10 Reasons to Visit Porto!

December 19, 2018

After years of travel and lots of writing and blogging, I finally decided to take just a small chunk of that experience and channel it into a purposely blog post aimed to be a guide for future travelers. The finished product is an article titled, “10 Reasons to Take Your Next Trip to Porto, Portugal” (OG title was 10 reasons you’ll leave your heart in porto on your next trip).

Just a few weeks ago, I submitted this article to a travel site called “We Are Travel Girls”, their content aimed at empowering women who travel and support the women who do so. I submitted their article, carefully selecting the photographs and fine tuning my recommendations before I finally hit submit. It was pretty anti-climatic, as the next page told me it could take up to 3 months to hear any response. So i honestly forgot about the article, as I got busy with work and life in Chicago.

Until TODAY, when I sat down at my desk and opened me email to say that my article was PUBLISHED! It’s now live on the We Are Travel Girls website which you can see here :)

Check out the article and give it a read! I truly put my heart into it to create an informative article that really sells a small city and country that go overlooked when planning Euro trips! I’m excited for 2019 to write more articles, go on even more adventures, and really give you guys on the other end some really cool and unique content. This small step is a big motivator, to keep going. All I can say, is there is so much more to come from design to explore.

L A G O S

June 7, 2018

June 3, 2018 - Lagging to Lagos

Today marked the beginning of steph and I’s last leg of the trip together as we headed to the Algarve Coast to Lagos! Our day started extra early that usual as we had a train to catch, but we made it to the station and on the train, but apparently, there were train strikes happening. So our train just sat on the train for almost an hour before actually leaving the station. It was complicated figuring out this was going on because no one in our car spoke very good english, so they were trying to translate the issue for us.

Once we were on the train, it was pretty much smooth sailing from there. We made it to Lagos and to our hostel successfully before heading out for some lunch at Harley’s Cafe, which we later learned was the American diner in town. I got a really great chicken sandwich while Steph got some fruits and yogurt before Juules picked us up for a little afternoon trip to Sagres.

Sagres is this area with really beautiful cliffs that borders the Atlantic Ocean, and Henry the Navigator used to call it the end of the world, and you will be able to see why from these photos. It was really cool being out on these cliffs, also a little risky, as again, no railings or safety enforcements around.

Afterwards, we went to a beach area with some cafes and bars to meet up with Juules cousin for a drink. It was super nice out, but the wind was biting so we only stayed for one drink before heading back to get ready for some dinner. Then ensued our daily task to find a good restaurant, with decent portions, at a small price. Its a very tricky thing to do, and we walked around the main city center before stumbling on a Chinese restaurant menu. It advertised a scenic view, so we walking into the tacky temple door up the stairs and were seated with an awesome view (considering it was a Chinese restauarant).

At that point, we pumped ourselves up about getting Chinese food and were reall5y excited for our meal. I got some classic chicken fried rice with dumplings, while steph got a tofu dish. We were extremely satisfied with our meals, along with the change in cuisine. So we walked around the town a little longer before heading back to the hostel for the night.

June 4, 2018 - willing a beach day to happen

Today was our first full day in Lagos and we were excited to hit the beach. But, the weather wasn't exactly cooperating, so we started by going on a walk at Ponta de Piedade. There were these cool cliffs and rock formations similar to the rocks at Sagres, we walked along the top before following a path down to the bottom where we found a really beautiful secluded beach.

We walked back up, and it was quite the steep trek, before we headed to the other side of the cliffs. This area was more touristy as the rock formations form bridges and boat tours can take you through the rocks from the water. So we walked down there too to check it out and it was also extremely cool and beautiful.

After that, even though the weather was not cooperating, we still wanted to push for a beach day so we headed to Praia de Camila to attempt to have a beach day. We set up our towels, and even despite the extreme cloud cover, I sunscreened up. I think we lasted a solid two hours before the wind and the clouds made it too cold and we decided to head out.

We went to grab lunch around Praia de Luiz (where we went yesterday for drinks with Juules cousin). We sat down at a nice place along the beach and once we were done eating, the sun peeped out from the clouds and we essentially sprinted to the beach to lay out as quick as possible. The sun blessed us for a solid 20 minutes before strong clouds came back, but we were thankful for the rays we could get.

That night, Juules invited us to her grandma’s place she was staying at to eat dinner with her and her cousin Dominique. So after our sad attempt at the beach, we went there to hang out for the night.

June 5, 2018 - when the weather gods answer your prayers

Today, the weather gods answered our prayers. After sleeping in later than usual, we evaluated the weather and even though it was cloudy at the moment, there were some pockets of sunshine and decided to try and do a beach day yet again (especially cause theres not much else to do if it isn't a beach day).

So we got all ready to go, and on the way to the beach, we found a lil grocery store where we bought a few fruits and snacks for breakfast. And as we were turning away, I spotted people eating some baguette sandwiches and then a lil baguette stand that was completely a hole in the wall. Then we saw the sign saying these large baguettes were only 3euros, and we were sold. We bought some sammies and headed to the beach.

It was only a 15 minute walk or so and when we finally did get to it, it literally looked out of a magazine or something cause the scenery was so unreal. Giant cliffs and bright blue oceans, it was incredible! But was wasn't incredible were, again, the no railings no safety stairs to get down to the beach.

Once we made the trek down and found a spot, it was pretty much smooth sailing. Except for some dudes blasting their EDM music unnecessarily loud, we made it through the day. At one point, we traversed some rocks to a different beach just to check it out and take some pictures, but the rocks were pretty treacherous without shoes, again NO SAFETY IMPLEMENTATION AROUND, its just an American law suit away from happening.

We were chilling at the beach for around 5 hours before we headed back, as I was feeling myself getting a lil crispy from the sun it was probably perfect. Back at the hostel, we finally got around to doing some laundry and chilling before going to grab some dinner. Luckily, we quickly found a restaurant called Saibos and it was a cute cafe right off the main drag where we got a delicious meal along with some delicious desserts.

We spent the rest of the night walking around town, the sunset left a beautiful coloring in the sky, and then we found some orange trees. Steph tried to climb them to get an orange, but almost whipped herself hard into the trunk on the way down, only to find out the oranges were really gross and definitely not worth eating.

Then, we were doing our last rounds around the town before heading back when we stopped into a convenience store as we have been on the HUNT for candy we had in one of our uber rides. At this point, its probably the 10 or 11 places we went into to look and low and behold we walk deep into the store to the counter AND WE STRIKE GOLD. we found the candies we literally hit the motherlode. Both steph and I used all the change we had in our wallets to buy as much candy as we could and I most definitely will be going back to stock up before we leave.

So then we decided to end the night on a high note, and an even HIGHER NOTE when the one and only Steven West got a full time job offer back in the USA!!! So proud!!!

June 6, 2018 - asking for the weather gods again

Today we woke up and were sad to see the clouds were here and in full force. Steph was contemplating going to a yoga class, and i decided to pack up my suitcase and get organized since we were leaving tomorrow anyway. But steph came back and said the sun was out, so knowing the unpredictable weather, we quickly got our beach stuff on and power walked to the closest beach.

We got to the Praia de Estudantes and it was still pretty cloudy and the sun went away, but we weren't going to give up. We snuck on the beach chairs that you had to pay for and tried really hard not to get cold in the clouds and the wind. But by the glory of the weather gods, the sun CAME OUT TO SHINE. We were asked to leave the beach chairs cause we didn't wanna pay, so we laid our towels out and got a solid 2 hours of beach sun and it was amazing. Even when the sun receded, we stayed and enjoyed laying on the beach before heading back.

That night we met up with Juules for one last dinner in Lagos and we went to a place called Havaneria, I got a really delicious quinoa Mexican bowl while Juules and Steph both got Thai Chicken Curry, apparently the place is tackling a lot of different ethnic foods at once, but honestly, they killed it.

Steph and I finally wanted to have a night out and considering tonight was our last chance (as steph flies out at 7am the day after next). We got ready and Juules cousin Dominique who is a local showed us the ropes. She took us from bar to bar and got us probs the cheapest drinks I've ever drank since southeast asia! At 2am, I decided to head back and get some sleep since we had a 7:45am train, but Steph stayed out a little longer #badass.

June 7, 2018 - a blah day as we transfer back to Lisbon

Today we woke up early, and it was pretty painful trying to catch our train. It was an ORDEAL as we got on the train at the wrong car and then needed to walk through all the cars to find ours, which resulted in my getting extremely motion sick. But luckily, I passed out really hard on the train and woke up once we were in Lisbon.

We had to come back to Lisbon as tomorrow Steph heads out to go back to the states :( sad I'm losing my travel buddy, but my trip still isn't over! Tomorrow I am headed to Brussels, Belgium for the weekend before I meet up with the most notorious parenting duo in the world - TOM AND HELEN POLISE!!!!!!!! So, if you stick around because you are in for a COMICAL few blog posts to come as we tackle Amsterdam and Paris together.

L I S B O N

June 3, 2018

May 30, 2018 - Lisboa

We started our day by getting our way to the train as we were headed to our next stop, Lisbon! It is just 3 hours south of Porto so the train wasn't a huge inconvenience, especially cause the train was so freaking nice OMG. Nj/Ny transit really needs to step up their game in comparison.

I, as usual on moving vehicles, passed out and was asleep for most of the train ride, except for when the woman behind me was recieving a phone call cause she had her volume at FULL STRENGTH and didn't pick it up till the last second, and it was one of those super tacky ringtones cause Im pretty sure it was a flip phone….

Anyway, we got in a uber and went to our hostel. But when we got to reception turns out we were at the wrong location, so we called another uber and guess what, it was the same uber driver as the first ride! I was very excited about this cause he had an amazing candy selection and promised myself I wouldn't leave Portugal without this candy.

Once we were finally at the correct hostel, we loaded into our tiny room before heading out to explore. The first thing we did was get some food from Panaderia Portuguesa, it was essentially the equivalent of an Au Bon Pain in the USA, so nothing super special about it, except that they had amazing fresh squeezed orange juice which I indulged in.

Then we just walked around the city, it was in an extremely better location than the first hostel was located, so it was a happy accident. We went around the Bario Alto neighborhood, its very hilly, not a good neighborhood for old people, YET old people are everywhere. We made our way to a cool lookout point across the northern part of the city, then found another lookout point in a park area looking over the south side of the city towards the water. Very cool, the city is very similar to Porto but a whole lot bigger.

We walked along the water for a while and enjoyed the sunshine before heading to the Time Out Market. Its just a giant marketplace with different restaurant stands that you can order from. We were overwhelmed with the amount of choices we had, but eventually I settled on chicken pad Thai and Steph settled on some pork pancake/omlette thing. Both were very delicious and we planned to come back tomorrow.

We started to walk back, and we wanted dessert, so we started checking out different pastelarias. Unfortunately, we walked into a super sketchy one where I almost got pickpocketed and reaked of cigarettes, but we walked out immediately and landed on a different pastelaria closer to our hostel called Sacolinha. I got a box of treats and so did Steph, so we just sat in the plaza and enjoyed our desserts as the sun went down.

Tired from the day, we decided to head back to the hostel and relax for the remainder of the evening (it was about 9:30/45 at this point). So we showered and got ready for our day tomorrow by planning out what we wanted to do.

May 31, 2018 - the stair master aka Lisbon life

Since this hostel doesn’t provide a free breakfast and isn't as bougie as our last hostel, we started our day going to the GoNatural grocery store to buy some granola bars and fruits for us to eat in the mornings. Once we loaded up and were ready to go, we hit our first stop which was the Castelo de Saint Jorge. It’s basically this giant castle grounds that you get to explore with incredible views over looking the city.

We walked around that and it was really cool. You could see a bunch of the archaeological ruins from when the castle was in actual use, and you could climb up most of the castle walls, although, these stairs were most definitely not up to code. They even had signs that suggested you might plummet to your death, despite that, we took this risk and went on to see some amazing views.

There was one part of the castle on the map that we really wanted to see, because it seemed to be the best lookout point separate and far away from the castle. HOWEVER, this map did a POOR job of indicating the fact that it was about a MILLION flights of stairs to get to this lookout. We walked down it, and then had the freaking CLIMBBB on the way up (buns of steel are most definitely starting to form). Again, these stairs were NOT up to code either, but we didn't let that stop us, and still this place was flocking with old people and I have no idea how they were making it through as I was struggling at times lol

One we hit all the stops, we continued on to our next stops for the day. We visited yet another church before heading to a flea market for an outdoor food market. But once we got there, there was nothing going on! We then remembered how it is actually a national public holiday today in Lisbon, Corpus Christi day, so it was probably closed because of that, sad.

So we went on to see the National Parthenon before looking for a spot to stop and eat lunch. Again, we were finding that a lot of places were closed because of the holiday, but we ultimately decided on a place called Wine and Burgers. It was empty and immediately regretted our decision to eat here, but then the food completely shocked us! It was way better than expected, I got a Portuguese burger with beef, egg, ham, lettuce, tomato and it was great.

We kept walking along and eventually made our way to the water where we found a nice spot to lay down away from the crowds. We sat, and put our heads back and caught some rays. It was nice, but then the path started getting crowded and it sounded like all the bikers and walkers were about to run over our heads.

So we walked around a little bit more, before heading back to the hostel to shower and regroup before heading out to dinner. We decided to go back to the TimeOut Market cause we both saw things we wanted to try, so I ended up getting some strawberry and ham salad and Steph actually got the same, didn't even plan it.

At this point, our switches flipped, and we got sick of how crowded and overpriced the market was, so we headed back to our neighborhood to find a pastelaria for dessert. Tonight was quite the hunt, since it was the holiday, a lot of local places were closed, and the ones that were open had the smallest selection. Eventually, after walking into over 5/7 places we found one near our hostel called Pastelaria Benard. I got two slices of cake, one cookie cake and then a smaller chocolate cake and it was honestly the perfect combo.

We ate our sweets outside in the plaza before heading back to our hostel and calling it a night. We wanted to get to bed early cause we were planning to wake up early and head out to the mountain outside Sintra for a day of hiking and fun.

June 1, 2018 - el dia de ejerciso numero tres

Today we were up early for our day to Sintra! We got on the train at 7:11 and both fell asleep pretty much until we arrived at the final station. There was a cute cafe, so we stopped for a quick caffeine boost before really starting our day.

Our first thing on the agenda was to see the Castello de Dos Mouros (the moorish castles). This was quite the hike, as you could see the towers from the train station and it was p much a straight vertical incline. So we climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and we finally made it to the castle. And then we had to climb some more stairs again to get to the watch towers, but the watch towers had the most incredible views. You could see the city of Lisbon and the Atlantic ocean from the top of them! But it was also kind of scary at the same time because there was no railings and it was super windy, so getting close to the edge felt v risky.

Then to make matters worse, we got a burst of rain, clouds, and chills. Steph and I were wearing workout clothes while everyone else visiting was wearing winter gear, even though climbing up the mountain we were overheating. So, enjoy pictures of me crouching away from the rain, then steph basking in the sunlight moments later....

We walked around the castle and enjoyed the views before heading to our next point, Pena Palace. When we got there it was PACKED with tourists. SO MANY. It was because it was one of the only attractions where you could take a bus or train right up to the entrance rather than hike it. So we waited inline for about 20 minutes before we heard a couple say “sad how they don't realize how much longer they have to wait”. So then I went to check out the line and we weren't even halfway to the entrance, so Steph and I made a game time decision and decided to skip the tourist filled Palace and head to Cruz Alta.

This one we knew wouldn't be crowded cause its pretty much a straight vertical incline to get to, but once we got there it was empty and beautiful. From there you could see the Atlantic ocean and the city of Lisbon so it was quite beautiful. We hung out up there and enjoyed the breeze before heading back down. On our way, we spotted a tiny rock formation area with a bench and climbed through some bushes to get to it, and again it was an amazing view, with a bench.

We continued our way down and walked through a crazy fern sanctuary garden, literally wall to wall with ferns I never thought I would see so many at once. So we kept walking until we hit the road back down, but somehow we missed the walking trail down, so we ended up walking down the car road where theres no side walk but plenty of cars whipping around sharp turns. A little scary but we managed to survive as we ran from turn to turn so cars could see us.

Eventually we made it down, and a bunch of the tour guides were stopping people from walking up the road we had just come down, and as steph said “some might call us dumb from walking that way, but Im gonna call it badass.”

We were going to hit another spot in Sintra, but it was packed and you had to pay to get in, so we decided we didn't need to see it that bad. We walked back through the cute town of Sintra before heading back on the train.

At the hostel, we were able to recover from the day as we had climbed 180 flights of stairs, and then headed to dinner. We went to a Mexican place called Pistola y El Corazon. As we got there 5 minutes after it already opened, we were surprised at how crowded it already was, but we easily got a table. Five minutes later, all the tables were full and the place was bumping. But we sat down, ordered guacamole IMMEDIATELY before picking out some tacos. I got the carnitas and steph got the spicy Tinga chicken, and clearly she hasn't learned her lesson when it comes to spices cause she was crying and sweating after only a few bites.

Afterwards, we decided to walk around a bit, but classic Portuguese people, they don't start doing things at night till like 11pm, so nothing was really happening. That didn't stop us from walking around, but we knew we wouldn't make it to 11pm out tonight considering the physically exhausting day we had. So we went to McDonald’s to grab a McFlurry for dessert (lol) and sat in the plaza before heading back to the hostel to go to bed.

June 2, 2018 - Belem

Today, naturally, we slept in. We needed it. Then we made our way to the train station because we wanted to head to Belem, another town within Lisbon that was just a little further away. Here, is the home of the original Pastel de Nata, its the unique Portuguese pastry that has a fluffy, croissant like shelf, and a custard innside. Its delicious, IF you have the right one. Ive had about two, and they were eh, so I was excited to try the OG and the best apparently as Pastelies de Belem. The line wasn't too long, they had a freakin SYSTEM when you actually got to see the inside, so we each bought a pastry and then sat at a Starbucks table to enjoy. It was amazingly perfect. Do not eat any other pastel de nata if it is not from this place.

We continued to explore Belem, first walking past the monastery before heading to the botanical gardens and the national palace. But, it honestly wasn't that exciting. The gardens were cool but other than those three places, there wasn't much north of the city. So we headed back down to the main street where, we shamely/no shame at all, got lunch at McDonalds. Everything in the area in terms of restaurants were clearly overpriced tourist traps, so we settled on a nice American classic before walking down the main strip of Belem along the water.

This road had a lot more to offer compared to the north part of the city. We saw the statues of the Padroas de Descubriemientos (Fathers of discoveries), which was really cool as I believe 34 major Portuguese discoverers, scientists, intellects, etc. were sculpted into this structure.

Walking along the water the rest of the way we saw the Torre de Belem, basically a watch tower. At that point, we were kind of done with Belem so we decided to head back to Lisbon’s main center on the train. It was actually really nice that we went back early, because we stumbled across a couple of small street shops opening up in the city center and found some cooler, more authentic souvenirs than the ones in the typical souvenir shop.

We decided to wander our way through the shopping district for the rest of the afternoon, we didn't have any big plans to shop, but we didn't get to see the area that much in the past few days, so we figured this was a good time. We soon realized why we didn't bother come here, cause its packed!! Not quite Times Square packed, but just wall to wall of people.

Because we just had to, we made one last stop in our favorite grocery store, go natural for some last minute snacks for our train ride tomorrow to Lagos before heading to dinner. Steph used the power of yelp to find local restaurant of Lisbon called Beira Gare, and it was AMAZING. Similar to our last meal in Porto that was the mom and pop shop, this was the equivalent. It was packed with local people all eating then Bifina sandwich, which was their special pulled pork. Instead of the sandwich I got the bifina platter and it was TO DIE FOR. One of my favorite meals of the trip so far, the pork was seasoned in such a unique way I was all about it.

Of course we needed some dessert afterwards, so we went back to Scalofina from our first night and got some sweets while we watched some street dancer. He was trying to get us to interact with us while he danced but we were more concerned about eating, lol. We have an early train tomorrow, so we decided to go back to the hostel and get packed and situated since we got an early wake up call. But, we made it to our last stop in Portugal - Lagos of the Algarve Coast! And as always, I will keep you updated.

P O R T O

May 30, 2018

May 26, 2018 - viva a Porto!

Today we started our journey to Porto, Portugal. Let me tell you about this journey. The flight from Barcelona to Porto was THE most ROWDY flight I have EVER been on. First, we got on the plane and boarded and I passed out completely, like HARD. I was so asleep and I had fallen asleep for what I thought was 15 minutes, but it turned out an hour had passed and I woke up and we hadn't even taken off yet. People were talking, everyone was standing up, there was no sign of taking off in the near future. I was very discombobulated.

20 more minutes passed before a flight attendant finally went on the speaker to say that we were taking off, an hour and a half late. So i went to email our airport shuttle pick up before we took off to say we were going to be late. All good to go, we took off, BUT there was no safety briefing, no turn off your cell phones, no NOTHIN.

Once we were airborne, it was a whole new situation. People got up and were hanging out in the aisles talking. One couple popped champagne and so many others were buying beers. It was literally a party on the plane. I was in shock, I had never experienced such a loud flight before. Poor Steph couldn't even read her book cause a couple in front of us was making out.

Finally, we landed and we had to deplane onto the tarmac. As we were walking into the airport people legit started having a photo shoots in front of the planes. Like who the hell is on this plane, who are these people.

We luckily get our luggage with no problems and we got to the car pick up area and there was no one there to pick us up. Turns out, the shuttle responded saying they cancelled our shuttle and wanted us to respond, WHILE MID AIR FLIGHT, to tell us the updated time and if we wanted the shuttle. SMH @ Europeans, cause I specifically said, we needed the shuttle an hour later than planned and they just cancelled it.

So we got an uber driver who was super nice, gave us this really delicious candy and we made it to our hostel, yay! Our hostel is SUPER nice, we got a private room and its huge AND no bunk beds so we are happy no one has to climb for the time being.

We met up with Steph’s friend from Pittsburgh, Juules, who is also on a Euro trip and we went to lunch at this place near our hostel called Conga. we all got these 2euro pulled pork sandwiches and they were melt in your mouth delicious, my GOODNESS. From there, we just walked around Portugal and literally I’m gonna leave this city in the best shape of my life with the amount of stairs and hills in this place. Literally.

We walked down to the water, then across this crazy amazing bridge and drank some coffee and ice tea on the water. It was really nice until Juules got pooped on by a bird, so we decided to clean her up and get out of there before another bird bowel movement.

From there, we walked up a vertical hill, literally, to get to the top of the bridge we crossed to get some amazing views. It was absolutely stunning to see the city from above and get a complete look at it.

Since it was a saturday, we wanted to try and experience the Porto nightlife cause it seemed extremely unique, apparently everyone just drinks on the street outside bars (shout out to no open container laws). However, there was a really big soccer game, so all the places we were gonna try for dinner were PACKED with soccer people watching the game. huge crowds and the restaurants brought TVs outside for people to watch as well, still not on the level of a gameday. but it was unique in its own way.

We eventually decided to eat at a pizza place that didn't have any soccer on, so it was empty. We got two pizzas to share with beautiful white wine sangria and enjoyed it all. Then we went to Anegada Leonor, a super tiny hole in the wall bar where we met probably the MOST ANNOYING AMERICAN WOMAN TO EVER EXIST. I will not go into extreme details, but her every other word was “likeeeeee”.

We had a fun night, we took a shot of absinthe which, on top of the pizza, absolutely ruined my stomach, and I was in so much pain that we left and that was pretty much the night.

May 27, 2018 - tour de porto day

Usually, Im not about tours, but today we did TWO. I know, I shocked myself. We started off with a walking tour of Portugal (after most travel blogs recommended it since we Americans know very little about Portugal’s history). I didn't have super high expectations going it to it, but it ended up being amazing. Our tour guide was really funny, this young dude who was just a goofball. He kept telling us gossip about JK Rowling (cause she lived there for a period of time) while also giving us some cool info about Porto like the following…..

Porto had a law that landlords couldn't raise rent back in the day, so up until recently some people living in older houses were paying 1Euro - 7euros maybe a little more, for their apartments. The landlords hated this rule so they started purposely destroying their units until the law was changed, and thats why some of Porto looks so run down.
Theres a mural in the Sao Bento train station made of cobalt tiles, and the artist wanted to stay humble so he purposely messed up multiple tiles so that the wall isn't completely perfect
Blue tiles are also a signature of Porto (and my favorite thing I've ever seen) because they use cobalt which is cheap and lasts long
There were so many churches in the city, that eventually they made some law that prevented anymore churches from being made. But there were still some stickler nuns around who didn't wanna lose their churches, so they just had to wait for the nuns to die before they could start repurposing the churches.
One of the bridges, the Eiffel Bridge, which is made from the builders of the Eiffel Tower. But, this bridge is SO structurally unsound that they cannot use it. Lol, good thing they stepped up their game for the Eiffel Tower.

After the tour, our tour guide showed us to a nice restaurant for lunch. I got some meat (I cant remembered what), with a really delicious salad and fries. We had some time to killed before our second tour, a Port wine tour, so we went back to the big bridge to take some photos since it was nice out. We didn't realize how windy it was on top of the bridge so we struggled more than expected.

Then time for the wine tour. I’ve never really had port wine before but I was down. The first stop we had one glass and it was actually pretty delicious, and after complaining about how little wine we got, we learned that port wine is super strong and equivalent of a shot. So good thing they aren't filling glasses to the brim or else we would have hit the floor after the first stop.

Our second stop was a museum, it was honestly so boring and we all started to lose our buzz from the first stop. But luckily, we got two glasses of wine, a red and a white. Yum! Both were super strong, I killed the white and was excited for the red when one sip it I was a complete klutz and dropped my glass and it shattered everywhere. sad. But apparently it was super good…..

Then we went to our last stop which was a bougie port wine store, gallery, and roof bar. We got FOUR glasses of wine here with crackers AND chocolate, so basically heaven cause food + wine. Here our tour guide taught us how to properly taste wine and distribute the wine all over our mouth, which results in the most unattractive facial expressions you could ever create. I was skeptical of his methods until I tried them for myself and WOAH I got aLLL them flavors in my mouth. Im feeling good at this point and #loving Port Wine.

We got to drink our final two glasses on the roof. The view was spectacular, the weather was beautiful it was perfect. However, I got the case of the klutz round two and dropped yet ANOTHER glass. I went up to our guide with the broken glass and said “i did a thing” and handed him the shattered glass and walked away. Good thing I still had one left.

So overall, the wine tour was great, super knowledgable in Port wines although I don't know how often I will ever drink Port wine. Who knows, maybe ill be super bougie post grad and have my chocolate with a nice vintage bottle.

We needed to get some food, so we headed to Pedro de Frangos for quite possibly the best rotisserie chicken I have ever eaten. I also got a side salad, but it was more like a bowl of olive oil with a side of lettuce, so I didn't eat too much of that. Since we were all pretty tired from our day, we came back to the hostel to hang out in the lobby area before heading to bed.

May 28th, 2018 - the kindness (and malicious) of people

Today was an ambitious day. We wanted to hit a lot of spots and walk to the beach, so we did. Walking to our first stop, we got stopped by a man that called out to me “bag open! bag open!” And I thought at first my bag was open and I was like oh how nice, but then I got a better look at the man and it was a dirty homeless man trying to pick pocket me. I was caught off guard, when I heard this asian couple saying “no no no!” andmotioning my to run away. So I did, not that I was going to open my bag for a pick pocketer, but on the homeless mans part like thats not a great tactic for pick pocketing people…. But also shout out to the asian couple for helping us out.

So our journey continued, we started by going to the Crystal Palace Gardens (no not the alcohol for all my Michigan people). Most of the garden was closed, but we got to walk around and use a great public bathroom all while a class trip was screaming around the park. So not super enjoyable to have to witness Tweens all over the place, but we made it work.

Our next stop was the Mercado de Bom Successo (bomb name if i do say so myself). It wasn't like our fav Boqueria Market in Barcelona, it was more defined with restaurant shops throughout the complex. I caught my eye on this beautiful quiche beef, taco and knew it was exactly what I wanted for lunch, so I went for it and got it, and it lived up to the hype. It was pretty damn amazing.

Next, we went to these large botanical gardens and got to walk through a ton of cool plants. There were beautiful flowers, and cactuses, and lily ponds, and just some really cool sites. On the down side, it was right next to a highway so it was pretty loud and that disrupted the tranquility of it all..

Then we kept walking and Steph and I had to pee so bad that we ran into a shopping mall center to use the bathroom and it was locked. As we stood there, we noticed two older woman sitting in a cafe knocking on the window to get our attention. They were motioning to us to get a key for the bathroom and they did! Bless the old ladies.

We continued our journey, and we sat down along the river so that Steph could eat a salad she bought at the Mercado. But, we encountered this homeless woman who was super aggressive and kept asking us if we had food in our bags and to give her money. We walked away but she advanced and kept asking so we just walked faster and kept saying no. she was pretty scary all tatted up we thought she was gonna hit us or like grab our bags and run. Luckily, we survived to tell the tale.

So we sat along the water and it was great. The weather was perfect, the sun was out and we got to enjoy the day before we kept walking to the beach. And once we got to the beach it was amzing, it was still pretty cold, but we were able to lie on the beach for like 20-30 minutes with sweatshirts on and be completely fine.

We stopped for a quick juice, before embarking on an hour and a half walk back to the hostel. It was a long and hot walk, we even encountered the weird homeless lady, who followed us for a little bit. By the time we got back to the hostel, I realized how much sun I had gotten and looked ay myself and I was a literal lobster with the most unattractive tan lines in the world. I literally had a tanline from MY BRAID.

Anyway, there wasn't much I could do for that after the fact, so I just had to soldier on and aloe up (which I did about 10 times). We went to dinner at a restaurant called Tasco, which was a recommendation from our wine tour guide. It was deeeeelish, I got pulled pork with a salad and again, another great meal.

After dinner we decided to walk around to the shopping street of Porto, even though most of the shops were closed, we wanted to look around since we were planning to have a little shopping day tomorrow. We went into the few stores that open, before heading back to the hostel to grab clothes and do some laundry.

Somehow we found this really nice laundromat, so we were able to clean some of our clothes, especially after the sweat fest that has been our walking around Porto. While we waited, we got “the best chocolate cake in the world”. Gotta admit it was pretty good, not sure if greatest in the world.

Once our laundry was done, we headed back to the hostel to get some rest. I aloe-ed up about 5 more times before actually calling it a night.

May 29th, 2018 - our FIRST day of bad weather

It is crazy to believe that I made it to DAY 18, and today has been the first really bad day of weather (besides Iceland where terrible weather is just a normal thing). We didn't let that stop us from hitting the stores, and as Helen Polise always says “money is only good if you spend it” so spend it we did. Well we didn't go crazy, we are two college grads on a budget, but we did treat ourselves to a few new clothing items. For some reason the shopping in Europe is much better.

once we shopped till we dropped, we headed to the Traveler’s Cafe for lunch and it was honestly amazing yet again. For some reason I wasn't expecting the food scene in Portugal to be that great, but here I am, meal after meal saying whatever I had eaten was to die for. So, I went basic bitch from American and got an egg sandwich with bacon and cheese along with a fresh squeezed juice. I also indulged in a small piece of carrot cake to curb my recent obsession with the treat, again amazing.

From there, we headed to the Clerigos Church Tower where you walk up like 25 flights of stairs to get a panoramic view of the city. We did it and were expecting to be dead from the stairs, but it actually wasn't too bad. And despite the weather being crappy, it wasn't completely foggy and we were able to see some of the views.

We walked through the rest of the church too, which was also cool to see. Then we kept on walking to the Ponte Luis Bridge for one last view since it was our last day here. And it was starting to clear up so that was nice!

Exploring the other side of the bridge, which is a new city, not Porto, was fun, but there isn't a ton to see. There is one strip of commercial type area, before it gets v residential. There was a cool food market with restaurant stands, but we ended up just getting some tea and sitting outside.

We made our way back to the hostel and got some suggestions from the front on where to get dinner, the dude was chill and recommended Casa Bracganca (pronounced bra-gan-zzah). It was this tiny lil place that was family owned, and there were only locals in there. I ordered a traditional Portuguese cut of steak while Steph ordered the octopus. Both were delicious. Our next course was dessert where I got a cookie cake and Steph got an Oreo mousse, and again, to die for. At this point we had gotten all buddy buddy with the waitress, so as she gave us the check she gave us a shot of alcohol. We thought ah so nice, and she listed off all the ingredients, “cinnamon, honey, apple…. and fire water” AKA ABSINTHE. Steph took a sip as I took a sniff, and it was a no go for both of us. So we paid in cash and darted out of the restaurant while she wasn't looking. Overall though, one of our best meals in Porto.

We walked around the city, getting our last glimpses in before heading back to the hostel to plan the next leg of our trip - Lisbon!!! Porto was great, not gonna miss the absinthe that did me dirty, but I will miss the incredible tiles and design sprinkled throughout the town.

B A R C E L O N A

May 25, 2018

May 21, 2018 - the journey to Barca!

We got up and immediately had to go to the airport for our flight to Barcelona, the airport was super quick, and we are starting question why American airports are terrible, especially the new york area airports.

After sleeping through the flight and going through customs, we were good to go and hopped in our uber to the hostel. Our uber driver arrived and gave us the ultimate chauffeur experience, he was wearing a tux and carried our bags to the car, but he didn’t speak any english. Fortunately, Steph and I have over 6 years of Spanish schooling from high school, so we were hoping that we could put it to good use, and we did!!! We were able to sustain a full conversation for our 30 minute uber ride, granted it probably wasn't our best Spanish grammar, but our driver loved chatting with us and pretty much understood everything we were saying.

We got to our hostel, checked in and tried to run some quick errands, but we quickly discovered everything was closed and it was mid afternoon. We assumed it was just because of siesta, the Spaniards taking a nap after lunch tradition, but then we found out it was a holiday so everything was super closed. Oh well. We threw some laundry in the machine, then headed out to meet up with my friends from Michigan, Amos and Josie, for dinner.

They were chilling at a Catalan restaurant called 3Focs. We had some complications ordering, but everything we were fed and satisfied. We decided to then walk Las Ramblas, the famous street in Barcelona with a bunch of shops and stores. We got some gelato and sat in a beautiful marble stoned park to eat, before heading back to the hostel cause we were a bit tired from traveling and OH, our snoring friend kept us up for almost ALLLLLL hours of the night before our flight, so we were running on low energy and were feeling blessed we had a private room.

May 22, 2018 - bench hopping to the Sagrada Familia

We started today trying to buy international SIM cards for our phones so that we could actually get directions and not be stranded in Europe without a solid mode of communication. I successfully was able to get a SIM card and a new numero (so if you have been trying to text me on my American number and haven't gotten a response that is why).

Then we met up with Amos and Josie for Lunch at this place called Lazaran for menu del dia. This is basically a three course meal for about 10 euros, its a pretty good deal. So we found Lazaran, which essentially seemed like a Spanish version of Applebee’s after we analyzed the meal, but it was still really good. I got carbonara pasta, then a meat dish, and a cream custardy cake to finish. All in all it was great, and I was definitely ready for a siesta afterwards and understand the concept after all.

We just walked around the rest of the day honestly, hopping around from park bench to park bench until we had our Sagrada Familia Tour at 6:15.We got the tickets ahead of time and went into the church that has been under construction for over 100 years, woah right!!! It was absolutely stunning inside. We did a few laps and really took in the architecture cause it was literally stunning, cant say it enough. The stain glass windows created this amazing light in the place, and we were just in awe of everything we saw.

On our way out of the church, we noticed a sign for a museum and were expecting this tiny little place with a few fun artifacts about the construction process - WRONG. This was a full fledge, intensive museum about the entire creative process of Antoni Guadi. It took us a solid amount of time to get through it, and then when we were 75% done, the place was starting to close so we had to shimmy our way out of there.

After re grouping, we met up for dinner at a small cafe that i never got the name of, but we enjoyed some authentic tapas and wine for dinner. It was delish, we got patatas bravas, croquettas de jamon, and hummus (pronounced UUUU-mmus here lol). We then headed to the Dow Jones bar which is super fun, all the drinks are priced and function like stocks, so when one person buys a certain drink, its stock goes up and the price goes up. Then, every 30 minutes to an hour, the “market crashes” and all the drinks are dirt cheap. Since it was a Monday night it wasn't crazy packed, BUT every single person in this bar was American. Literally. So that was weird but funny at the same time, came all the way to Spain to hang out in the American bar.

We were gonna try and go to clubs, but no one was really into or dressed for it, so we called it a night at about 1:30 (which is VVVV early for the Spaniards, oops).

May 23, 2018 - el dia de ejercicio

Today was quite the day. We started off going to the Park Guell, Gaudi’s mosaic park at the top of the city. Emphasis on “top of the city” cause our walk was 40 minutes and 20 minutes of the walk was legitimately going up a straight vertical hill. Being extremely out of shape, tackling this hill was one of the most physically daunting tasks I had partaken in in QUITE SOME TIME.

Once we finally got to Park Guell, sweaty and worked out, we got to explore the most architecturally beautiful park. The arches made out of rocks were insanely cool, then the mosaic garden on top was absolutely stunning, but we got unlucky as a majority of it was closed off for repairs :( very sad. We continued to walk around and just enjoy the park and the sites before we went into the Gaudi house museum. We were prepared this time, especially after the Sagrada Familia Museum surprised us with its length and intensity. But it was more just a cool architectural house Gaudi designed with cool window views of the mosaic park aspects.

We felt as though we thoroughly took in the Park, so we decided to head back and grab some lunch on the way. By wandering through the DOWNHILL streets, we finally found a cute little cafe in a courtyard to eat at. We got some bocadillos (sandwiches) and enjoyed sitting in the shade, not sweating, and not being on hills.

Our next plan was to go to the beach and have an afternoon. But we had to stop home and change, then on our way to the beach through Las Ramblas we spotted an outdoor market and I felt that in that moment I needed some fruit or else I wouldn't be able to function. So i quickly grabbed some fruit only to realize this was a GIANT market called La Bouqeria. We lost Amos and Josie for a minute, as then went to find some classic Spanish Chorizo.

Then we continued our walk, which ended up being another 45 minute walk just to get to the beach. Let me tell you that LBI is forever and always my favorite beach and gosh darn it I am spoiled for it because this beach was GROSS in comparison. We found a tiny little spot in between hoards of people to put our towels down and lay. It was enjoyable for the first five minutes until heckler people started coming around offering us mojitos, and beers, and cervesasssss and massages in annoying homemade jingle form. We said they should offer a service where you pay to have them not ask you 40 million times if you want an uncertified back massage.

I took out my crossword book and we attempted some crosswords for a while in attempt to drown out the noise of the people. But after about an hour and a half we were all about done, not the most relaxing beach day, but still kinda nice in its own way. Then we also realized that our feet were completely brown from the sand, like WTF.

So, after getting annoyed with the heckler salesmen, we decided to leave an head back. Thus commenced the hour walk home in the heat. As I said, it was el dia de ejercisco.

It was Amos and Josie’s last night in Barcelona (and Europe as they had been traveling for three weeks), so we went to our last dinner together at Tagliatelle, an authentic Italian restaurant where we all got some nice pasta and sangria. Needless to say it was a great night.

May 24, 2018 - walk it like i shop it

Today we slept in, after our exhausting day walking, we needed some rest and our bodies definitely took control as we overslept our alarm by an hour. As we slowly got up, we decided to head down las Ramblas and get some breakfast in La Boqueria Market. It was the place we went to yesterday before the beach, but we wanted more time to explore while more shops were open and it was the perfect time.

I started with a strawberry and pineapple smoothie, then I got some classic chorizo which was absolutely delish. Then we walked around some more, and I got a baguette with prosciutto and cheese. ALL TO DIE FOR. We sat down on a curb of las ramblas and enjoyed our breakfast lunch meal.

Then we walked through the Gothic Quarter, which is an area off the side of Las Ramblas that is a throwback in time. Tiny streets, with tall, classical buildings and cool shops lining the road. We found a cool American Thrift Shop called the Flamingo Store which was really fun, you could buy clothes by the kilo so we really wanted to get some but couldn't find anything that fit quite right.

We kept walking around, again roaming with no plan in the beautiful streets as the weather was absoultly amazing again. What luck we are having!!! We eventually walked down so far that we hit the beach. Even though we said we wouldn't come back because of the dirt factor, here we were. We didn't stay for long as we didn't feel like dealing with the hecklers, so we kept walking around and found ourselves among some really cool stores again. We even found another market for groceries, but like raw fish and meats which was cool.

Eventually, we made our way back to the main strip of land and went into this cool store called Pull and Bear. It was reminiscent of a Brandy Melville, but cooler cause its in Barcelona. Steph and I shopped around for a whlie, even found a New Jersey sweatshirt scattered among the merchandise as something to buy, LOL. Having no luck in the women’s department, I literally went upstairs to the mens department to find a long sleeve t shirt, because the evenings here are quite chilly. After trying on multiple shirts, and getting yelled at to use a dressing room, I found the perfect shirt, yippeeeee.

Once we were finished shopping, we realized we were actually SO HUNGry. So we went back to the hostel to shower and change before heading to dinner. Ultimately we decided to go to a burger place, called Oval, because we needed to change it up a little bit from the tapas again. The burgers were create your own type of deal, but being who I am, I kept it extremely simple with a classic cheeseburger and fries. While we waited for our food, we did some crossword puzzles out of my book, they are making more appearances than usual lately, but they are helpful cause they make the waiting go by faster, highly recommend to anyone who has to do a lot of waiting in lines on a day to day.

Once our classic American dinner was complete, we figured we keep the train going by getting some ice cream. We went to a Haagen daz, where they almost DUPED US HARDCORE. but we are smart, or at lease Steph was because they had in store service, where you sit down and have a waiter for ice cream, but they overcharge you AF for the same things if you were just taking out. what a scam. so we ate on a park bench right out side of the store so take THAT.

We were stuffed at this point and decided to go back to the hostel and plan our day for tomorrow cause we hit all the main points that we wanted to in the past three days.

May 25, 2018 - el dia de ejerciso pt. 2

Originally, we were going to start the day at the Bouqueria Markets again, but decided to check out a different market in a different neighbor, so we ended up al El Mercats de San Antoni instead. It was about a 20 minute walk from the hostel, but once we got there it was pretty cool and extremely similar to La Boqueria.

As we walked through the space we realized that these markets were definitely more locals, grocery centered rather than like eat your way through the market type deal. But we found some solid food options anyway, I got a smoothie and another bocadillo with prosciutto, yum.

Unfortunately, the market was super crowded with old people and their damn suitcase roller bags, so we had to leave because it was getting unpleasant. We hit up a coffeeshop and sat and ate our newly found goods before heading out to the Montjuic Castle.

It was a freaking CLIMBBBB to the castle. Like natures stair master, we now have buns of steel kind of uphill climb. Potentially more physically taking then when we walked to Park Guell. We made it to the top sweaty and enjoyed the strong breeze that awaited us at the top of the castle. It was a beautiful view of the ocean from the castle, but semi ruined by allllllll the factories and cruise ships lining the coast. oh well.

We kept walking around and just seeing where the road took us, we wanted to eventually get to the Olympic Stadium, but somehow we managed to find our way into a cemetery because we thought it looked cool from afar (this was before we realized it was a cemetery). So we walked through it hoping to get a cool view of the city, which we did.

Then we started our long journey back, we attempted to go see the Olympic Stadium but it was so closed off and uneventful that I didn't even take a picture. So off we went, and we walked through the Plaza de Cascades which had the most stunning view of the city. We stopped here for a moment to enjoy the view and take some pictures. We also had a pretty funny experience here, as all the street vendor dudes who sell stuff outside the plaza saw the cops coming and someone screamed and they all IMMEDIATLEY picked up the corners of the towels and bunched up their products into a Tom Sawyer type of satchel and started SPRINTING out of the plaza. I guess whatever they are doing is illegal lol

We realized we were a bit hungry, so even though we swore we were done with Las Ramblas, we werent. We went back to the Bouqueria Markets cause they are just bomb. I got another smoothie, Steph got duped and spend 9 euros on about 20 chocolate covered almonds, then we called it a day and headed back to the hostel to shower, change, and get ready for dinner!

We hung out at the hostel and packed our bags cause were off to our next stop - Portugal!! Well be there for about 2 weeks going to Porto, Lisbon, and Lagos! Subscribe to get allllll the updates!!!!

L O N D O N

May 21, 2018

May 18, 2018 – an interesting night

Before I get into the actual specifics of London, I need to explain what happened the night before...... I greeted Steph in the hostel around 11:30pm and showed her to our 4 share dorm room. We walk in and all the lights are off, but we see someone rummaging through their bag and she whips her head around and we are greeted by an Asian lady doing a face mask only illuminated by her phone flash light, so, naturally, it looks like a freakin murderer in the room. But only a tiny Asian woman doing a skincare routine at midnight, how normal.

Then Steph and I gotta rummage through OUR belongings to get ready for bed. And this is no easy task, our hostel provided us with cages to put our luggage in so its an ordeal to get anything in or out and god forbid you forget one thing then you have to start the process over of rolling it out from under the bed, unlocking it, taking out the bag you need, finding the thing you need, closing the bag you used, fitting your bags back in like puzzle pieces, looking for you lock, locking the cage, rolling it back under, all in the dark, all to realize you forgot just ONE more thing.

But, we finally get through it and we get nice n comfy in bed yippee! As we are drifting off to sleep, our other hostel mate, a large man, starts snoring like a freaking bear. Not even a joke OR an exaggeration. I had headphones in playing my sleep music v loud, but nope, could still hear it. I took a melatonin and focused so hard to fall asleep and finally did. But to no avail. At 3am the snoring got EVEN LOUDER, I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to snore that loud, I was border line concerned for this man while also extremely livid. So I decided to pick up my water bottle, and completely throw it on the ground as hard as I could from my sleeping position, then, I picked it up and rubbed it against the locker cages a bunch of times, as if I were grating cheese for a nice chicken parmesan, and finally slammed it down on the cage like a judge trying to bring order to her court as a final attempt to wake him up momentarily. It worked, and yes it was ruthless, but when you are staying in hostels it really is survival of the fittest.

And that was only the first night. Seeeeeeeeesh.

May 19, 2018 – Wandering the streets (literally)

After our interesting experience in the hostel bedroom last night, we decided to have a later start to the day, we didn’t have to rush for anything so we took our time getting ready. But because of this we were starving by the time we left and went to the first place we could find which I would equate to a crappy diner in NYC. Pretty solid food, but with more research we could have found something better, I just wanted some plain eggs and toast so it was the perfect place.

Then we were walking around the hostel neighborhood, Elephant and Castle, and found a cool street market, but it was again, a crappy street market. And by that I mean they were selling knock off shoes for 5 euros and weird blankets, and the people were so aggressive, my lawddd!!! One of the vendors started yelling at the customers for dropping his “precious” products, like dude you are selling 10 cent dish clothes from China chill out. Then another woman and a random man almost got in a fight, it was a crazy scene and I later renamed this experience, “the aggressive market”.

From there, we got a bus pass and went on to see Big Ben, woo first big sight! Wrong. Big Ben is under renovation and has scaffolding surrounding everything but the clock face. Even the parliament building had scaffolding ALL OVER. Like come on, and people were still taking serious pictures of it.

We were hitting a lot of L’s that morning, but we just kept walking around. We walked through a park to Buckingham Palace, Steph admired the pristine mulch (so much so that I took a snapchat of it and it went on the Buckingham palace story and got over 7k views lol). Then we just kept walking, we didn’t have a plan just wanted to explore the city.

I did want to go see Notting Hill (cause who doesn’t look a good 00’s romcom) so we hopped on a bus and our day took a turn for the better! Notting Hill was absolutely adorable, and at first we missed the rainbow hill area, but we were still walking through gorgeous streets full of beautiful architecture and it was awesome. Eventually we made our way to Rainbow Hill to discover the Portabella Markets going on (no not mushrooms).

It was street after street after street of vendors, selling all sorts of stuff. Food, crafts, jewelry, textiles, souvenirs. It was awesome, we just walked through the market talking and looking at everything. At one point Steph asked me why I was making so much noise the night before in the hostel, and I explained how I was trying to wake up the beast, and we both had a moment where we burst out into hysterical laughing for a solid 3 minutes, we literally couldn’t contain the laughter.

We kept walking, hit a thrift store tent and bought a cool shirt before ultimately stumbling upon and international food market, it was a branch of the Portabella Markets, but on a side street. We hit the jackpot. Steph got some rainforest bowl and I got some dumplings and we found a little park and enjoyed our food. It was amazing. Our day went from like kinda crappy to awesome.

At this point it was almost 4, so we went back to the hostel on probably the hottest public transport bus ride of my life, showered, changed then researched where to get dinner for about an hour. We even recruited help from the wonderful foodie Steven West all the way back in the US to help us, before we ended up picking a Thai restaurant called Basaba in Soho. It was super trendy and cool, the tables were all communal, which made the meal especially hilarious when Steph accidentally ate a chile pepper and was on fire. As she was chugging water, I could not stop laughing, I think I was crying harder from laughing than she was from the spice that my abs hurt.

Afterwards, we got Doughnut Time and walked through Picadilly Circus, Soho, and Convent Garden. We just wandered the streets with no real plan and it was pretty great. We finally ended up on the water looking out over the London Eye, before heading back, cause tonight we are trying to beat the damn bear to sleep.

May 20, 2018 - The never ending search for WiFi

Today, after getting a solid night of sleep after taking some melatonin, we were well rested and ready to tackle the day. We started just by going to St. Paul’s Cathedral, but on our walk from the bus to the cathedral we were so hungry and found this amazing brunch place called Bar One. It was empty, we were concerned, but were too hungry to look for another place.

First, I ordered tea and damn I'm gonna miss the way the British do tea, cause its damn delicious. Then I ordered some pancakes and fruit which ended up being to die for. Steph ordered a veggie breakfast and two bites in completely flipped her plate and spilled all of her food on herself and the floor. She salvaged what she could and ate it, but boy oh boy she is having trouble with her meals (after last nights Chile pepper escapade).

Full and ready to tackle the day, we went on to St. Paul’s Cathedral, but when we got there we found out that on Sunday’s the church is closed for visitors, because ya know Sunday is the gods day of rest. So we admired the beautiful architecture from the outside, walked through the gardens and moved on with our day.

From there, we walked down the Thames River along the water which was really nice, it was a beautiful day, high 70s and the sun was shining. We made it all the way to the London Bridge and the Tower of London. We stopped for a quick photo op before walking over the bridge and exploring the town across the river.

We wanted to go to the Borough Street Markets, but when we got there we were disappointed to see that they were closed (cause Sunday). So we kept walking before we finally decided to go back to Soho, the area we were in last night, because all the stores were closed last night and wanted to go back to explore. This also gave me the opportunity to go to Fortnums and Mason, the go to tea place of London.

We got to F&M and I just about died and went to heaven, it was tea lovers dream. After traveling to places were they are known for coffee (like is everywhere known for coffee) I was pumped to have a place I could THRIVE. I was fangirling it up, smelling all the teas they had to offer before settling on buy two containers of english breakfast tea (can’t go wrong with a classic, am I right???).

Steph and I had no plan of action for the rest of the day, just to walk around and see where it took us. We walked all through Soho and ended up going to a super early dinner at 4pm because we hadn't eaten since breakfast. We stopped at a place call Bill’s House Soho where we had a great meal, we appreciated the fact that our waiter was super honest in telling us his favorite dishes and steering us away from bad ones.

Eventually made our way to Convent Garden. There was cute shop after shop and it was cool to see all the petite little stores lining the street. Somehow we ended up wandering into a giant market place. It was awesome. It was a mix of stands along with permanent brick and mortar stores under these large canopies, it was just immaculate. One store had free tea samples which got us into their store where they had at least 10 - 15 teas, coffees, and more hot drinks to sample. It was a great time, I was thriving again.

We walked around a little bit more, before deciding to head back to the hostels to charge our devices and take a break. Once we were all charged up and ready to go, we went to get some dessert cause going to bed at 8pm was a little too early, were not old people yet. So we went to get dessert at Kaspa’s, where I got a cookie dough bowl and Steph got a brownie bowl, which is basically exactly what it sounds like - absolutely delicious.

Afterwards, we power walked our way back to the hostel and packed our bags because we were traveling to our next stop, Barcelona!!! Stay tuned for more updates as always :)

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