Portugal: Partie 2

Day 7:  We woke up around 7 and wound up an hour early to the station.

Much better than a minute late, so no complaints there.  We hung out with a seagull while eating our fruity breakfast.  I'm pretty sure the only things we ate while in Portugal were bananas, lettuce, tomatoes, yogurt, oranges, carrots, mushrooms and pretzels.  Also, I was a little sick the first week and had a tomato sauce craving.   As it turns out, chugging this tomato/garlic sauce is absolutely delicious, so that became a staple.  Kristen started dipping everything in it...like lettuce, par exemple.  Anyways, life tasted good and fresh in Portugal.  We got on our train and passed out till we arrived in Lagos around 13:00.  So great.  This is where the 'We're in Paradise' feeling really kicked in.
We wandered around the town to find a hostel where we could store our bags.  There was only one open because it was off-season, but they were very nice and let us store our shit there.  After the cheapest wax ever it was off to the beach!

Helllooo Paradise

Our petite beach

Could not have imagined better

What an amazing surprise!...I don't know what I was expecting of Portugal, but this wasn't it.  So great.  But, enough wonder.  We sun-bathed the rest of the day.  And swam!  The water was cold, but perfect for a dip.  We were sad to leave, but not too sad, as we knew we were just parting to our next beach town:  Albufeira.  We caught a train there at the end of the day to meet our next host and adventure :)

Nero!

We made sure to have an espresso before we got on the train because we planned to go out that night.
Not the best decision of the trip.  Our CSer was very nice, he's a DJ and had just gotten back from a show in Russia.  This is his big, friendly dog Nero!  He warned us that everything would be dead that night because it was Wednesday, but we were determined to find that out for ourselves.
And we did!  Ghost town.
Apparently Albufeira hosts only 20,000 people for the majority of the year, but 400,000 in the summer!  All the reviews online however, are in regards to summer haha so we were expecting nightlife even on a Wednesday.  Oh well.  We didn't feel like drinking if there was going to be no going out so we just got dinner.  Most expensive dinner of the trip if you include the taxi there and back!  But, still cheaper then any dinner in Paris.  Let's keep things in perspective.

Day 8:  We stopped by the local market to pick up some food for the day in the morning.  The old lady was adorable.  We couldn't decide how many bananas we wanted and she goes 'two banana, two people!' with a big smile on her face.  I obviously can't convey the cuteness of the accent here.  After, we figured out the bus schedule and got on the blue line for the beach.  It did not dissapoint.

ohay

Oh how I miss living at the beach!  It was so refreshing to be there.  We brought a bottle of white wine with us (I was inspired by Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises).  I wanted to chill it in the water, but there were no rocks.  Tant pis.
That night we went to Ladies Night at a Casino.  Which means 10euros and 3 drinks.  And then a lot more free drinks.  And dancing!  We wound up staying very late...because it didn't open till 2 and got a ride home with our 3 new friends.  Much better than a taxi.  I love traveling; people are so nice.

Day 9:  Beach day Part 2.  Amazing.  And then a train in the evening to Faro after another espresso :)
Our next hosts were 2 Brazilian girls that just started their Erasmus in Faro.  They were so fun!  They took us to the 'beach boys' house.  An amazing house with a lake for the backyard and the ocean in the front.  It was the first house party we had been to in Portugal and it was really fun.  All Erasmus students.  There was even a frenchy!  Who is definitely the coolest frenchy I've ever met.  He was so happy and fun.

The house party was iust a pre-game for the Portuguese however, so around 2 we went out to the clubs!

Our host's neighbor and host :)

Day 10:  It was a bit of a struggle to wake up after not much sleep, but we managed.
Day 3 of market, bus, beach.

Rough Life

We went on a walk around the area looking for the bbq of the beach boys, but we never found it.  We hadn't paid enough attention the night before.  Nice walk though.

The lake behind the houses

At the end of the day we watched the bus leave right as we got to the station!  Not the best timing.  So we waited an hour for the next bus.  Because, it got there and still made everyone wait outside until just before it was ready to leave.  So lame!  It was fuckin chilly!  We had a fascinating time watching 2 HUGE spiders eat their breakfast in the wall of the bus station.  It was so creepy!  First there was one.  Then two.  Then they were fighting!  The biggest one obviously won.  Then three.  Then four!  It was awesome, but definitely freaky.  I should have taken a picture.
That night we went out again (Saturday night) and had a fantastic time!  We had a movie moment in the club that I will not go into here.  Kristen had to be at the airport to catch her flight at 6am so we parted around 5 and then I almost missed my train to Sevilla which was at 8am. Kind of like how I almost missed my flight to Portugal.  I'm seeing a trend here.
Anyways, I made it :)  And woke up in Sevilla 5 hours later.  It was kinda like The Hangover.  Except I remembered everything.

Day 11:  I'm not sure where day 10 ends and 11 starts, but I will start with getting off the bus.  Sevilla was cool.  I had a hostel to stay in that I had figured out how to get to the day before thankfully.  It was called Urbanity?  Or something I don't really remember.  Turned out to be a great hostel though because they had a free walking tour that started at 15:30.  Sweeet.  So I got to see all the cool things Sevilla had to offer.  Like the church where Christopher Colombus is potentially buried.  And all the orange trees that I apparently didn't take any pictures of.  The oranges are especially cool because they taste like lemons!  I love lemons.  Plaza de Espana was the prettiest place.

Plaza de España

But the highlight of my day was watching two doves make love!  Haha if you can call it that.  The picture is very poor:

they are on top of the sign, just finished business

But it was awesome.
That night I went out for tapas with 3 guys in my dorm.  They were cute nerds from somewhere in the states.  I don't actually remember, but they were studying abroad in Barcelona.  The tapas were not very good, I accidentally wound up with some friend ham thing.  Blerg.  Ham is HUGE there, apparently because during the Inquisitions the church would give out free/really cheap ham to the people.  If you didn't take it they'd know you weren't christian and would torture, kill, or do some other equally Christian thing to you.  The bartenders were very funny old Spanish men though.

Day 12:  Luckily, my new friends had an early flight as well, so they were able to lead me to the airport in the AM.  One of the guys reminded me so much of Eric Landau, it was uncanny!  We got breakfast at the airport.  I finally tried one of those chocolate churro pastries that are very typical there.  And enjoyed my last cappucino for a long time...since they are too expensive in Paris.  Deeelicious.
Then it was off to my flight.  We parted without exchanging info, it's crazy the way life works.  We'll never see each other again, but it was a very nice, random time we shared anyway.  C'est la vie.
I arrived in Paris around 10am Monday, happy to be home :)