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Euro Quest

March - May 2024
Let the next stage of my life begin! For three months, I'll be wandering through rolling countrysides, sharp cliffs, quaint towns, and bustling city squares all over Europe, sharing as many stories as I can. Here's to making a lifetime of memories! Read more
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  • TravelerEuro Quest
    11
    Day 10

    Day Ten: A Relaxing Reset

    March 25 in Portugal ⋅ 🌬 15 °C

    So it turns out that after partying a little too hard, you have no energy the next day... so, no crazy sightseeing today. But that didn't ruin the lisbon experience. We ended up walking around and finding e-bikes. I thought they would be like the scooters where they just move for you, but it turns out they assist your pedaling. With both of us too stubborn to admit anything, we ended up traveling on the broken ones as well; and with the big hills we had to bike, we were very dead. Turns out about 75 percent of the bikes are broken. We tried quite a few. And later in the day I finally found a new one, and it was night and day. But before I continued by our bike adventure, we did stop around downtown for a coffee, burger, and even a massage. And holy, the massage was amazing, my man moved in ways I didn't think were possible. But man, I was sore before the end of the day. After this, we got back on the bikes for a casual 30-minute ride to a birthday dinner of my dad's family friend. One, it wasn't 30 minutes, and two, it took us through the sketchy areas. It took us a full hour, and we even had to go through a homeless camp on the way. Not to mention, it was pouring rain the whole time. I felt horrible when we arrived, but luckily nothing started yet, so it all worked out. But I'm not sure if it was a cultural thing or just there, but dinner started at like 8:45, and we didn't finish eating till close to midnight. But it was still a very cool experience talking to some locals, drinking some good wine and relaxing. Even had a chance to speak to a local lawyer. Every day, I feel more and more inclined to suck it up and go to law school! But who knows? I still have a lot to experience here in europe!Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    1111
    Day 11

    Day Eleven: Around Lisbon

    March 26 in Portugal ⋅ 🌬 14 °C

    With plans for big days, we set alarms for 7:30, ready to hang out Helena for a day towards Sintra. Yet all is never set in stone. We ended up sleeping in till 12 (we have not been sleeping at all...) and Helena ended up being sick or unwell, so we didn't get to go. But that's OK, Ethan loves the ocean and fish, so we ended up in the oceanarium! Wow, it was amazing. There were so many fish and interesting exhibits. There was one with penguins that had no glass or wall between us, and one was sitting right on the end, I could have petted him if I wanted! Then, right after, there was one with birds, which were being fed right in front of us. The lady would throw food in the air, and the bird would honestly be flying a couple inches from our heads. It's just so strange because I feel like back home, you would never be able to be right beside the animals. Maybe North Americans are really assholes. But afterward, we finally risked the public transportation to head to the lisbon castle. It went quite smoothly, but man, the bus was LOADED with people. Ended up stopping for a 4.80 euro sandwich and coffee (how is it so cheap!) On our way up to the castle, we decided to use the e scooters. Then, to realize certain areas you can not park the scooters... so we had to go back to where we started. But we did get to stop for some crazy views! I did almost fall off the viewpoint, but luckily, I was there to catch myself! After all this, when we finally got to the castle, it was too late... so for the third time this trip, I arrived late for something. But that's OK, there is so much to see, and honestly, I have had so much fun just being present in this crazy new world, having a coffee or just walking around is treat alone. We even found this little secret gem of a rooftop bar with fabulous views and vibes. There is nothing better than watching the city with a bottle of wine. It's a great way to close out the day. Until you realize you never had dinner when you finally reach the hostel and the only place open was this hole in a way. The kitchen was closed, but they said they would make their meat of the day, with no idea what it was, wondering if it is even a good idea to eat here we dug in. And wow, it is so far one of my favorite meals for sure! That was the best way to finish the day.Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    121
    Day 12

    Day Twelve: Sintra

    March 27 in Portugal ⋅ 🌬 14 °C

    Today, I managed to get a pretty good sleep. But these hostel beds get so hot I was sweating all morning. And to top it off, I woke up with a sore throat. A pretty bad one, too. It felt like knives when I swallowed. But that's OK. We power through. Decided to take public transportation to get to Sintra. It was quite the experience. It was so confusing to actually buy the ticket. Luckily, someone helped us buy it. When we finally got to Sintra, it was pouring rain and super windy. And too made it better our ticket wasn't working and we couldn't leave the train station. We walked around trying to get help and ended up having to jump a fence to get out. But when we finally made it, it was amazing walking into the garden, field, or whatever you would call it, and the rain really did make everything greener. This "castle" was on a hillside with a whole bunch of random ruins, buildings, and paths. We got to walk around in the forest around random walls and get a great view of the valley. There was even this well that went down into the ground. A lot of the descriptions they had around didn't make a lot of sense to me, but this well seemed to be made as an analogy for something. It was about the decent to hell and the light of heaven or something. But there were also some underground paths that were completely dark. You needed a flashlight to get around. It was so spooky and so fun to joke around with ethan in it. There was also the main mansion when the owners lived. It was extravagant and completely over the top, someone who really needed to flex his wealth. It was beautiful, though, for sure. Someplace I couldn't imagine living in. They had a separate pool room and a separate smoking/games room. There were some many different places nestled here that gave us a taste of different architectural styles and so much more. On the way back, we found yet another rooftop bar over looking an even crazier view! But we were both so tired. We crawled our way back home and went to bed early!Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    1
    Day 13

    Day Thirteen: Travel to Porto

    March 28 in Portugal ⋅ 🌬 17 °C

    Today was a very chill day, we took a 4 hour train to Porto at 11:30 today. Had a like e-scooter ride there going past some Familiar sights! But it's so weird to find what train you actually have to take. Maybe it's just different here, but nowhere on the ticket does it say the train. We had to ask a full Portuguese person, and they just said linhe 3 or something. We would have missed the train if it wasn't for that. But the ride was smooth, and we had a nice British woman who entertained us for the ride. When we got Porto we tried to find our hostel. It was so strange because it was inside the train station. But then we walked around a little bit and found an old church in the city center which had a Lazer light show which was so spectacular. But before we went to that we had a classic porto dish called francesinha. Holy shit that was heavy. It's a sandwich filled with different meets covered in cheese and soaked in a beer and red wine sauce. It was good, but it did destroy me. It was very heavy and too much for me. Personally, only having it once is perfect for me.It's weird seeing these modern light shows in a church that was built so many years ago. After having one beer, which was 8.50 euros!!! Way too much, we went to bed since I am trying to feel better. It was a good start to a new beautiful city.Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    1
    Day 14

    Day Fourteen: Porto Explored

    March 29 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    This morning, I finally woke up to a throat, which did feel better! It's not 100 perfect, but a lot better. And for the first time on the trip so far we got free breakfast! And it was honestly better than the breakfast I had to pay for in edinburgh. When we finally got moving, we went to a church that was built in the 12 century where we met a tour guide, which led us to a free English tour in the afternoon. But we had to kill some time, so we found a garden that we walked to. It had roosters and peacocks! But after walking around for 5 minutes, we were kinda disappointed because it was small and not much there. So we opened google Maps to go somewhere else to see there was a huge section we missed around the building we were at! And thank god we noticed because it was so beautiful. There were more birds, trees, and fantastic views over looking the river. At one point, we were standing under a sheltered area to stay away from the rain, and a male peacock was just chilling right beside us. Even watched him lunge at a woman. And I have never heard a peacock before, but it is not as pretty as you would think. It is very loud and sharp. I should also clarify that Ethan had a song stuck in his head, and if he sang it, he asked that I should slap him on the back of the head. So he asked for it! I swear I'm not a bad friend. After that, we started walking over to our free walking tour, but we decided to stop for lunch. We stopped at the most random little place, and no one spoke English at all. I felt very out of place. But that was the idea. I had to find some authentic Portuguese food! For 9.50€ we got a beer, cabbage soup, and a pork dish with special sauce. Ethan didn't realize what he was getting and ended up getting a dish with tripe. I tried it and couldn't do it. The texture was horrible! The walking tour was fantastic. He talked about the history of Portugal and porto and gave us lots of fun facts and good viewpoints. Turns out port isn't even made in Porto. It's only aged here, and it was made because they had a treaty with britian to ship wine over when they were fighting with France (where they normally get wine) but it was too far of a journey and it would all spoil because the alcohol percentage is too low. So they add brandy when making wine to create a higher percentage wine that was sweeter and thicker. And it never spoiled on the way to Britain. And it turns out the train station our hostel is in is a UNESCO world heritage site where there are 22,000 painted tiles depicting different historical moments. And the evolution of travel all the way to trains. The hostel was a good find for sure! Afterward, we finally went went out drinking. It feels good close to 100 percent. But when we got to the pub crawl it was not what I was expecting, a very interesting crowd for sure. It was nothing like edinburgh. So it started slow, but as we started getting comfortable, it was a blast. It's so weird going drinking where everyone is from a different country. And the guide even took us to local bars, and the alcohol is so much cheaper! We got a pint of beer for 2.50€. The locals here, though, love sweet drinks. I know the hangovers will be horrible. But for some reason, the only beer you can buy here is Super Bock. But I can't finish this post without talking about one bar. There was a french rugy team partying. We were all outside and the person beside me just said "oh my god, what the fuck" so I turn around to look at the bar. And all I see is 10 plus guys standing on tables just, butt ass naked. And I mean NAKED. I saw a few too many twigs and berries tonight. Overall, everyone was so nice, and we ended up making more fun memories.Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    32
    Day 15

    Day Fifteen: Coastal Sunset

    March 30 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    Very hungover, walking, wine, sunset.

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    2
    Day 16

    Day Sixteen: Eight Hours of Carpooling

    March 31 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    Today was the dreaded 8-hour carpool ride to Madrid. And we slept in a little, but we didn't have time to do anything before he picked us up. He made us walk 30 minutes to a pick-up location and even kinda forced us to come early. It was normal Ford focus, and there were 5 of us. So, the middle seat! Me and Ethan ended up splitting being the middle, but man, it killed my ass. It was worse than the flight over! When we finally got there, they even dropped us off 30-minute walk away. But that's OK, it's a beautiful city and fun just to walk around, a much needed walk after sitting for so long. There seemed to be a lot of large historical buildings too. We walked past the largest parliament? Building I have ever seen, too. Check-in was easy, and the beds seemed nice enough. The pillows were strange, though; they were super narrow and very long. There were two of them, so one was a nice cuddle pillow. But before the night we really needed something to eat. But everything was so expensive and full. We kept going somewhere and it was too full or too expensive. Finally said screw it and ended at one. It seemed seemed expensive at first, so we decided to split one order of ribs, and it turns out the dish was huge and delicious! For the night, we came to the conclusion that every new hostel we go to we should start with some event to meet the people there. So we did the pub crawl. And it started with free sangria! Anything free always tastes better. There were probably about 10 people for it, and they were all really nice! Going out, we ended up mostly hanging with this guy named Tom from America, someone from Britain, a guy from Greece, and a lady from Ukraine (who is living there now). Turns out she has to go to a shelter every night to sleep, and they can see the missiles in the sky, too. It's some really scary stuff. But it was one of the best nights. We ended up going to 4 or 5 bars finishing the night at a nightclub. And multiple times, we thought we were at the nightclub, but we weren't. The bars are so insane and fun here. Me and Ethan even used his jacket for limbo, and everyone loved it! It was one of the best nights so far. Everyone was super friendly, and the bars were so fun! I have now found out that I enjoy dancing! It was so fun that it turned into a very late night. Everything is open crazy late. The party culture is so much different, but the people are so easy-going, and I'm never worried. But I have still been smart enough to get home safe :)Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    11
    Day 17

    Day Seventeen: The "busy" Madrid Day

    April 1 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Today was our only full day in Madrid, so we planned to wake up early and see as much as possible. But as we have already learned a few times, drinking and staying up late has its repercussions. We woke up at about 11:00... so there went half our day. Luckily, we were not as hungover, just tired. So we stopped for food and coffee, I got a grilled chicken burger, which was as good as you can tell. Then we decided to go off to El Retiro Park. And I have never seen a bigger park in a city before... we honestly spend the whole afternoon here, and we still missed some stuff in it. Turns out there is a whole soccer field we never saw. I dont even feel bad for missing anything because of how beautiful it was. It was so nice to just walk around, and it was on the first full days of the sun. And holy, it was nice. I even bought sunscreen for my neck because it was worried! We even ran into one of the people from last night there, we walked around for a bit with them, but they were so hungover they just kind of left. And later, when I posted on instagram from the park, someone from porto responded that they were their too, on the same day! But we even found a little green hill to just lay down to enjoy the sun. There was a massive monument that was 30 meters tall by a huge pool. I wish I was cool enough to have a monument that large! There was even another pool that had koi fish, turtles, and black swans as well as a large greenhouse right beside this. We were sitting by the water, and I was just playing around, and a Koi fish even tried to eat my finger on top of a turtle just swimming up right in front of to stare through my soul. It was the perfect place to be hungover. We were leaving and saw that there was a rose garden we somehow missed, so we turned around and walked about 10 minutes to see it. No roses though ahaha, guess they haven't bloomed yet. Afterward, we e-scootered back to the hostel, stopped for a small meal, and just chilled. I was tired so I just stayed and went to bed. Ethan found some friends from last night so decided to go out again. I am sure he had a good night!Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    Day 18

    Day Eighteen: Barcelona Here We Come!

    April 2 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Today was the road to our final stop before the guided tour! We had a late morning train to catch at 11:25. No worries at all! I went to bed early, ready for a relaxed morning. Then I wake up to Ethan's head, looking down from the top bunk, saying, " it's 11, we need to wake up now!" He had face paint on, blood on his face, and man, I was so lost. How the hell did I sleep for 11 hours?!?! And the one who partied woke me up!! Choas ensues as we run to get to the train station. Of course, it is a 30-minute walk.. so we jump on e-scooters and make it with a little time left. But in Spain you can only park them in certain areas and we couldn't find one.. and when we did ethan's app was buggy and didn't work. So I ran to the station while he tried to find a different one. And, of course, there is security. And the train just left, like a minute too late... so there goes more money. But it's official, I have booked for the wrong time and arrived late. So, really, I've made all the mistakes u can, so nothing else will happen! I hope. And I should say Ethan did this on no sleep and severely hungover, so good for him. But afterward, when we arrived, we walked over to the hostel, got comfortable, and went for food. We went everywhere nearby to buy food but everywhere was closed... we couldn't find food at all! Finally landed on a place. It was funny because the guy even had to use Google translate to ask us what we wanted. And of course, the burger we got was medium rare, which is way too normal here. It makes the meat a little too slimy... Overall, it felt like another nice local find. It's extra nice because the burgers without extra charge include cheese, fried egg, and bacon. Then we went back to the hostel and got another free dinner too, some nice pesto pasta! Then, since we decided to go to the pub crawl on the first day of any hostel, we went out again. Honestly, this time, it was disappointing. It was free but stopped at one bar and one club. It was free, though, with a free shot! We did start with drinking games at the hostel. It was this board with different bubbles containing activities. The crowd was not very fun, but the idea of the game was awesome! I feel like the night went the same way. It was not very exciting. Me and Ethan ended up just going to the beach right beside the bar and had a bro to bro moment talking about life and things. He is my brother, and it is truly unreal to have him here with me. Makes everything feel like a dream. I love you, Ethan, and I'm glad we are making everything work and just having a blast!Read more

  • TravelerEuro Quest
    111
    Day 19

    Day Nineteen: Barcelona

    April 3 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    I am not 100 percent sure why, but me and Ethan have been so tired, sleeping in every day. Even when we haven't been drinking as much! I guess we are preparing ourselves for the parties on the guided tour. So we got up and decided to find food on the beach. So we started walking with empty stomachs. As we walked down farther and farther, the more confused we got. It was just highway, to then find out that below our hostel is just a huge shipping habour with no beach nearby. When we finally pulled up google Maps, we realized that we were 2 hours walk away from the beach. But whatever, that's what you do here. So we keep going and firm on the idea that we will eat at the beach. Walking up Hill makes it so much harder when u are so hungry! On our journey over, we went over a hill, which we didn't realize had a fantastic view of the city, and a fantastic view of the Sagrada Familia, which truly towers over everything else. I have never gotten goose bumps, just looking at a building before. But it was truly spectacular. And we could barely see it! At this point, we realized we it was already almost 2, and we hadn't eaten or gotten to the beach, so we changed tactics and decided to go start to the Sagrada Familia because we really didn't want to miss it. On the way, we stopped for food at a random stop we past. And finally decided to try paella. It was amazing too! Probably tied for the best meal of the trip so far, tied with the late night random meal in lisbon. While sitting and eating, we started looking to see if we get online tickets to skip the line to then find out we couldn't get tickets at all. We looked at everything, even third-party companies. The only thing available was a ticket for 60 euros per person... a lot of money. So we decided to figure this place out tomorrow, and we head start for the beach. Which was still a 40-minute walk away. Walking in the sun did help a lot. It's been 18 days for me without any solid, warm summer day. Getting to the beach was a long time coming. It was very hot and very beautiful, we bought some overpriced beers and sat on the sand and took it all in. There were a stupid number of beach vendors, though, and they would not leave you alone. If you said anything, they would attach to you. One guy said 1 moijito for 7€ and we managed to get 2 for 8€ with extra alcohol (still not a lot of alcohol), and another was trying to sell 2 cans of beer for 4€ we kept fighting him saying we weren't interested, he only had 3 beers and ended up coming down saying he would get another and do 4 for 5€. But we didn't want to give money for a beer he would have to leave to get, so we said no once again. 30 minutes later, he came back with 4 beers and offered us the same deal, so we did take it. It was very nice just to relax and hang out on the beach. Afterward, we just headed back to the hostel and got some meat to add to the free vegetarian meal. It was sweet potato, so I was a little of my league, but I ended up eating 2 portions because he refuses to eat cauliflower. I did enjoy it. I just wish they had meat. We do get hungry walking all day. Afterward, we just had a couple beers and chilled in their common area to the point where I just fell asleep for a while and crawled back to my bed for a good night's sleep.Read more

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