One of the great things about studying abroad is the chance to do some traveling on your own. Last weekend was my first time, and I spent that weekend with some other girls from my program in Lisbon, Portugal. We had to take the 1 am train from Salamanca, which was not so awesome, and I only spent two days there because I didn’t want to come back at 5 am on Monday, but everything we did and saw made the trip well worth it. We spent our first day in Lisbon, first exploring the barrio of Belem, where we saw the Monasterio de Jeronimos, el Torre de Belem, and ate some absolutely divine pastries! That night, I decided to eat dinner at the hostel we stayed in, which turned out to be a great opportunity to meet other travelers and eat delicious portuguese cuisine. The second day I and my friend Amanda spent in Sintra, a pretty town just outside of Lisbon that is famous for having 5 or 6 castles all in one spot. We saw two of them – the Castile dos Mouros and the Palacio de Pena. Both were amazingly beautiful, and I wish I could’ve seen more, but we had to leave that night. It was a really quick trip, but so much fun!