal. 4 and 1/2 ish hours later we arrived! Luckily, Portugal is a different time zone so we gained an hour of daylight :)

From my program, there was a group of 15 of us but only 3 of my other friends were staying at the same hostel as me. I will tell you now that after we left the bus station and headed to our hostel, we never saw the other 11 girls again until we were back at the bus station leaving on Sunday.

We arrived at our hostel (which we were slightly nervous about because there weren't any online reviews because it's brand new) and it was AMAZING! It is owned by a bunch of British guys and everyone in the staff was British. This wasn't too surprising for us because Quique had told me that Lagos is full of British and Australian people that love to party and drink. Well, this was accurate. We checked into our room and the owner Matt gave us a tour and then took us to the roof top and gave us each a free beer (Cristal) at their tiki bar. We were in awe. It was awesome. The sun was setting and we had a gorgeous view from the roof top of all the beautiful homes. We deff knew it was going to be a great night.

 (these pics were taken the next morning)

 (awesome lounge on the roof top)

 (this gorgeous view and all the other amenities for 11 Euros a night!)

(tiki bar!)

Matt told us that one of his staff members was downtown at the bars and that we could meet up with him and he'd show us around if we liked. This sounded awesome to us so we got ready and then headed to meet him. Sadly, it was pretty damn chilly in Lagos at night and we were ill prepared for it. We froze our culos off.

We met Jamie at a bar called Eddy's and it was a cool scene. We had a beer here and then he took us to another bar called RedEye. This bar was SICKKKKK. It was a surfer themed bar and all the British and Australian guys that come to Lagos to surf go to this bar. It was full of quite handsome men. I met a pretty hot blonde buy from England that teaches surfing everyday. I don't remember his name, but our conversation was relatively short lived. 

Jamie, being the awesome bar tour guide that he is, bought us a round of shots. Matt was great. He is the very typical surfer looking guy (longer blonde hair, beanie, board shorts), but more of a Cali West Coast kind of look than a Florida East Coast one. This bar was very cool. Obvi they were playing all songs from America so the 4 of us were in our element. 

I went up to the bar with Cassie to go get another drink and saw this "tall dark and handsome" guy sitting at the bar with an open bar stool next to him. Naturally, I sat down next to him and said hi. His name was Rich and he too (along with everyone and their mother) was from the UK. His accent was heavenly. My ultimate goal is to meet some awesome Spaniard but clearly in Lagos, a British boy would have to suffice (a hardship I know). We chatted at the bar for probably a good while. Maybe we kissed. Maybe we didn't. 

Most of the bars in Lagos only stay open till 2am, so around 145am we headed to a bar called Shakers that was POPPIN because it stays open till 4am. We were here enjoying drinks and hanging out and people watching until 330am and then we trekked back home in the cold. Quite the successful first night in Lagos, indeed :)

The next morning we enjoyed our free breakfast in our Hostel and got ready to go to the beach all day. We walked to a supermarket called Pingo Doce which looked EXACTLY like Publix. The workers were wearing those little green outfits like people at Publix wear. It was refreshing to finally be in a real grocery store that has lots of variety and is structured like the ones in the US because I have yet to find one like that in Sevilla. We grabbed champagne to drink on the beach because there is no open container law in Lagos... did I mention how much I love Lagos? 

We headed out to find the beach. After walking for 15 minutes and asking some strangers where to go (who were all British), we finally found a beach. This beach was slightly disappointing. This sounds terrible, I know. However, I had googled images of the beaches in Lagos and I knew that they had these huge rock formations and grottos and that they looked like complete paradiso. This beach looked nothing like those beaches. All beaches are beautiful, yes, but we knew that we could do better. Also, this was a family beach. No one was topless and no one was drinking. 

After wandering around the beach for another 30 minutes trying to find a better beach, someone finally pointed to the top of a hill and said that we had to go all the way over there. Hailing a cab was definitely imperative for this journey. 

Finally, we got dropped off at a beach called Dona Ana. This beach was totally worth all the previous hassle. It was breathtaking. I still can't believe that this is where I spent the whole day. Hands down, one of the most gorgeous beaches I've ever been to. I think it's tied for first place with Magen's Bay in St. Thomas. It is completely different, but equally as gorgeous.

Cassie and Laura found some prime real estate in the sand and we posted up. This beach was 50/50 topless which was a good enough ratio for us. It was about to go down. We popped our bottles of champagne and cheersed to the most beautiful day ever. Then, like any self-respecting European traveler, we went topless. I set the puppies free!!!! At the beginning it felt very very very scandalous. Even though plenty of other girls were laying out topless, it didn't matter. I was a giddy little school girl. It took me a while before I had the balls to stand up and walk down to the water. Eventually, you forget and become numb to the situation. I suppose a bottle of champagne aided in speeding up my acclimation period. hahahahaha. When in Portugal... do as the British do (I repeat, there were zero Portuguese people in this town).

(oh yea topless yea)

We basked in the sun, drinking our champagne, and when we finished our bottles an old man walked by our towels selling beer from his cooler for only 1.50. Clearly, it was imperative that we indulged in this. It was a perfect day. I feel as though my pictures speak for themselves. Sorry for no epic nudie pics. There's plenty of other girls naked on the internet so just hop over to any of those sites if you feel like I short changed you. I shall try to maintain some dignity, seeing as this is a public blog :D

After we had consumed all of our resources we climbed up to the beachside bar to get more beers (with tops on) and then went back to laying out (without tops). We did nothing. It was amazing. I would love to do nothing at Praia Dona Ana everyday.

(obvi I had to take the classic toes in the sand pic)

Around 530 ish, the rocks started to cast giant shadows onto the beach, so that was our cue to leave. We decided to search for a place for dinner before we hailed a cab back to the hostel.

Quique had previously recommended that we go to a restaurant called O Camilo, located at O Camilo Beach. Fortunately this was only a 10 minute walk away from the Dona Ana Beach. The restaurant was on top of a cliff and overlooked the ocean and the distant city. It was gorgeous. I shall repeat: this day was perfect. It was a little chilly sitting in the shade and with the strong wind from the ocean so the waiter brought us over blankets, we were very thankful for this. For dinner, Cassie got this appetizer that had little samples of pulpo (octupus), bacalao (codfish), chorizo and camarones. It was mighty tasty. Her and I split a salad and fish filet dish (what she order? FISH FILET). Damn. I can't tell you how incredible it felt to eat fresh veggies. I need more vegetables in my vida loca in Sevilla.

Hailed a cab back to the hostel and when we walked into our room (which wasn't 1 room, it was like a whole bottom floor of various rooms and bunk beds but there was only 1 door with a lock on it) we found 2 Australian guys asleep in one of the bunk beds. Seeing as were rowdy, we woke them up immediately. They invited us to go out with them that night. Laura and Katherine had gotten sufficiently toasted at the beach earlier so they were committed to staying in and hanging out at the hostel. Cassie and I decided to put our party pants on and go out with these two Aussies (which they actually do refer to themselves as Aussies). They hadn't eaten dinner yet so we went with them to a mexican restaurant that was called Green Room. It was soooo cool. It reminded me so much of all the mexican/beachy restaurant spots in Melbo.

Here are some awesome things I learned about my Australian friends named Reed and Vince:

- they use this word "arvo" which means "afternoon". Here's a sample sentence: "G-day mate! What are you doing this arvo? Wanna cook some shrimp on the barbie? The dingo ate my baby. P Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney. I come from a land down under! CROIKEY" 

- they are, and I quote, "Big on the barbie" (they like BBQing)

- they saw some girls grinding in a club and said "there were these girls doing the jiggle and bum dance" ... I cracked up at this

- they once shot gunned a Four Loko... I'm not sure how they didn't die

- they've done a "Tequila Suicide" (snort the salt, take the tequila shot, squeeze lime in your eye)

After dinner we went to a bar called Whytes where I can say that I VERY PROUDLY represented the USA. This bar had a tally up on the wall for people who have completed a beer bong. The USA had a sad 5 tallies and countries like Germany had over 15. It was my duty as an American to at least add 1 tally to our list. It was more than a pint of beer, but I did it like a champion. Mission accomplished.

We then went to a couple other bars. Did a little dancing... no bum dancing, that's not our style. At 130am we went to another one of those bars that stays open till 4am and played beer pong. Vince had never played before so he was of zero help to Cassie's team. Fortunately, she was ON FIYAHH. I was with Reed and we were both having a pretty good night which made for a competitive team against Cassie the Pro and Vince the Pathetic. Around 230am we headed home. On our cold walk back we were very disappointed that there was nowhere for us to go and satisfy our drunk munchies. 

The next morning we laid by the pool at the hostel and headed to that lovely grocery store for lunch and then met up with the rest of the group at the bus station. We were all excited to see each other and share all of our fun stories. 

The bus ride was... a bus ride. Nothing to say about that.

When we got home around 8:15pm we sat and talked with Rafael about our weekend and then he went and made us dinner. We sat down to enjoy fried fish and a side of french fries... like I said, I am in desperate need of fresh veggies. Rafael then brought a plate of dark meat sitting in a yellow sauce and set it on the table and told us to try it. IT WAS HEAVEN. Oh lord. Delicious, tender, savory, the sauce was divine. Cassie and I were digging it. Then Cassie asked "Cual tipo de carne es este?" and Rafael laughed and told us it was "los pajaritos" (the little birds). (Side note, a week ago we had discovered grocery bags full of fully feathered little pigeon looking birds in the freezer and Rafael thought it was hilarious that we were so scared of them. He pretended to throw them in our face and was cracking up at us.) Cassie's jaw dropped when we realized we were in fact eating those little birds. They are called "Zorzales" pronounced "Thor-thalays" in Spain. I didn't care what they were. It was so damn good. That dish is now tied for first place along with the Paella he made us last week. Sadly, I can't make Zorzales in the US unless I find some place that sells those little birds.... unlikely.

And that's all folks. 

Hasta Luego,
Raquel

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