Field Trip and Leiria!

Here's the first part of my trip to Leiria...enjoy

What a weekend…I still don’t think I’m fully recovered.

So I guess I should start with Wednesday, since Tuesday was the last time I quasi-posted? Pronto…

Wednesday – Got up the same time I usually get up on Wednesday, but this time we had a field trip! So we met at the school like 8:30 (our history teacher was wearing jeans and a T-Shirt!! Weird!!). We got on the bus for the Aveiro area and I sat next to Maria Loureiro. She’s really nice, we had a long talk about differences in the US and Portugal, crashing cars, boyfriends…it was cool. The first thing we did getting off the bus was to go to this boat, and it actually made me a bit homesick because it reminded me of the Philly trip and going on boats…only there was no Jennifer and Tim and David to be ridiculous with. We “took a tour” of the boat and watched some awfully cheesy film. It was a boat used for catching bacalhau but I don’t remember the name. Afterwards we went to a maritime museum which was sort of the same thing. We had lunch in the cantina at the Vista Alegre and took a tour of the factory. It’s a ceramics factory and was actually really interesting. We were saying it’s like art class every day if you work there! My Portuguese teacher actually freaked out when there was a broken pot in the corner (it was a very beautiful pot) and they said it was “lixo” or “trash”. I thought she was going to have a heart attack! Around 5 we finally left for Porto. I got home the same time as usual but had to pack for the next day. Had some moments of panic when I couldn’t get a hold of Johannes to check times (WHO HAD OUR BUS TICKETS) but it worked out…

Thursday – Woke up, fairly early, but not really. Got my bags together, took a shower, and got on the metro! Johannes and I had planned to meet at 8:45 at the Bolhao metro station to walk to the Rodoviaria bus station to catch our bus that left at 9:30. So I got there at 8:45…and no Johannes. So then it was 8:50…then 8:55…then 9:00…and still no sign. Meanwhile I’m calling frantically, never mind I had gotten a message at 8:38 from him asking whether or not he should bring a bathing suit and towel! He finally calls me at 9 to say he has no change for a metro ticket and could I please come to Campo 24 Agosto to get one for him? You can say I was just a BIT frustrated…all the while he was saying “oh it’s fine, we’ll get there, don’t worry!”. I just told him I’d stop worrying once we were on the bus. So yes, he was right, we did get there in time, but it was a bit of a freak out when it was 9:10 and we were still on the metro.

We got on the bus and who should we meet but Melody! She was going to Leiria as well and happened to be taking the same bus, so we caught up over the bus ride. I hadn’t even seen her for at least 2 months then out of the blue there she is! It was cool though. We stopped in Coimbra but only had time to get a pastry (this is Portugal after all…). We arrived in Leiria and met our host siblings for the weekend there. We had lunch at the cantina at the school then went to the Castle in Leiria. Unfortunately it was raining and not wonderful weather, but it was still awesome. Then we played this “game” – Peddy Paper. It took me a while to figure out what exactly that meant, but then Melody and I figured out it meant a sort of scavenger hunt. So for the rest of the afternoon that we did that, then all met back up at the school. At night, I went with my host sister for the weekend home. We watched the stupid high school soap opera “Morangos com Acucar” and ate dinner. Their house was SO NICE! It was in Batalha and you could basically see the monastery from their porch! So I went to bed in the nice cozy bed and prepared myself for Friday…

Friday – We all met at the school to go to this museum about film. We got to try out a bunch of stuff, I felt like an elementary school kid again! After that we went to this art exposition with a bunch of cartoons. Wes would have loved this, I must say it was pretty cool. We had a café then ate lunch at McDonalds (walking everywhere…yuck!). After lunch we went to this park to play games, hang out, “rock climb” that was NOT rock climbing. Then we all piled in cars to go to LAZER QUEST!! We played Portuguese vs. AFSers…the Portuguese whooped our butts to say the least. Friday night I had dinner with the family again and then all the kids there went to the movies. The movie wasn’t that great but the company was good.
Well I’m really tired…I can’t finish this tonight. I’ll finish later!