Last weekend we went to Sao Miguel. It is the biggest of all the islands, a whopping 293 square miles! We stayed at the University Dorms there for free…however the dorms there were not nearly as nice as ours here. We got there pretty late at night and honestly the horrible 1970’s architecture combined with the heavy metal doors that functioned to block all sunlight out of the room made the entire Residencia feel like an insane asylum. But, then again it was free and it was only a few days so overall no regrets. Anyway, we saw Harry Potter 3-D at the only movie theater on the island, located in the only mall in the Azores. We also went shopping and ate Asian food in the food court…I have never been so thankful for stir-fry rice in my whole life (it was a nice change). There was also a Burger King and a McDonalds on the island. It was interesting to see the Azorean additions to the McDonalds menu such as Caldo Verde (a popular vegetarian soup) and a seafood salad.
There were 14 of us in the group that went and so we decided that the best way to explore the island would be to rent a car and half the group would get it the first day, then half the second day. Saturday we did not have the car so we decided to try out the public bus to check out some of the island. We hopped on a bus to Mosteiros and off we went. We were on the bus, speeding up the windy roads, for maybe 10 minutes when everyone started to feel carsick. No one really had any idea how long the ride would last but I was not going to be able to stomach the ride so rather than being miserable I chose to fall asleep (at the time it sounded like a wise decision.) I woke up not knowing how much time had passed and as I lay there trying to get my bearings I realized that I could no longer see Katrina, who had been sleeping a couple rows up from me. I also quickly realized that the bus was stationary and that no one was left on the bus except for the bus driver who was about to go on break and who was clearly unaware of my presence on his bus. I quickly gathered my things and marched to the front of the bus, feeling 44% confused, 25% why the hell did my friends leave me on a bus in a foreign country and 31% survival mode. I think the bus driver was a bit surprised to see me haha, from his point of view a small, confused American girl in a blue rain jacket had just popped out of nowhere and was asking for his assistance in broken Portuguese/English. I managed to explain to him that I had fallen asleep and asked what stop my friends had gotten off at. He sort of chuckled, in a “well this is a first” kind of way then pointed me in the direction of my friends and said 2 minutes…I said walking and he smiled and waved. I said “obrigada,” hopped off the bus and began to run in the direction that he had pointed. Things were looking up, but I still had no idea if they would still be near the stop or if they would just move on without me. As I ran toward the town, I remembered that even though I hadn’t used my phone at all for the entire trip I could make international phone calls in the case of emergencies. Fortunately, I had taken a picture of the Portuguese phone numbers of the people on the trip and quickly called my friend Meredith to find out where they were and where I was. “Hello? ANYA OMG…guys I found her!” She told me the name of the stop and that they were near a church with a wedding. I told her to wait there and I would find them. With the assistance of a few more helpful residents of Mosteiros and Rick Steve’s Portuguese phrase book, which I fortunately had in my purse, I was able to rejoin my friends. So, that is the story of how I managed to get left on a bus in the Azores…don’t worry it was not an intentional thing and my friends apologized a lot.
Anyway the next day we took the car and saw some really cool places. My favorite was Furnas, where they cook food in the ground. Because of the volcanic activity in the area there are literally BOILING pools of water. I can’t even explain how cool it was to see natural boiling water and steam coming out of the ground. Below you can see a picture of us crammed into a car, one of us in front of Lagoa do Fogo and another by Furnas. It was a great weekend but I was also really glad to be back in Terceira.
Love always,
Anya Sophia Keithley
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