Edit: This was supposed to go on sometime last week, but technical difficulties :'(
From Wednesday to Saturday (July 10th to 13th), the group and I traveled around three hours to Aveiro, a city right outside of Porto. Aveiro is known for its canals and gondolas, which are fairly like Venice, thus calling it the "Venice of Portugal." The uniquely tiled streets and buildings wowed me as I strolled through the city during our tour. This hub of fish and salt had provided an extensive history of how Aveiro became the city it currently is today. This includes the narrow tiled buildings that provided cheap housing to the fishermen and the Molicerio boats that allowed the harvesting of algae to take place.
After our city tour, we were given some free time to explore the city on our own. That gave us plenty of time to snag a few souvenirs and try out the local food! Honestly, you can never forget about the gelato which is AMAZING (can never forget about that cookies flavored one :))!
On Thursday, we learned about the natural and artificial river lagoons by going on a kayaking trip down River Vouga and visiting a dam. Even though my partner, Josie, and I almost tipped over during the first set of rapids, we bounced back and were able to complete the rest of the course (and that was around 5-6 more rapids)! Along the river, we stopped to learn about the natural river lagoons. There, we studied multiple factors that can affect the ecosystem, its biodiversity, and also tested the water for its pH level and the inorganic compounds typically founded in polluted water such as nitrates (luckily there weren't any found). During our visit to the Ribeiradio dam, we learned about the artificial river lagoons and how they are created through the dams. I was astonished to find out that dams can cause a lack of biodiversity within a river since the fish can't pass through the dam. In the long run, it meant that it would alter the ecosystem within the river! How crazy is that?
On Friday, we visited a Marine Rescue Center, also known as CRAM. We learned about what to do in different animal stranding scenarios, including dolphins, birds, turtles, and crustaceans. In the end, we also performed our own animal stranding with a dolphin (a fake one). SADLY, it died due to the stress levels of the media and the crowd surrounding it, but it was an amazing experience since we were able to learn what to do when we experience an animal stranding. In the afternoon, by surprise, we also witnessed the release of three birds by CRAM at Costa Nova (they have a bunch of cute houses, but that's not the point)! At first the birds didn't fly off since they were only three months old, but they were able to join another group of birds to learn how to survive back in the wild.
On the final day, before we headed back to Lisbon, a group of friends and I decided to go to a local café in the morning to go try some local food at a bakery. After buying a coffee with milk, a sandwich, and two pastel de natas (custard cups), it was only 3.80 euros! That was the bang for the buck so far!
Currently in Lisbon, we’re staying at a sustainable farm! More to come on that at the end of the week!
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