Wanderlust

I didn’t really sleep much so getting ready for the early morning was easy for me and Lacey set an alarm so she got ready quickly too. We took an Uber from our hostel to the airport. It took about 25 minutes. We didn’t know if an uber would be available the night before so that was kind of stressful. The public transit options were really bad and slow so it all worked out! The airport in Porto is pretty small and security was easy. Because of the early morning, both of us were extremely tired so resting in the airport would have been nice. The chairs were super uncomfortable so resting didn’t happen. Our plane was a little late but it wasn’t a big deal because we were not in any hurry. The flight was uneventful. I love that EasyJet doesn’t let anyone put their seat back. Both Lacey and I spent about an hour sleeping of the 2 hour flight. We landed in Paris, grabbed our bags, and headed to the train back in to Paris. Our hostel in Paris is called St. Christophers Inn. It’s l...

On a very sad note, we had to say goodbye to Lisbon and take the train North to Porto. Both of us really wished we had one more day in Lisbon (we didn’t hit a few places we wanted to, oh well!). We wanted to go to Porto for a variety of reasons. The flights back to Paris were much cheaper from Porto. We also wanted to see another town in Portugal other than Lisbon. Plus, it’s just beautiful.  Porto is on the northern end of Portugal (whereas Lisbon is in the middle of Portugal). Porto is situated on a river just a mile or two in from the ocean. The town is extremely hilly because it rises up from the riverbanks to the hills on either side. Porto is most famous for making Port wine. Fun fact, port wine isn’t actually made in Porto. The wine itself is made up the river in the middle of the country. The port wine was just stored and shipped from Porto thus the fame. We woke up early and took the subway to the train station. Unlike the day before, we made all the connec...

This was an absolutely incredible, fantastic, wonderful, beautiful, perfect day. The pictures just do not do it justice. The feeling of the wind, driving along the ocean? Unbeatable. The smell of pines while driving on a curvy hilly road? Can't be topped. The kindness of Portuguese strangers in a restaurant or at a scooter rental shop? Just the best. The sun getting low on the water? Literally makes my heart skip a beat thinking about it. Getting to do all that with someone you love and you think is perfect? What dreams are made of. There was 1 single thing I wanted to do on this trip : drive a scooter along the Atlantic coast and see cool beaches and walk along the ocean and just feel freedom in my bones. That's exactly what we were able to do and so much more. We took a suburban train out to a coastal town called Cascais. My friends John and Morgan went to Portugal about 2 years ago and John said that Cascais was his favorite place so I knew I wanted to go there. N...

We didn't get back from the super fun pub crawl until about 3:30 or 4am soooo our day did not start very early. I was feeling a little under the weather so eating breakfast was a slow process for me. Lacey had a better situation than I did. We were ready to roll out to start sightseeing at around 11am or so (way late for us haha).  Lisbon has 4 main areas, 3 main inner-city areas, and one popular suburb area. One inner city area is Baixa which is the flat area right by the water. This has very gridded streets and a super popular main square area. Bairro Alto is to the left of that on a map and is where we did our pub crawl. Lots of bars, lots of nightlife, lots of hills. The third main neighborhood is Alfama. This is the historic area with hills and a castle and lots of terraces on the hill. The popular suburb area is Belem which has a tower and a long walking esplanade along the water.  First, we walked down from our hostel and into the Baixa area. We...

I haven't written a blog in a bit because we've been so busy and enjoying Portugal so much. But we're on a train to Porto now so I've finally got some time. We left off with Lacey and me on our last morning in Fes and Morocco. We woke up a little late again because breakfast is served a little later. We had a wonderful breakfast made by Moussa. Just like before, lots of bread and sweets and fresh orange juice. All things we love! We packed up our bags and left them in a common area while we explored during the day. Moussa arranged for us to ride in a taxi with some other people to the airport at 1pm. To keep ourselves busy during the later morning and early afternoon, we headed out to some ruins just a little past the bus station. They're up on a hill and Moussa said they're beautiful at sunset. Of course, we weren't going at sunset but that's fine! We like getting out of the Medina for a bit and just being by ourselves. The walkout was pretty ...

The day started with waking up at a relaxed pace. We walked around a different area of the Medina to find some new places to take pictures (we took soooo many pictures). Our hostel did not serve breakfast so we really needed to get some food. We went to the small "convenience store/grocery" that we went to the night before to get a dessert. The guy there was really nice. We got a couple pastries for 9 dirhams (under a dollar haha). We ate them by the market square area.  After our little breakfast, we walked along another street and took even more pictures. As I said in the blog yesterday, literally every single corner and street was a photo op. I've been to a number of places and this place definitely stuck out. In particular, we found a tree that was blooming with red flowers against a blue house. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life. Literally took my breath away. Lacey laughed at me but it was awesome! I also got my pictu...