Until Next Time España

And so it came, my very last day in Spain. Half of which was spent completely exhausted and slightly hungover from the most epic night of my life and the other half trying to celebrate my last night with Elizabeth after such an amazing adventure together.

After a minor break down due to my debit card being eaten by a foreign ATM we found a cute little Peruvian restaurant for dinner and shared a delicious bottle of wine.

After dinner we took one last stroll around Madrid, stopped for one last scoop of Gelato, and took one last photo...

What a lovely trip! From start to finish I was completely blown away the history, culture, and mouthwatering food throughout Spain and Portugal. I can't wait to start planning my next big adventure. Where will my frolicking take me in 2013!?

Pamplona

Elizabeth and I left the last three days of our trip open for us to decide what to do with once we were in Spain. Once we realized we were in Spain at the same time the running of the bulls were happening in Pamplona we knew we just had to go! So off we went by train to Northern Spain for the craziest 24 hours of our lives.

As soon as we hopped off the train we grabbed some red and white running of the bulls gear and jumped right into all the festivities.

Crazy enough another friend of Elizabeth was also in Spain and met up with us in Pamplona for an epic night of dancing, drinking, street music and just all around unforgettable moments at this insane tradition.

People and booze were everywhere you looked. We literally ran into this parade that turned out to be one giant musical bar-hop where drinking in the streets very much encouraged. America get on Europe's level when it comes to alcohol.

The whole night was full of so much happiness, it could possibly be one of the best nights of life: great people, unforgettable memories, live music, dance-offs and dance-parties. We some how managed to stay up the whole night (to avoid needing to pay for any where to stay, ha!) and grabbed our front row spot for THE running of the bulls.

Everyone was extremely tired as we patiently awaited the running, which took about all of two minutes to watch. There are two sets of gates, the first being the actual barrier between the bulls and runners and the second being where people could start lining up to watch. The gap in between is used for press and emergency medics when the drunk runners get hurt..SMH

I nearly ran with the bulls myself but was convinced by a local that it was more than dangerous, it would be stupid to participate in the actual running. He himself had lived in Pamplona for over 35 years and never ran it because it's more than just the bulls you have to worry about, the biggest issue is avoiding all the drunk careless fools who are also running. No matter what it was an amazing night that I won't ever forget. Plus, it was the first all-nighter ever! Bucket List, Check Check

Back to Madrid

Once we returned to Madrid we met up with Elizabeth's friend from college, Kathy, and had a wild couple of days. The three of us finally managed to find semi-traditional bar that served tapas. The drinks were huge, the food was plentiful and there were fun times all night long.

The three of us were quite the trio which only made our next adventure that much better...Pamplona for the running of the bulls!

Getting Lost in Lisbon

Before heading to the airport to go back to Spain, Elizabeth and I tried to squeeze one last adventure in: Jardim do Ultramar - Lisbon's tropical gardens. We searched high and low, asked multiple people, and went in circle for quite some time before coming across a small park that we thought (more likely hoped) it was the Jardim do Ultramar.

It was in fact not the tropical garden we were looking for but for our own sanity we like to think we found the tropical garden that day and enjoyed the quite beauty of the small park.

Even though we didn't find the tropical garden we did run into another jokester. There was a man dressed in a very nice suit passed out on a park bench who was woken up by a police officer passing by--who was already rounding up the homeless people. It was quite a scene: A very well dressed man, clearly hungover, had quite the night (possibly kicked out of his girlfriends house) prior and was struggling that morning as we watched from afar. Nothing like a bunch of Portuguese jokesters to brighten your day. Moral of the story: you don't need to see a tropical garden in Portugal, any park will do and Portugal is full of jokesters you are certain to run into at least one no matter what the situation may be.

Last Night in Portugal

After a perfect day of sightseeing Elizabeth and I closed out our Portugal trip with traditional Fado music-dinner performance. Fado music is traditional Portuguese ballad songs, often tragic love songs performed at local restaurants. Though more expensive than a typical dinner because of the performance it was totally worth it.

There was one more thing Elizabeth and I knew we had to try before we left Portugal...Jinja a Portuguese dessert port/wine.

A little sweeter than expected, Jinja was still a perfect nightcap for our last night in Portugal.

1,000 Ways To Cook Cod

When we first arrived in Portugal our cab driver told us that Portugal had over a thousand ways to cook cod-fish, and he was not kidding. I tried as many cod-dishes as I could throughout our stay in Lisbon and was not disappointed at all...

So many cod dishes not enough meals to try them all!

Cacais

After a great tour by Annibal Elizabeth and I took a train out to a beach town, Cacais, for a nice stroll and a little bit of sun.

It was a total tourist area with a ton of hilarious British-themed restaurants, but coastline views were totally worth the train ride.