First, today is my eight-month anniversary of flying out of Boston to travel the world!
Second, I am essentially living a lie. On April sixth, 2010, I arrived in Spain and have been here ever since… yet everyone thinks I am still in Portugal because I’ve had such a backlog of blog articles and photos about that fine country!
Anyhoo, here is the last Portugal-based tidbit, and from now until mid-May it will be Spain, Spain, Spain! Plus a little leftover [...Read More!]
My brother and I are shocked: It appears that beautiful Portugal can be rocked out for less than $50 U.S. Dollars a day, everything included!
When entering Europe after seven and a half months in Southeast Asia and West Africa, I had visions of a European ATM spouting tentacles and strangling me as it reached into the depths of my bank account to suck it dry.
But it hasn’t been quite so bad! Here’s why:
1. Budget Housing.
Portugal is packed with [...Read More!]
My brother hurled the paper bag to the floor with a thud.
“What the heck is that?” I asked, fearful.
My brother put his head in his hands and wailed: “I had such high hopes!”
I reached into the bag and pulled out: a bright orange, seven-inch long stalagmite of sugar, egg… and what felt a lot like lead. (Visual representation to the upper right of the lead photo.)
At the entity’s head, there were the clear bite marks of an [...Read More!]
“We stayed in the number one and number three hostels in the ENTIRE WORLD!” I sang out.
Whenever my brother and I declared this (and we declared it approximately seventy-eight times in one week), it was necessary to use the most dramatic booming deity voice possible. Why? Because that’s a really big deal to say something is number one in the entire world!
And it begs the question: How true are these hostel quality ratings, and what goes into them?
Gaze now at [...Read More!]
An unexpected joy of touring Portugal: the forests and parks are stunning! Just how stunning are they? They are so magical that the official informational plaque outside Sintra’s Quinta da Regaleira gardens reads like something out of a torrid romance novel.
So slip on your velvet smoking jacket, light a toasty fire and your favorite old fashioned pipe, and let’s take a nice, long read of the actual text on the Regaleira garden wall.
“Within the Sintra landscape, the [...Read More!]
Gaze down. There is nothing but a hundred-foot drop and waves crashing against rocks.
Gaze out. There is nothing but weeks and weeks at sea until you finally reach the outstretched arm of America. You are at the brink, baby.
Cabo da Roca, Portugal is the Western-most tip of Europe. It is the teetering edge of land before endless miles of ocean.
As I stood there in the whipping wind with my brother, I realized: I was at the [...Read More!]
The wildly popular website, Stuff White People Like, has an article entitled: “Taking a Year Off.” It details the trend among rich Caucasians to flee the daily grind and jaunt around the world for a year, always thinking that they are the first to concoct such a brilliant idea.
“Give them a FAKE email address before they leave!” warns the site, or you will get nonstop annoying emails bragging about how great international beer is!
Funny and true. Indeed, [...Read More!]
Word on the street is that an increasing number of cities are banning the practice of air-drying laundry outside houses.
“It looks like something country peasants would do,” city governors have sneered. “We are a developed, modern metropolis. Our people’s laundry should be dried by machines, not by the breeze. And it should certainly NOT be seen.”
But with such a law, legislators are erasing rainbows from the streets! Really, few things give so much joy as the [...Read More!]
First things first: Porto, Portugal is beautiful! Gaze at these photos and let’s all heave a collective sigh of “Oooh! Preeeety.”
Now let’s talk about goals.
Today, my wonderful brother, David, was mid-way through a bite of cheese and onion omelet when I popped my favorite type of question: “So what are your objectives for this week in Portugal?”
Objective-setting is key in a classroom (answering the whine: “what’s the POINT of what we’re learning today?”) but it’s also essential in [...Read More!]
My name is Lillie and I thank you for reading and taking part in this journey.
I'm the Boston coordinator of a national event on extended travel on 9/14/10. Sign up for details at: MeetPlanGo.com!
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