After a bus to the Shannon airport at about 7 a.m. Wednesday, a flight into Faro, another bus to the bus station in Faro and one more bus to Lagos, we finally arrived in Portugal around 4:30 p.m. We decided to find the guesthouse on our own, which allowed us to start seeing a bit of the city -- and when I say city, I don't mean skyscrapers and bright lights. It's a big city, but very quaint. And so white! The buildings are all white and beige, and the streets are lined with ceramic stones that make different patterns. It made me think of the pictures I've seen of Greece.
Angela House.
The place where we stayed was adorable. It was a small apartment owned by an older woman named Angela. She spoke only Spanish, French and Portuguese so we got by talking to her in broken Spanish. I don't know any Spanish since I took French in school, but it was pretty easy to guess what she was saying and everyone helped translate for me (I could have tried my French, but figured it would be easier for her to stick to one language). The apartment was very well kept and very pretty. It had four rooms and we took up three of them. Adam and Colin in one, Tori and I in another and Aliza and Kristin in the third. My room was color coordinated with a green bedspread and green curtains. The other rooms were just as pretty. The apartment also had two bathrooms, and Angela shared her own kitchen with us. She was very accommodating, and even gave us shampoo and towels to use in the shower.
Wednesday Night
After settling into the guesthouse we decided to head downtown. It was beautiful at night with the restaurants all lit up and the streets gleaming white. Sadly, it was cloudy and chilly so we decided to grab dinner in the first interesting restaurant we saw. We stopped at a place called the Nah Nah Bah, which was a reggae type restaurant. Really, the only reason we went there was because the boys were amused by the sexual innuendos on the menu. I won't go into any details on that. Despite the appearance of the restaurant the food was very good. Our waitress was a Canadian girl and she talked excitedly to us the whole time. She was a little crazy and had been traveling for seven weeks when she ran out of money and just settled down, illegally, in Portugal and found two jobs to live off of. (One of her jobs is at a hostel called the Rising Cock -- go figure). She kept telling us to go out and get drunk with her later, but we were tired from all of the traveling and a little put off by her. We ended up running into her again when we went to a bar to hang out, but luckily she didn't stay too long. One of the bartenders was very cute and talkative. He ended up being from Texas, and was also just living in Portugal and working for the heck of it.
Thursday
We woke on Thursday to rainy, grey skies and were pretty disappointed. Angela made us toast and omelets for breakfast and it was absolutely delicious. We then decided not to let the weather get us down and headed into the center of the city. Adam, Aliza and Colin broke off to explore and Tori, Kristin and I remained in town to shop. We went to a few stores and checked out a nail salon, but it was too expensive. However, the owner (an English woman) suggested we grab lunch at a good fish restaurant around the corner. And we were so glad we took her advice. The place was really nice, and the food was divine. I was not a huge fish fan before, but that is changing. I opted on the salmon since I've had it before and liked it. It was melt-in-your-mouth good! We all really enjoyed our meals, and as we ate the sun came out and shined into the restaurant through the door and big open windows. After lunch we decided to find the beach since the sun had come out. We went to drop our stuff off at Angela House and ran into Angela driving up in her car. We asked the easiest way to get to the beach and she told us to hop into the car! So she drove us down to a beach surrounded by big cliffs with clear blue water and waves lapping up against the sand. It was absolutely beautiful. We spent two hours splashing in the water and taking pictures until the clouds returned and we walked back to the guesthouse.
Thursday Night
That night we just went out to dinner in the town. I got lasagna, which was a bad choice because it was more like soup ... it was even in a bowl. Very odd. After that we went back to the bar from the night before, Three Monkeys, and got discounted cocktails from the cute American bartender. I got my first alcoholic Pina Colda -- it was delicious. We also used the Internet in the bar to check bus times because we decided to spend Friday at the edge of Portugal in a town called Sagres, where the beaches were supposed to be really nice. Then we went to a cute little cafe for tea and dessert and headed back to the guesthouse.
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