Touradas e hortênsias!

Meredith - Education intern

There were 7 of us who stayed on Terceira this weekend, the rest went to a nearby island called Faial. It is a good thing I stayed because I got to do a few things that I had never done before. The first was seeing a tourada. I had heard all about touradas from other people, but I had yet to see one myself! So yesterday, Carissa and I were walking home from Continente (the Super Walmart type store) and we saw this sign on the street next to our residencia that said "TOURADA". Since our hands were full of groceries, we couldn't check it out right then. But it was confirmed that it was, in fact, a tourada when a flare gun went off VERY near to the residencia. They shoot flare guns to indicate that there is some kind of festa going on. It takes a lot of getting used to!! I still jump almost every time I hear it!
Anyway, so we went to check out the Tourada and sure enough, they had a bull in the middle of the street and they were taunting it with umbrellas, red cloth and other stuff. They were also running at it to get it to charge. It was fun to see it, but honestly I felt bad for the bull! He seemed so confused and scared.

Another thing that I got to do this weekend was to explore the island more! The 7 of us who were here decided to rent scooters (mopeds) for one day this weekend and explore the whole island since it is only 18 miles by 10 miles. After a little thought on the matter, we realized that no one knew our way around or anything! Thankfully, a friend who lives here volunteered to show us around in his car, with 2 people following on the scooter. This was a GREAT idea because 1) It was a lot cheaper than getting our own or even splitting between 2 people (the scooters hold 2 people) and 2) The scooter was sooo fun and 3) Luis was an awesome tour guide!
There are some windmills on Terceira that are way up high and we visited those. That was really cool but it was SOOO windy up there!! The temperature probably dropped 20 degrees! The view was soo beautiful! You could see a great view of the pastures with the cows, the city and the ocean.
We also stopped at some other points with GREAT views! One thing I love about this island is the greenery and the beautiful hydrangeas that are all around the island. There were also a lot of beautiful houses that we got to see on the drive! Driving through all the interesting neighborhoods and towns was half the fun! I loved being able to see other parts of Terceira that we had not seen before! It's such a beautiful place.
To finish up the day, we stopped at a cheese factory that sells a cheese called queijo vaquinha. It's seriously delicious!
This was a great day that showed me another side of Terceira that I had not seen, and I loved it!