I woke up once to my dads false alarm at 5:30. I woke up again with our wakeup call at 6:30, and again with another wakeup call at 6:45.
Got up, packed quickly, and we were out the door around 7. We were planning on taking a taxi but a bus was there so we opted for the £4/per option.
Got off at terminal 3. Checkin was easy, and I even got them to mark my luggage "fragile" to be hand placed on the plane, since it has bottles inside.
Picked up a few cigars in duty free and got a couple free tastes of Chivas Regal 18 year old whiskey (because whether or not it's 8:30am, free whiskey is free whiskey) before we headed to the plane.
I will not elaborate on my dad obliviously piling chocolates up on a counter and then purchasing more, holding up the line. But it happened.
Our plane turned out to not be delayed too much because of the nor'easter. We boarded after I was body-searched.
30 minutes after we were supposed to take off, my dad glanced at the row behind us and noticed no one was sitting in any of the four seats. We grabbed up the two end seats of the row, so my dad could move forward to our previous 2 seats (and the one unoccupied between those and the Hasidic Jew sitting on the other side) when we took off and I could lie down across all 4 seats behind him.
Before we took off, an announcement came on; "Would passengers Dreyer, Rosenberg, and Schwartz please identify yourselves to the crew?" surprise surprise, the Hasidic in front of us was Schwartz. They were checking to see if the special in flight kosher meals were satisfactory.
Scheduled to leave at 9:20, we taxi'd at 10:40, expecting to make up some time with a tailwind we apparently were expecting.
We took off at 11. My dad moved up a row when the fasten seatbelt sign went off, and I stretched out across the whole of row 46. I turned on The Informant!, and watched from the comfort of my supine position. It was a good movie, but less haha funny and more dark funny. But if that's what they had in mind, they got it.
Food came. Gotta love Virgin Airlines and free wine with your meal, and coffee and tea.
I watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which was sufficiently awesome for my tastes.
Started doing chinese characters, figuring the more I get done now the sooner I can finish for the year this homework spawned from the mind of the devil himself.
To distract myself from the characters I watched GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra. Mindless, numbing, and perfect for what I needed; a time waster. Best line by far is when the soon to be announced Commander Cobra (Rex) says in his raspy, thready voice "Kill them. Kill all the Joes." Now where have I heard something similar before?
We landed at 2:11, leaving 2 hours and 39 minutes until my flight to st louis left.
Waited and waited for my bag, and it finally came through. We hurried to the taxi stand, got a taxi to La Guardia, and arrived around 4.
Checked in and waited. The plane was delayed and my mom had to bring me my bag from home with extra clothes and my computer. She arrived, I said my goodbyes to the parentals, and I went off through security.
Security took the toothpaste from my bag but not the 6 Cuban cigars sitting on top of it. Who woulda thought it?
My plane left at 6, and landed 3 hours later at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.
I took a cab to school and walked back to my dorm. I plopped myself on my bed and crashed. It'll be weird go to school tomorrow...
Final thoughts:
In the future, the better way to do this trip would be to land in London and decide upon a place a few days in advance, so as to have more choices, and to not immediately book a return flight, so we can go from A-B-C instead of A-B-A.
But it was a wonderful change to be in a new place without any preperation. Normally one who travels plans their trip months in advance, reading about the region, even learning the language. In doing so, they develop an idea of the region before they've been there themselves. They have preconceived notions of the area, the people, the sights, and the culture. But by showing up on the fly, your reactions become your own, and your notions become original. It is for that reason, if for no other, that I would make a return trek to ____________ given any opportunity.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Day 4: Lagos, Portimao, London
I awoke at 11:30, again, this time to my dad. He'd been up for two hours. As I packed my bags, getting ready to return to London, I opened the windows. The sounds and smells of merriment and guitar street performers and fresh pastries filled the air. I remember thinking how sad it will be to leave. This is such a laid back country.
I checked out of the Residencial (i.e. Gave the maid my key), and put my bags in the car down by the Marcado Municipal. We went down a few side streets to pick up a couple souvineers. Since 50% of the world's cork is from this region, we bought a cork wallet and flask for me and a cork bag for my mom.
We ended up at a pastry shop where I ordered my first incountry Croissant Com Chocolate. It was very good. They cut a regular croissant in half, poured melted chocolate into it, and closed up the sandwich.
We started to say our goodbyes to Lagos, but as we approached the car we saw, on the other side of the canal, in modern Lagos, a really cool looking old flat bottomed boat. So we took a brisk stroll down the prominade along the river, across the footbridge and back along the river to the ship. A good walk but it wasn't worth it. The ship was kinda boring.
We walked back to the car and marveled once again at the dirt that had caked onto it. A horrid sight.
We drove out of Lagos for the last time, and got on the surface road towards Faro. Two days ago I wanted to stop for a few hours in Portimao, and we figured today was a good day to do that.
So we followed the signs to Portimao, and arrived in the town center around 1:30. We parked next to a place called the Gazoline, and walked over a few blocks to a pedestrian street.
Portimao is much larger than Lagos, as it is a huge shipping port. But the center of town feels small, and the pedestrian streets branching off of the large square are a pleasure to walk down.
We made our way to the water, and stopped to eat at a Portuguese/Italian restaurant, Restaurante O Pipo. My dad has been dying to try a Portuguese specialty, Cataplana, a fish stew. Each place that had it only had it for 2 people and I had no interest in eating that. But this place, our last meal in Portugal, had Cataplana for 1. So my dad had that and I got the Spagetti Bolognaise. My food was delicious. My dad was not impressed by the Cataplana.
We walked down to the water after lunch, and enjoyed a brief stroll along the water. On the way back to the car, we true to get into an old church but, from the looks of the decrepit grounds surrounding it, the people of Portimao haven't even gotten inside in a few years.
We did, however, find ourselves on the square again and stumbled into another church, whose doors were open. Beautiful ornate decorations adorned the back wall, complete with Jesus on the cross behind a wall of glass high above. We saw what looked like a reliquary, and we asked what was inside. The guard said it was "Jesus mort," dead Jesus. I was hoping for a real relic instead of a statue, but oh well.
We were leaving Portimao when I spotted on the other side of the road a carwash. Bingo! We turned around at the next roundabout (traffic circles spot Portugal like boils on a Bubonic Plague victim) and pulled into the Autobubbles.
A self-service carwash, 1 euro bought you 2 minutes 12 seconds with the power hose and 2 euro got you 4 minutes and 37 seconds. You could turn the wheel on the hose control spot that would make it spray hot soapy water, cold rinse water, or that finishing spray that makes it all nice and clean for a while.
With the power that that hose emits, a normal person would have his car washed, rinsed, and polished, wheels and all, within 2 euro. It took us 5.5€. There was so much dirt caked onto that car, inside and out (if it can be recalled, Jeff, in all his wisdom, floored the car with one wheel spinning in a mud puddle while his window was open), we had to go over it again and again. My dad had to scrub the inside dashboard with dirty laundry and I had to powerwash the inside of the doors. There were whole rocks (of no modest size, either) stuck in the wheel wells, splatters of mud dried between the sideview mirror and the mount it was on, cakes of crud on the wiper blades, and God-knows-what on the undercarriage. But we saved ourselves what would likely come out to a 50€ detailing charge from Avis.
Car as clean as it could be, we got on the A22 highway to Faro. Having avoided the A22 all trip (we opted for surface roads), we were delighted to find a flawlessly smooth road and virtually no traffic.
Tearing down the Portuguese countryside at 130km/hr, we began to see signs that we were headed in the direction of "FARO/ESPANHA." "Of course!" we said, "Spain is only a couple dozen km on the other side of Faro!" It's only 50km past Faro, to be precise. The next 30 minutes were spent debating the merits of rushing to Spain, zipping across the border, jumping out and back in and coming back. We were just about ready to do it when we realized we needed to fill up gas before we returned the car, and that would push us over the time we had left if we also went to Espanha.
We got off and found gas and the Avis return center with almost no incident. The Avis guy checking the mileage was shocked to see we had driven 375 kilometers in just a few days. Our odometer had gone from 60240km to 60615km.
We arrived at the airport via Avis shuttle at 5:30. My dad tipped the driver, and I chipped in my last euro coin and half euro coin, leaving me with literally .03€ left. When we handed him the tip, my dad attempted to say "Obrigado," Portuguese for thank you. Instead, he looked the man dead in the eye and said "Avogadro," as in 6.22x10^23. Fail.
Our flight was at 7:15. We stood at the back of the check-in line and waited.
At 6:15 we finally reached the front of the line, and we discovered we were already checked in. Apparently we'd done it online. Whoops, we could have skipped the line.
The line for security was nightmarish, but we got through without incident. On the other side of security we walked into a shop labeled "Flavours of Portugal." I picked up two bottles of good port to bring to school, and my dad got a bottle of olive oil. I tipped the girl with my last 3 cents. Out of euros, perfect timing.
We stopped at another store for some cheese on our way to the gate, B53 (I wish we were one gate over, I could have boarded singing Rock Lobster). By the time we left we realized our flight was leaving 20 minutes from then.
We booked it up the escalator, to passport control. As I got my passport stamped I turned to my dad and said "Avogadro." He laughed, then made a conscious effort to say "Obrigado" correctly to the customs agent. "Obigadro" escaped his lips. Win.
We made it to the gate and onto the loading ramp. We waited in line and got on the plane.
EasyJet has no assigned seats. So since we had gotten on almost last, we had little chance of getting adjacent seats. We did find a row of three empty seats in the second to last row and took all three. To keep the middle seat empty, we had a heated argument over nothing while poor unseated passengers tried to find homes for their posteriors. We succeeded in our seat-saving endeavors.
The plane left the gate 3 minutes early, and we were on our way to London. I did some work on the plane, my dad slept. At one point an attendant got on the intercom and started rambling on about Duty-Free shopping.
"We hope you're enjoying your flight to Gatwick so far; at this time I usually like to tell passengers they're going to another location just to get them to look up at me and pay attention, but you all seem like a nice enough group of passengers, so I decided to skip that today. Now, the moment you've been waiting for, the highlight of your weekend, Duty-Free shopping is here!" And on and on. He read us items from the list of things for sale, invoked the "nobody deserves something nice more than you" line, and ranted for 5 minutes.
We landed 20 minutes ahead of time, and the captain began to rant in his "Welcome to London" speech. Some highlights: "Please keep your seatbelts fastened, we may need to stop suddenly or make a sharp turn, and we'd hate to have any of you reach the terminal before us."
"If any of you are mothers or mothers-to-be, I'd like to wish you a happy mothers day. We've all had mothers at one point..."
We got off the plane and after a several kilometer walk (one of the ways EasyJet is so damned cheap is because they take the distant places in the terminal no one wants to go on), we found ourselves at the back of a ridiculous line for passport control. My dad checked ahead and motioned for me to follow. As I walked forward I realized that 200 people were waiting in the UK/EU line and 1 person was in the "Other Nationalities" line. We breezed through. It's good to be American.
We found our way to the bus stop, and my dad ran inside again to buy tickets. He came back after our 10:25 bus had come and gone, giving some crazy story about rejected credit cards.
So we waited for the 10:55. I ran inside to get some dinner for my dad and I. As I was waiting for them to heat it up, the bus came. An anxious few minutes passed while the sluggish cashier took our sandwiches out of the press, cut them, placed them into their own containers labelled "hot" and placed those into a bag. We made the bus and were on our way to Heathrow.
An hour later the bus arrived at Terminal One, Heathrow. We made the same trek we did a few days ago, in reverse, through the bus terminal, through the subway (apparently that's a British term for tunnel), and through the terminal itself.
We found a checkered cab (because no trip to London is complete without a checkered cab ride) at midnight and he drove us the 10 minutes to the Sheraton Hotel. As we pulled up I was glad my dad traded in whatever bonus points he's built up in his travels for this. I figured it's be nice to live in luxury for our last night. Checked in and in room 3215, we repacked all our stuff so when we get to New York I could just move on to St. Louis without grabbing various souvineers from my dads bags and such.
We lay down to sleep by 1:30, with a 6:30 wakeup call scheduled. We were planning for the next day to be daylight savings time, but apparently in England they don't do it when everyone else does? So suffice it to say we would have an interesting morning, alarms going off at 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30.
I tried to get to sleep but my dad, who's picked up my cold on this trip, was snoring louder than a jet plane taking off. I whacked him a few times with a pillow and he eventually stopped around 2. Sleep.
I checked out of the Residencial (i.e. Gave the maid my key), and put my bags in the car down by the Marcado Municipal. We went down a few side streets to pick up a couple souvineers. Since 50% of the world's cork is from this region, we bought a cork wallet and flask for me and a cork bag for my mom.
We ended up at a pastry shop where I ordered my first incountry Croissant Com Chocolate. It was very good. They cut a regular croissant in half, poured melted chocolate into it, and closed up the sandwich.
We started to say our goodbyes to Lagos, but as we approached the car we saw, on the other side of the canal, in modern Lagos, a really cool looking old flat bottomed boat. So we took a brisk stroll down the prominade along the river, across the footbridge and back along the river to the ship. A good walk but it wasn't worth it. The ship was kinda boring.
We walked back to the car and marveled once again at the dirt that had caked onto it. A horrid sight.
We drove out of Lagos for the last time, and got on the surface road towards Faro. Two days ago I wanted to stop for a few hours in Portimao, and we figured today was a good day to do that.
So we followed the signs to Portimao, and arrived in the town center around 1:30. We parked next to a place called the Gazoline, and walked over a few blocks to a pedestrian street.
Portimao is much larger than Lagos, as it is a huge shipping port. But the center of town feels small, and the pedestrian streets branching off of the large square are a pleasure to walk down.
We made our way to the water, and stopped to eat at a Portuguese/Italian restaurant, Restaurante O Pipo. My dad has been dying to try a Portuguese specialty, Cataplana, a fish stew. Each place that had it only had it for 2 people and I had no interest in eating that. But this place, our last meal in Portugal, had Cataplana for 1. So my dad had that and I got the Spagetti Bolognaise. My food was delicious. My dad was not impressed by the Cataplana.
We walked down to the water after lunch, and enjoyed a brief stroll along the water. On the way back to the car, we true to get into an old church but, from the looks of the decrepit grounds surrounding it, the people of Portimao haven't even gotten inside in a few years.
We did, however, find ourselves on the square again and stumbled into another church, whose doors were open. Beautiful ornate decorations adorned the back wall, complete with Jesus on the cross behind a wall of glass high above. We saw what looked like a reliquary, and we asked what was inside. The guard said it was "Jesus mort," dead Jesus. I was hoping for a real relic instead of a statue, but oh well.
We were leaving Portimao when I spotted on the other side of the road a carwash. Bingo! We turned around at the next roundabout (traffic circles spot Portugal like boils on a Bubonic Plague victim) and pulled into the Autobubbles.
A self-service carwash, 1 euro bought you 2 minutes 12 seconds with the power hose and 2 euro got you 4 minutes and 37 seconds. You could turn the wheel on the hose control spot that would make it spray hot soapy water, cold rinse water, or that finishing spray that makes it all nice and clean for a while.
With the power that that hose emits, a normal person would have his car washed, rinsed, and polished, wheels and all, within 2 euro. It took us 5.5€. There was so much dirt caked onto that car, inside and out (if it can be recalled, Jeff, in all his wisdom, floored the car with one wheel spinning in a mud puddle while his window was open), we had to go over it again and again. My dad had to scrub the inside dashboard with dirty laundry and I had to powerwash the inside of the doors. There were whole rocks (of no modest size, either) stuck in the wheel wells, splatters of mud dried between the sideview mirror and the mount it was on, cakes of crud on the wiper blades, and God-knows-what on the undercarriage. But we saved ourselves what would likely come out to a 50€ detailing charge from Avis.
Car as clean as it could be, we got on the A22 highway to Faro. Having avoided the A22 all trip (we opted for surface roads), we were delighted to find a flawlessly smooth road and virtually no traffic.
Tearing down the Portuguese countryside at 130km/hr, we began to see signs that we were headed in the direction of "FARO/ESPANHA." "Of course!" we said, "Spain is only a couple dozen km on the other side of Faro!" It's only 50km past Faro, to be precise. The next 30 minutes were spent debating the merits of rushing to Spain, zipping across the border, jumping out and back in and coming back. We were just about ready to do it when we realized we needed to fill up gas before we returned the car, and that would push us over the time we had left if we also went to Espanha.
We got off and found gas and the Avis return center with almost no incident. The Avis guy checking the mileage was shocked to see we had driven 375 kilometers in just a few days. Our odometer had gone from 60240km to 60615km.
We arrived at the airport via Avis shuttle at 5:30. My dad tipped the driver, and I chipped in my last euro coin and half euro coin, leaving me with literally .03€ left. When we handed him the tip, my dad attempted to say "Obrigado," Portuguese for thank you. Instead, he looked the man dead in the eye and said "Avogadro," as in 6.22x10^23. Fail.
Our flight was at 7:15. We stood at the back of the check-in line and waited.
At 6:15 we finally reached the front of the line, and we discovered we were already checked in. Apparently we'd done it online. Whoops, we could have skipped the line.
The line for security was nightmarish, but we got through without incident. On the other side of security we walked into a shop labeled "Flavours of Portugal." I picked up two bottles of good port to bring to school, and my dad got a bottle of olive oil. I tipped the girl with my last 3 cents. Out of euros, perfect timing.
We stopped at another store for some cheese on our way to the gate, B53 (I wish we were one gate over, I could have boarded singing Rock Lobster). By the time we left we realized our flight was leaving 20 minutes from then.
We booked it up the escalator, to passport control. As I got my passport stamped I turned to my dad and said "Avogadro." He laughed, then made a conscious effort to say "Obrigado" correctly to the customs agent. "Obigadro" escaped his lips. Win.
We made it to the gate and onto the loading ramp. We waited in line and got on the plane.
EasyJet has no assigned seats. So since we had gotten on almost last, we had little chance of getting adjacent seats. We did find a row of three empty seats in the second to last row and took all three. To keep the middle seat empty, we had a heated argument over nothing while poor unseated passengers tried to find homes for their posteriors. We succeeded in our seat-saving endeavors.
The plane left the gate 3 minutes early, and we were on our way to London. I did some work on the plane, my dad slept. At one point an attendant got on the intercom and started rambling on about Duty-Free shopping.
"We hope you're enjoying your flight to Gatwick so far; at this time I usually like to tell passengers they're going to another location just to get them to look up at me and pay attention, but you all seem like a nice enough group of passengers, so I decided to skip that today. Now, the moment you've been waiting for, the highlight of your weekend, Duty-Free shopping is here!" And on and on. He read us items from the list of things for sale, invoked the "nobody deserves something nice more than you" line, and ranted for 5 minutes.
We landed 20 minutes ahead of time, and the captain began to rant in his "Welcome to London" speech. Some highlights: "Please keep your seatbelts fastened, we may need to stop suddenly or make a sharp turn, and we'd hate to have any of you reach the terminal before us."
"If any of you are mothers or mothers-to-be, I'd like to wish you a happy mothers day. We've all had mothers at one point..."
We got off the plane and after a several kilometer walk (one of the ways EasyJet is so damned cheap is because they take the distant places in the terminal no one wants to go on), we found ourselves at the back of a ridiculous line for passport control. My dad checked ahead and motioned for me to follow. As I walked forward I realized that 200 people were waiting in the UK/EU line and 1 person was in the "Other Nationalities" line. We breezed through. It's good to be American.
We found our way to the bus stop, and my dad ran inside again to buy tickets. He came back after our 10:25 bus had come and gone, giving some crazy story about rejected credit cards.
So we waited for the 10:55. I ran inside to get some dinner for my dad and I. As I was waiting for them to heat it up, the bus came. An anxious few minutes passed while the sluggish cashier took our sandwiches out of the press, cut them, placed them into their own containers labelled "hot" and placed those into a bag. We made the bus and were on our way to Heathrow.
An hour later the bus arrived at Terminal One, Heathrow. We made the same trek we did a few days ago, in reverse, through the bus terminal, through the subway (apparently that's a British term for tunnel), and through the terminal itself.
We found a checkered cab (because no trip to London is complete without a checkered cab ride) at midnight and he drove us the 10 minutes to the Sheraton Hotel. As we pulled up I was glad my dad traded in whatever bonus points he's built up in his travels for this. I figured it's be nice to live in luxury for our last night. Checked in and in room 3215, we repacked all our stuff so when we get to New York I could just move on to St. Louis without grabbing various souvineers from my dads bags and such.
We lay down to sleep by 1:30, with a 6:30 wakeup call scheduled. We were planning for the next day to be daylight savings time, but apparently in England they don't do it when everyone else does? So suffice it to say we would have an interesting morning, alarms going off at 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30.
I tried to get to sleep but my dad, who's picked up my cold on this trip, was snoring louder than a jet plane taking off. I whacked him a few times with a pillow and he eventually stopped around 2. Sleep.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Day 3: Lagos, Vila do Bispo, Carrapateira, Sagres
I woke up for the second time at 11:30, because the maid showed up. She said "desculpe," meaning "excuse me" and "sorry." She then proceeded to say something that implied she'd be back in 2, 12, or 20 minutes. I was out in 2. No reason to get into a tizzy with the small Portuguese woman.
I had the weirdest dream last night. I was in my high school Chinese class, talking with Michelle about how easy the upcoming midterm would be. We all talked about how well we were going to do, and I started to feel a little nervous about it. So I saw a snake on the ground and started to tell a story of something I had seen on Croc Hunter. As part of the demonstration, I picked up the apparently harmless snake, which turned out to be very strong, and fought it. The snake nipped my neck and I dropped it before I stomped the life out of it. Suddenly I was surrounded by kids on my Freshman floor at Wash U. I blew it off like a harmless incident, but they wanted to know if it was poisonous. They rubbed some tape on the snake that I guess measures the toxicity of it's venom. If it was 1 or below, I would die. It was 1.1. We told the guys in hazmat suits to leave, though I'm lost as to why they were there.
I told my dad about this. He said "Wow. That's a real anxiety dream, did you wake up in a cold sweat?" "No," I responded, "I woke up to the damned maid!"
Wandered down to a square where my dad was having a coffee and got myself a Chocolate Quente (hot cocoa).
I stepped away for a few minutes to check out the fish market that was open around the corner. It's been in business for 86 years, and it's not hard to see why. The Marcado Municipal boasted every type of fish. There were prawns, eel, stingrays, fish large and small, octopi, squid, and more. Fantastically disgusting.
Wandering back up the streets, we stopped into our Residencial, to pay for a second night here. Another 30€. It's a beautiful town, and tomorrow we'll go back to Faro to fly home. Today, though, we're doing some area exploring.
We got lost in the backstreets for a while, looking for a place to eat. It's amazing how whenever you get just one block away from the main drag you almost never find tourists.
We ended up at Restaurante A Cascata, where I enjoyed an Omeleta de Fiambre, and my dad had the sardines. Like all the fish in this place, they came as whole fish, which had to be deboned and separated on the spot.
We had a relaxing lunch, full of arguments over some of my dads crazy business schemes. At 2:30 we left and I advocated we get on the road.
Back in the main square, I marvelled at the way there are always dogs running around freely. It's pleasant, mostly because they all have collars and aren't diseased, just let loose.
By a quarter to three we were on the road to Sagres.
By 3 we had picked up two German hitchhikers from Freiburg, near Black Forest. The two women, Evalyn and Lily, were couchsurfing (literally through the website) through Switzerland and Spain and Portugal. They were on their way to Carrapateira, 10km north of Vila do Bispo, while we were headed 8km or so south of there to Sagres.
When we arrived in Vila do Bispo, we figured "hey, we've got nothing to do, let's just take these girls to Carrapateira, it's only 10km."
Using the compass on my iPhone (yea, who'd think that would ever come in handy?!) we followed roads towards the direction of Carrapateira, without any sort of map (we still don't have a map).
We reached the edge of town, and without a second thought began down the only road leading out that way.
We began to wind through the trees and around mountains. Figuring there was no way this was the road we were meant to be on, N268, we figured as long as we were headed in the right direction, why not keep going?
The paved road became dirt. We kept driving. We lost cell service; my dad's cell died altogether, we kept driving.
We dipped into valleys and over mountaintops, using my cell phone as a compass to make sure we were still going north. We picked up service at one point and I got a map up of where we were; it was a windy, sharp-cornered "road" through a national park, the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentinantinantina. Quite a mouthful.
At one point we got out and walked with Evalyn and Lily to the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. I know it's dark but I couldn't help but consider the possibility that, were we killers, this was the perfect spot. As of then, we had not exchanged names, no one saw us pick them up, we were in the middle of nowhere on a road no one travels on, in a rented car with no distinguishing marks on it, in a place with no cell service. The perfect crime. But I digress.
Winding our way along the road, we forged a stream, bottomed out left and right and stalled a few times in precarious places. But the real fun began after we got off that crazy trail.
We went left at the end of the trail, knowing it just jutted out to the sea. When we got to the end we kept walking to the edge and got a breathtaking view of the ocean. On our drive back, however, we came to a fork in the road. We went right. And we went right into a puddle, stuck in the mud.
It was quite a scene, watching my dad floor the car in a puddle, tossing water everywhere, even onto the car itself, with the window open. We tried shoving wood planks we found under the wheels to give them traction, we tried pushing the car, to no avail for about half an hour.
Evalyn noticed at one point a car driving down the left side of the fork we had passed. She and Lily sprinted after the car and managed to catch up to it.
My dad was ready to call the Avis emergency line when we saw the truck the girls had gotten come into view. It turned around and backed towards us.
The man in the truck managed to figure out our little Fiat's trailer hitch mechanism in a few minutes, and before long had a rope tied between our car and his truck, and he pulled our car right out of the mud, through some thickets (because we were too far on the right side of the road), and to safety.
We thanked him heartily, and my dad gave him 50€. He didn't want to accept it at first but my dad wouldn't take it back.
We were back on the road, went down the left side of the fork this time, and hit N268 before long. A few minutes more and we were in Carrapateira.
Evalyn and Lily left, and I think after what we went through, they were happy to get out of our car.
We left them in Carrapateira immediately, around 5, and went south towards Sagres. What took 2 hours to travel took less than 30 minutes this time. We were in Sagres by 5:30.
The southwesternmost town in Portugal and Europe, Sagres is quite nice. We guesstimated our way to the peninsula. First we came upon the northern peninsula, which boasts a very impressive old fort. But we wanted the other one.
Before we went to the other, I hopped in the drivers seat. Although i've had some practice with stick shift in the past, I had never mastered it. So I practiced. Did pretty well, and now I get to say I learned a manual farther southwest than perhaps any European in Europe has.
We climbed onto the real peninsula. At the edge we found a cropping of rocks below us. I climbed down while my dad stayed above. I climbed out to the very tip. I was, for several minutes, the closest person in Europe to South America... The southwesternmost person in existence in Europe. Kinda cool. We drove back to Lagos, stopping along the way for a ceramics warehouse we passed (for the second time today), next to the Good Feelings Hostel, which caught our eye. We picked up a few souvineers.
At 7:30 we were back and parked in Lagos. Our car covered in dirt and mud inside and out, we felt proud of our stupidity.
We walked to a pastry place in some back alley and got some weirdly delicious almond pastry thing, and my dad got a coffee.
At 8:15 we found ourselves back in our room for a quick siesta.
At 9:15 I woke my dad up. We needed dinner, afterall, and we had to go out tonight.
At 10 to 10 my dad and I walked into a restaurant closing at 10. The Restaurante A Forja served us the best meal we've had so far. We had found it in some back alley of Lagos. There was no English menu on display outside, the workers inside it spoke no English, and we had to communicate using our limited Portuguese, basterdized Spanish, and their extremely limited English. I had the steak (because they were out of veal), and my dad got the chicken. Superb cooking and quick service meant a great time. We left at 11.
We headed straight to the bars. Walked first into a place labelled as having the "Best Mojito in Town!" I had one, of course. It was very good, but I've made better mojitos in my dorm room. My dad had a port (surprise surprise). I had a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream and we moved on to the next bar.
We stopped off at Eddie's next. I got a big glass of southern comfort. Jeff had another port. Tamlin was there, ready to serve. When I was ready for another drink, I ordered up a White Russian for my dad and I. Tamlin said he didn't usually make the cocktails, but he tried his hand at it. They turned out more like Black Russians. And they weren't very good at all. We mentioned this to him. He tasted both and agreed. He apologized. Apparantly they don't have that on their menu, he had to run to another bar to get the cream... Yea... Bad. We didn't even finish them. So we went to Bom Vivant, another bar. Few games of pinball and we were out.
Next up was ZanziBar, where I was dying for a white Russian. So I got one. My dad had another port. The White Russian was delicious, but I cut out before my dad finished his port to move on.
Headed to Eddie's again. Got myself a glass of Jameson to sip until my dad showed up. Talked a bit with Tamlin. He offered me a free shot of Jägermeister, which of course I took. He took a fancy to some pretty Portuguese girls that were walking by. I guess Lagos the city wasn't the only reason he moved here; the girls are a draw as well.
Speaking of girls, two cute girls walked into the bar with a few friends and one came right next to me. She was so drunk she was rythymicly bumping into me as she swayed from side to side. They took her outside to puke or something.
I had a long island ice tea before heading out to find my dad. He was still at ZanziBar, nursing his port and answering business emails. According to him: "I didn't want to disturb you!" BS. He didn't want to leave his business.
Side note on port: Port in the states; at least, the same quality port in the states, would cos about $15 per little glass. We're picking up a glass for 1.5€. It's good to be in the only country in the world where port is made.
So I dragged my dad back to Eddie's and we sat at the bar. I leaned forwar to Tamlin and asked "Do you think I can mix my own Tequila Sunrise?" He motioned for me to get behind the bar. I went around the bar and he pointed out the ice, the OJ, and I already knew where the tequila and grenadine were. I mixed my best Sunrise yet; Tamlin had a sip himself and said it was "damned good."
When we were ready to leave, I told Tamlin and we said our goodbyes. I tried to pay for the Tequila Sunrise I had just made, but he wouldn't let me. Just told me "Alright mate, good to meet ya, come see us again if you're ever in Lagos."
It was 2am and we were back at the room. We were asleep by 2:30.
I had the weirdest dream last night. I was in my high school Chinese class, talking with Michelle about how easy the upcoming midterm would be. We all talked about how well we were going to do, and I started to feel a little nervous about it. So I saw a snake on the ground and started to tell a story of something I had seen on Croc Hunter. As part of the demonstration, I picked up the apparently harmless snake, which turned out to be very strong, and fought it. The snake nipped my neck and I dropped it before I stomped the life out of it. Suddenly I was surrounded by kids on my Freshman floor at Wash U. I blew it off like a harmless incident, but they wanted to know if it was poisonous. They rubbed some tape on the snake that I guess measures the toxicity of it's venom. If it was 1 or below, I would die. It was 1.1. We told the guys in hazmat suits to leave, though I'm lost as to why they were there.
I told my dad about this. He said "Wow. That's a real anxiety dream, did you wake up in a cold sweat?" "No," I responded, "I woke up to the damned maid!"
Wandered down to a square where my dad was having a coffee and got myself a Chocolate Quente (hot cocoa).
I stepped away for a few minutes to check out the fish market that was open around the corner. It's been in business for 86 years, and it's not hard to see why. The Marcado Municipal boasted every type of fish. There were prawns, eel, stingrays, fish large and small, octopi, squid, and more. Fantastically disgusting.
Wandering back up the streets, we stopped into our Residencial, to pay for a second night here. Another 30€. It's a beautiful town, and tomorrow we'll go back to Faro to fly home. Today, though, we're doing some area exploring.
We got lost in the backstreets for a while, looking for a place to eat. It's amazing how whenever you get just one block away from the main drag you almost never find tourists.
We ended up at Restaurante A Cascata, where I enjoyed an Omeleta de Fiambre, and my dad had the sardines. Like all the fish in this place, they came as whole fish, which had to be deboned and separated on the spot.
We had a relaxing lunch, full of arguments over some of my dads crazy business schemes. At 2:30 we left and I advocated we get on the road.
Back in the main square, I marvelled at the way there are always dogs running around freely. It's pleasant, mostly because they all have collars and aren't diseased, just let loose.
By a quarter to three we were on the road to Sagres.
By 3 we had picked up two German hitchhikers from Freiburg, near Black Forest. The two women, Evalyn and Lily, were couchsurfing (literally through the website) through Switzerland and Spain and Portugal. They were on their way to Carrapateira, 10km north of Vila do Bispo, while we were headed 8km or so south of there to Sagres.
When we arrived in Vila do Bispo, we figured "hey, we've got nothing to do, let's just take these girls to Carrapateira, it's only 10km."
Using the compass on my iPhone (yea, who'd think that would ever come in handy?!) we followed roads towards the direction of Carrapateira, without any sort of map (we still don't have a map).
We reached the edge of town, and without a second thought began down the only road leading out that way.
We began to wind through the trees and around mountains. Figuring there was no way this was the road we were meant to be on, N268, we figured as long as we were headed in the right direction, why not keep going?
The paved road became dirt. We kept driving. We lost cell service; my dad's cell died altogether, we kept driving.
We dipped into valleys and over mountaintops, using my cell phone as a compass to make sure we were still going north. We picked up service at one point and I got a map up of where we were; it was a windy, sharp-cornered "road" through a national park, the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentinantinantina. Quite a mouthful.
At one point we got out and walked with Evalyn and Lily to the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. I know it's dark but I couldn't help but consider the possibility that, were we killers, this was the perfect spot. As of then, we had not exchanged names, no one saw us pick them up, we were in the middle of nowhere on a road no one travels on, in a rented car with no distinguishing marks on it, in a place with no cell service. The perfect crime. But I digress.
Winding our way along the road, we forged a stream, bottomed out left and right and stalled a few times in precarious places. But the real fun began after we got off that crazy trail.
We went left at the end of the trail, knowing it just jutted out to the sea. When we got to the end we kept walking to the edge and got a breathtaking view of the ocean. On our drive back, however, we came to a fork in the road. We went right. And we went right into a puddle, stuck in the mud.
It was quite a scene, watching my dad floor the car in a puddle, tossing water everywhere, even onto the car itself, with the window open. We tried shoving wood planks we found under the wheels to give them traction, we tried pushing the car, to no avail for about half an hour.
Evalyn noticed at one point a car driving down the left side of the fork we had passed. She and Lily sprinted after the car and managed to catch up to it.
My dad was ready to call the Avis emergency line when we saw the truck the girls had gotten come into view. It turned around and backed towards us.
The man in the truck managed to figure out our little Fiat's trailer hitch mechanism in a few minutes, and before long had a rope tied between our car and his truck, and he pulled our car right out of the mud, through some thickets (because we were too far on the right side of the road), and to safety.
We thanked him heartily, and my dad gave him 50€. He didn't want to accept it at first but my dad wouldn't take it back.
We were back on the road, went down the left side of the fork this time, and hit N268 before long. A few minutes more and we were in Carrapateira.
Evalyn and Lily left, and I think after what we went through, they were happy to get out of our car.
We left them in Carrapateira immediately, around 5, and went south towards Sagres. What took 2 hours to travel took less than 30 minutes this time. We were in Sagres by 5:30.
The southwesternmost town in Portugal and Europe, Sagres is quite nice. We guesstimated our way to the peninsula. First we came upon the northern peninsula, which boasts a very impressive old fort. But we wanted the other one.
Before we went to the other, I hopped in the drivers seat. Although i've had some practice with stick shift in the past, I had never mastered it. So I practiced. Did pretty well, and now I get to say I learned a manual farther southwest than perhaps any European in Europe has.
We climbed onto the real peninsula. At the edge we found a cropping of rocks below us. I climbed down while my dad stayed above. I climbed out to the very tip. I was, for several minutes, the closest person in Europe to South America... The southwesternmost person in existence in Europe. Kinda cool. We drove back to Lagos, stopping along the way for a ceramics warehouse we passed (for the second time today), next to the Good Feelings Hostel, which caught our eye. We picked up a few souvineers.
At 7:30 we were back and parked in Lagos. Our car covered in dirt and mud inside and out, we felt proud of our stupidity.
We walked to a pastry place in some back alley and got some weirdly delicious almond pastry thing, and my dad got a coffee.
At 8:15 we found ourselves back in our room for a quick siesta.
At 9:15 I woke my dad up. We needed dinner, afterall, and we had to go out tonight.
At 10 to 10 my dad and I walked into a restaurant closing at 10. The Restaurante A Forja served us the best meal we've had so far. We had found it in some back alley of Lagos. There was no English menu on display outside, the workers inside it spoke no English, and we had to communicate using our limited Portuguese, basterdized Spanish, and their extremely limited English. I had the steak (because they were out of veal), and my dad got the chicken. Superb cooking and quick service meant a great time. We left at 11.
We headed straight to the bars. Walked first into a place labelled as having the "Best Mojito in Town!" I had one, of course. It was very good, but I've made better mojitos in my dorm room. My dad had a port (surprise surprise). I had a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream and we moved on to the next bar.
We stopped off at Eddie's next. I got a big glass of southern comfort. Jeff had another port. Tamlin was there, ready to serve. When I was ready for another drink, I ordered up a White Russian for my dad and I. Tamlin said he didn't usually make the cocktails, but he tried his hand at it. They turned out more like Black Russians. And they weren't very good at all. We mentioned this to him. He tasted both and agreed. He apologized. Apparantly they don't have that on their menu, he had to run to another bar to get the cream... Yea... Bad. We didn't even finish them. So we went to Bom Vivant, another bar. Few games of pinball and we were out.
Next up was ZanziBar, where I was dying for a white Russian. So I got one. My dad had another port. The White Russian was delicious, but I cut out before my dad finished his port to move on.
Headed to Eddie's again. Got myself a glass of Jameson to sip until my dad showed up. Talked a bit with Tamlin. He offered me a free shot of Jägermeister, which of course I took. He took a fancy to some pretty Portuguese girls that were walking by. I guess Lagos the city wasn't the only reason he moved here; the girls are a draw as well.
Speaking of girls, two cute girls walked into the bar with a few friends and one came right next to me. She was so drunk she was rythymicly bumping into me as she swayed from side to side. They took her outside to puke or something.
I had a long island ice tea before heading out to find my dad. He was still at ZanziBar, nursing his port and answering business emails. According to him: "I didn't want to disturb you!" BS. He didn't want to leave his business.
Side note on port: Port in the states; at least, the same quality port in the states, would cos about $15 per little glass. We're picking up a glass for 1.5€. It's good to be in the only country in the world where port is made.
So I dragged my dad back to Eddie's and we sat at the bar. I leaned forwar to Tamlin and asked "Do you think I can mix my own Tequila Sunrise?" He motioned for me to get behind the bar. I went around the bar and he pointed out the ice, the OJ, and I already knew where the tequila and grenadine were. I mixed my best Sunrise yet; Tamlin had a sip himself and said it was "damned good."
When we were ready to leave, I told Tamlin and we said our goodbyes. I tried to pay for the Tequila Sunrise I had just made, but he wouldn't let me. Just told me "Alright mate, good to meet ya, come see us again if you're ever in Lagos."
It was 2am and we were back at the room. We were asleep by 2:30.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Day 2: Faro, Quarteira, Vilamoura, Albufeira, Lagos
I woke up at 10:03. Why so early? My dad apparently has an alarm set for 5:03am on his phone in the states, and since we're on a five hour time shift here.........
I got up and looked out the window. The view is incredible during the day.
After the morning packing, we found ourselves at a little cafe, cafe buondi, on the praca, and I buried my nose in a phrasebook to figure out how to order a hot chocolate.
You'd think it would be easy to pronounce: Um chocolate quente. In Spanish world, it would be. But when you have to say oong chocolate kaynt.... Basically, between my dad and I we can read all the signs, and can't pronounce any of them.
So we watched the world go by. Tourists on buses, a street band banging away at nothing, and the occasional plane flying overhead and ruining the moment.
At noon a few drops of rain fell, so we left the cafe. A pastry, two cups of coffee and a hot chocolate was 6,80€. not bad, eh? We checked out of the hotel and put our stuff in the car.
Wandering down the street, we found ourselves in a supermarket. We picked up two 1.5L bottles of water, a litre of fanta, a bar of chocolate and some local olive oil, and only paid 5,07€. We're on a serious budget until we decide to actually get money from a bank; until then we're living on the euros I managed to find in my room before I left.
My dad decided he needed to walk into a store that only sells socks. Apparently shoes are to women what socks are to my dad. Fortunately, he didn't buy.
This entire town is tiled, from the streets to the stairs to the walls of the buildings. Probably one of the last remaining vestiges of either moorish or spanish armada-era influence, it makes for a beautiful walk through town. Ornate tiling winds and twists its way through pedestrian streets in intricate ways.
Apparently 50% of the worlds cork comes from a few miles north of here, and we found a shop that sold cork bracelets, cork handbags, cork hats and cork umbrellas. It was very beautiful, but we were wary of a material we'd never seen used for something other than wine stoppage, and didn't buy.
We spent an hour walking along the wall of the old fortress city, between that and the water, and then up through the old city. We walked briefly into an old convent, which was built in the ancient Faro Jewish quarter. Wherever I go there seems to be a Jewish quarter this, a Jewish quarter that. I guess we have been on the run for so long we were bound to end up everywhere at some point.
We wound our way back to the car, and started our trip west along the coast. Driving through Vila-lined hills, we found our way to the small town of Quarteira, a small rundown area right on the water. Apparently Madonna spends some time in a fancy schmancy mansion down the road, but who needs that when you're on the Atlantic that is as calm as the Mediterranean.
We didn't have time to stay in Quarteira, as we wanted to be elsewhere by nightfall, so at 3:30 we once again got in the car to drive through Vilamoura, the resort that Madonna stays in near Quarteira, on our way to Albufeira, an old Moorish town-turned-touristed.
In Vilamoura, we stumbled on some old Roman ruins. At the height of the Roman Empire, between the first and fifth centuries, Portugal had been integrated. These ruins were a spa complex, with a private villa section for wealthier guests and larger pools on the outskirts for the general public. We got to just walk all around the ruins, figuring out what each place was for. It's amazing how the Romans had mastered the art of water movement, heat transfer, and plumbing. It reminded me of Pompeii. One interesting note; what was marked as a bedroom was apparently considered small for the time... My dorm room is smaller. Oh, how the rich then lived.
At 4:30 we left the ruins and headed to the beach. I beat my dad in a race to the Atlantic (not hard to do) and was the first to get a piece of it. I even swallowed a bit... The beaches here at Vilamoura are beautiful. The sand is so soft, and farther down the beach the sand and the water meet with bright red sandstone cliffs. It's a gorgeous thing.
By 5 we were leaving Vilamoura, on our way to Albufeira. It was only a fifteen or so minute drive.
The most touristy place we've seen so far, Albufeira is a villa-ridden, restaurant-infested town on a hill, rolling into the Atlantic. We parked just before the pedestrian-only street and couldn't walk three meters without having to stop in a liquer shop.
I picked out a little flask of Jameson Irish Whiskey for only 5€, and my dad got 5 Montecristo cigars in a box for us to share. We stepped outside and lit up 2 of the cigars for our walk through Albufeira. Only hassled by 3 or so street vendors before we got to the beach, they were excellent cigars. We sat by the water on a wall overlooking the beach, between two bluffs topped with villas.
As my dad made a sweeping generalization, assuming that perhaps the street cleaner was the last in a 1000-year blood line that owned a rotting gutted villa just above where we were, that very street cleaner walked up to us and asked us - motioned for us - to move our feet. Inevitably we struck up a conversation. It turns out this man is from Ukraine, and he wanted to compliment our cigars. He spoke little to no Portuguese, and that's as far as we got with him. My dad tried asking in Portuguese where in Ukraine he lived. He just told us that Ukraine was "that way." when pressed for where, he responded "5000km that way." language barrier can be a bitch.
Being from the US we think of immigrants as Hispanic, originating from Mexico or south thereof. Perhaps Ukraine is Portugal's Hispanics in America?
Several dozen raindrops began to fall. We started a waltz back to the car. As we retraced our steps, there were no more hasslers, no more people wandering. The shop owners were closing up their outdoor displays; the rain scared them away.
We squeezed out of our parking spot and were on our way, again. As the sun set around 7, we were still on our way to Lagos, which we had semi-decided would be the end of the line today. We were winding through back roads, past a lot of construction. We found ourselves playing England involuntarily; that is, the right side of the road, having recently been under construction, was rough and bumpy. So we drove on the left side of the road, only returning to our side when another car came along. It was a hybrid between the Hungarian Chicken Dance and the Shanghai Tango, (ask me about that if you want more...) and was rightfully frightening. We did end up finding Lagos, much to our surprise, as we were seriously in need of a map we didn't have. We passed Portimao on the way, a city we may go back to tomorrow.
As we drove along the edge of Lagos, we passed the walls of the old fort. Needing/wanting to see the interior of said walls, we drove up the hill the city was built on and proceeded to drive inside the first gate we could find. That could not have been more of a mistake.
Winding roads, sharp corners, and narrow berths are only three under-exaggerations I can fathom to describe this hell hole of a drive. We were driving down roads at a 60 degree down angle, leaning back in the car to take weight off the front in a futile attempt to stop bottoming out. We were backing down one way streets, zipping between cars, and desperately trying to find our way out. I've been to Sienna, Italy, and that was supposed to be hard to navigate; that's a childs game compared to Lagos.
As we made our third trip up R. Prof. Luis de Azevedo to the top of the hill, looking for our way out the bottom, we attempted each new turn we hadn't made previously. By some glorious act of God, we found our way out of the walls. Promptly parking, we got out to wander the old quarter we had slaved to escape a minute before.
On foot, the town of Lagos is quite quaint. We meandered up a street, looking for a place to stay the night. I suggested a church floor (fairly certain it's in church scripture that those without shelter are welcome in church), and was serious, but my dad turned it down. We stumbled onto the Caravel, a government-subsidized cheap minimist hotel. For 15€ apiece (I was tempted to argue down the price even more) we got two beds, a shower and a sink (in the same room), and a bathroom down the hall. Perfect.
We ran outside to find a place to eat. My dad had had breakfast but I had yet to eat today. While searching we met Andreas, a man visiting from Norway to sell his grandfathers house for the old man. He was surprised we are American; apparently most English speakers here are British. We invited him to eat but he declined.
We passed by the touristy places, empty on this off-season night, to a place with locals, the O Cantinho Do Mar, Adega Grill, where we devoured a fantastic meal. I had a Portuguese version of lasagna, followed by some lamb chops, while my dad ordered the whitefish dish. We both had a local beer.
After dinner we stopped at a gelateria for a nightcap. I had a glass of fine port and my dad had a decaf espresso.
We took a quick break by the room before dropping by a local pub, the ZanziBar. My dad ended up having two glasses of port, while I had two shots-worth of Jameson Irish Whiskey, 5 shots-worth of long island ice yea, and a white Russian.
We got bored of the ZanziBar and left. We wandered around the streets for a while and stumbled into Eddie's, an Australian owned bar. I downed a glass of Irish Cider while my dad had another glass of port.
At 2:04 I ordered another drink, but the bar apparently closed at 2. The bartender told me "mate, you can have it if you drink it fast." so I got 2 shots or so of Bailey's Irish Cream in a glass and downed it. My dad had another glass of port.
I got back from the bathroom while my dad had started talking with one of the two barkeeps, Tomlin. Australian born, he had come here in '94 and caught the "Lagos bug." His colleague had done the same in '96. They just loved it here.
We started talking American history. Tomlin is very keen on American history because, as he said and I put more succinctly, "if you want to learn European history, just look at American history. In 1/10 the time it's covered the entire span of the European timeline."
As we walked out we introduced ourselves. Jeff and Marshall. Tomlin commented as we left, "Fuck man, you sound like American Presidents." needless to say if we're here tomorrow we're going back to Eddie's.
We left the bar at 2:15 and were in the room by 2:30. To bed.
I got up and looked out the window. The view is incredible during the day.
After the morning packing, we found ourselves at a little cafe, cafe buondi, on the praca, and I buried my nose in a phrasebook to figure out how to order a hot chocolate.
You'd think it would be easy to pronounce: Um chocolate quente. In Spanish world, it would be. But when you have to say oong chocolate kaynt.... Basically, between my dad and I we can read all the signs, and can't pronounce any of them.
So we watched the world go by. Tourists on buses, a street band banging away at nothing, and the occasional plane flying overhead and ruining the moment.
At noon a few drops of rain fell, so we left the cafe. A pastry, two cups of coffee and a hot chocolate was 6,80€. not bad, eh? We checked out of the hotel and put our stuff in the car.
Wandering down the street, we found ourselves in a supermarket. We picked up two 1.5L bottles of water, a litre of fanta, a bar of chocolate and some local olive oil, and only paid 5,07€. We're on a serious budget until we decide to actually get money from a bank; until then we're living on the euros I managed to find in my room before I left.
My dad decided he needed to walk into a store that only sells socks. Apparently shoes are to women what socks are to my dad. Fortunately, he didn't buy.
This entire town is tiled, from the streets to the stairs to the walls of the buildings. Probably one of the last remaining vestiges of either moorish or spanish armada-era influence, it makes for a beautiful walk through town. Ornate tiling winds and twists its way through pedestrian streets in intricate ways.
Apparently 50% of the worlds cork comes from a few miles north of here, and we found a shop that sold cork bracelets, cork handbags, cork hats and cork umbrellas. It was very beautiful, but we were wary of a material we'd never seen used for something other than wine stoppage, and didn't buy.
We spent an hour walking along the wall of the old fortress city, between that and the water, and then up through the old city. We walked briefly into an old convent, which was built in the ancient Faro Jewish quarter. Wherever I go there seems to be a Jewish quarter this, a Jewish quarter that. I guess we have been on the run for so long we were bound to end up everywhere at some point.
We wound our way back to the car, and started our trip west along the coast. Driving through Vila-lined hills, we found our way to the small town of Quarteira, a small rundown area right on the water. Apparently Madonna spends some time in a fancy schmancy mansion down the road, but who needs that when you're on the Atlantic that is as calm as the Mediterranean.
We didn't have time to stay in Quarteira, as we wanted to be elsewhere by nightfall, so at 3:30 we once again got in the car to drive through Vilamoura, the resort that Madonna stays in near Quarteira, on our way to Albufeira, an old Moorish town-turned-touristed.
In Vilamoura, we stumbled on some old Roman ruins. At the height of the Roman Empire, between the first and fifth centuries, Portugal had been integrated. These ruins were a spa complex, with a private villa section for wealthier guests and larger pools on the outskirts for the general public. We got to just walk all around the ruins, figuring out what each place was for. It's amazing how the Romans had mastered the art of water movement, heat transfer, and plumbing. It reminded me of Pompeii. One interesting note; what was marked as a bedroom was apparently considered small for the time... My dorm room is smaller. Oh, how the rich then lived.
At 4:30 we left the ruins and headed to the beach. I beat my dad in a race to the Atlantic (not hard to do) and was the first to get a piece of it. I even swallowed a bit... The beaches here at Vilamoura are beautiful. The sand is so soft, and farther down the beach the sand and the water meet with bright red sandstone cliffs. It's a gorgeous thing.
By 5 we were leaving Vilamoura, on our way to Albufeira. It was only a fifteen or so minute drive.
The most touristy place we've seen so far, Albufeira is a villa-ridden, restaurant-infested town on a hill, rolling into the Atlantic. We parked just before the pedestrian-only street and couldn't walk three meters without having to stop in a liquer shop.
I picked out a little flask of Jameson Irish Whiskey for only 5€, and my dad got 5 Montecristo cigars in a box for us to share. We stepped outside and lit up 2 of the cigars for our walk through Albufeira. Only hassled by 3 or so street vendors before we got to the beach, they were excellent cigars. We sat by the water on a wall overlooking the beach, between two bluffs topped with villas.
As my dad made a sweeping generalization, assuming that perhaps the street cleaner was the last in a 1000-year blood line that owned a rotting gutted villa just above where we were, that very street cleaner walked up to us and asked us - motioned for us - to move our feet. Inevitably we struck up a conversation. It turns out this man is from Ukraine, and he wanted to compliment our cigars. He spoke little to no Portuguese, and that's as far as we got with him. My dad tried asking in Portuguese where in Ukraine he lived. He just told us that Ukraine was "that way." when pressed for where, he responded "5000km that way." language barrier can be a bitch.
Being from the US we think of immigrants as Hispanic, originating from Mexico or south thereof. Perhaps Ukraine is Portugal's Hispanics in America?
Several dozen raindrops began to fall. We started a waltz back to the car. As we retraced our steps, there were no more hasslers, no more people wandering. The shop owners were closing up their outdoor displays; the rain scared them away.
We squeezed out of our parking spot and were on our way, again. As the sun set around 7, we were still on our way to Lagos, which we had semi-decided would be the end of the line today. We were winding through back roads, past a lot of construction. We found ourselves playing England involuntarily; that is, the right side of the road, having recently been under construction, was rough and bumpy. So we drove on the left side of the road, only returning to our side when another car came along. It was a hybrid between the Hungarian Chicken Dance and the Shanghai Tango, (ask me about that if you want more...) and was rightfully frightening. We did end up finding Lagos, much to our surprise, as we were seriously in need of a map we didn't have. We passed Portimao on the way, a city we may go back to tomorrow.
As we drove along the edge of Lagos, we passed the walls of the old fort. Needing/wanting to see the interior of said walls, we drove up the hill the city was built on and proceeded to drive inside the first gate we could find. That could not have been more of a mistake.
Winding roads, sharp corners, and narrow berths are only three under-exaggerations I can fathom to describe this hell hole of a drive. We were driving down roads at a 60 degree down angle, leaning back in the car to take weight off the front in a futile attempt to stop bottoming out. We were backing down one way streets, zipping between cars, and desperately trying to find our way out. I've been to Sienna, Italy, and that was supposed to be hard to navigate; that's a childs game compared to Lagos.
As we made our third trip up R. Prof. Luis de Azevedo to the top of the hill, looking for our way out the bottom, we attempted each new turn we hadn't made previously. By some glorious act of God, we found our way out of the walls. Promptly parking, we got out to wander the old quarter we had slaved to escape a minute before.
On foot, the town of Lagos is quite quaint. We meandered up a street, looking for a place to stay the night. I suggested a church floor (fairly certain it's in church scripture that those without shelter are welcome in church), and was serious, but my dad turned it down. We stumbled onto the Caravel, a government-subsidized cheap minimist hotel. For 15€ apiece (I was tempted to argue down the price even more) we got two beds, a shower and a sink (in the same room), and a bathroom down the hall. Perfect.
We ran outside to find a place to eat. My dad had had breakfast but I had yet to eat today. While searching we met Andreas, a man visiting from Norway to sell his grandfathers house for the old man. He was surprised we are American; apparently most English speakers here are British. We invited him to eat but he declined.
We passed by the touristy places, empty on this off-season night, to a place with locals, the O Cantinho Do Mar, Adega Grill, where we devoured a fantastic meal. I had a Portuguese version of lasagna, followed by some lamb chops, while my dad ordered the whitefish dish. We both had a local beer.
After dinner we stopped at a gelateria for a nightcap. I had a glass of fine port and my dad had a decaf espresso.
We took a quick break by the room before dropping by a local pub, the ZanziBar. My dad ended up having two glasses of port, while I had two shots-worth of Jameson Irish Whiskey, 5 shots-worth of long island ice yea, and a white Russian.
We got bored of the ZanziBar and left. We wandered around the streets for a while and stumbled into Eddie's, an Australian owned bar. I downed a glass of Irish Cider while my dad had another glass of port.
At 2:04 I ordered another drink, but the bar apparently closed at 2. The bartender told me "mate, you can have it if you drink it fast." so I got 2 shots or so of Bailey's Irish Cream in a glass and downed it. My dad had another glass of port.
I got back from the bathroom while my dad had started talking with one of the two barkeeps, Tomlin. Australian born, he had come here in '94 and caught the "Lagos bug." His colleague had done the same in '96. They just loved it here.
We started talking American history. Tomlin is very keen on American history because, as he said and I put more succinctly, "if you want to learn European history, just look at American history. In 1/10 the time it's covered the entire span of the European timeline."
As we walked out we introduced ourselves. Jeff and Marshall. Tomlin commented as we left, "Fuck man, you sound like American Presidents." needless to say if we're here tomorrow we're going back to Eddie's.
We left the bar at 2:15 and were in the room by 2:30. To bed.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Day 1: Where are you headed?
Leaving for the airport at 3pm, I was the first to begin my travels. My father was handling some business in Tarrytown, or Sleepy Hollow, New York. I fell asleep, awaking upon our arrival in Tarrytown. My father joined us, and we were on our way to _______.
**_______ (pronounced mmm), is where we were headed, via London. We had no idea, because we hadn't decided yet.
**Four criteria were going to help guide our decision in final destination, and as many of these (listed below) as possible were to be satisfied, in order of the priority indicated:
**1) It had to be a place we've never been. Due to the sheer number of EasyJet choices at London's Gatwick airport, this didn't seem like it would be difficult, despite my father and I being fairly well traveled.
**2) We had to go to a country we had never been to. Slightly more difficult, as my father and I have seen over 20 European countries between us. But exploring a new culture is important, and a new country was a must.
**3) This place had to sound interesting. 'Nuff said.
**4) Neither of us could speak the language, if possible, of our final destination.
I awoke as we pulled into JFK airport. We took our bags (we packed carry-ons only) to check-in, where we were informed that 6kg was the limit for carry-on bags. My dad weighed his: 14kg. I weighed mine, 10kg. My dad was forced to check his bag. I, thinking ahead, had brought an empty backpack rolled inside my luggage, and proceeded to take it out and split my luggage in half, so I could still carry on. So we went towards security with what was now 2 carry-ons.
A voice came over the intercom, telling us about last call on a plane to London leaving 2.5 hours before ours. We began to sprint to the gate (perhaps we could be ahead of schedule!), only to realize we had a bag checked for a later flight we'd have to wait for anyway. There went that plan.
Time was killed outside the gate, the sudden onset of English accents everywhere was quite welcome, and at 7:15 we began to board Virgin Atlantic flight 46 with service to London Heathrow, departing at 7:45. Final destination; unknown.
After watching 2012, a bad movie made worse by featuring many a plane crash inflight, I desired something good to watch, so I flipped on Inglourious Basterds. Fantastic choice, but that meant I got no sleep the rest of the flight.
Landed and deplaned, we rushed ahead of everyone else to be as close to the first as possible to passport control, hearing it would be slow due to an apparant strike. Our fears were dashed, however, when we arrived to find about 10 people in front of us.
When it came to be my turn, the officer called me forward. She took my passport and the card I had filled out en route, and asked "How many days are you in the UK for?"
"None, we're just passing through."
"We?"
"My dad and I" I pointed to my dad, standing at the next counter.
"Where are you headed?"
"Not sure yet." silence.
"Well where are you flying?"
"Don't know. We're just going to easyjet and flying someplace new."
Enjoying the similar conversation to my right, my dad's officer and mine exchanged glances. She remarked "Id never be able to do that," turned to me to clarify, "But you are leaving the UK today?"
"Yes" and we were let go.
The information woman at the bus/train station, when we arrived, looked up the next bus to Gatwick airport. It was necessary to leave Heathrow as EasyJet flies the most flights out of Gatwick. Our next bus was at 9, in just a few minutes. The machine for a ticket didn't accept any card, so we went to the ticket desk. "Gatwick north or south?" the ticket lady asked us.
"Which one does EasyJet fly out of?"
"Both."
"We'll shoot for south, I guess." My dad bought a ticket while i ran to the bus to hold it up. We ended up boarding at 8:59. Saved ourselves the 40 min. till the next one.
A little under an hour later, we arrived at Gatwick South Terminal. We walked straight to the EasyJet information counter and inquired of the woman working the desk, Stephanie, where EasyJet was flying that day with open seats. She didn't seem to find that weird; just that morning she'd already sent a couple to Madrid out of the blue.
The moment of truth had arrived: where would we end up for 3 days?
Stephanie began to list possibilities. Budapest, Barcelona, Rome, Inverness. Those were no good, they violated criteria One, our most important; someplace neither of us had ever been.
Porto. "No wait," she said, "Porto just booked up." there went that idea. "Or Cyprus," Stephanie suggested. My dad and I jumped on the idea. But the flight was 4 hours or so and it'd be too much of a hassle.
It came down to 5 choices. Tariffe, Las Palmas (both Spanish isles off the coast of Morocco), Copenhagen, Helsinki, or Faro, on the southern coast of Portugal. Narrowing it down, we decided Helsinki was too cold; and besides, there wasn't a good flight back. Las Palmas and Tarieffe, while great ideas, violated our second and forth criteria; going to a country we've never been (they're both technically Spain) and speaking a language we don't speak.
Down to Copenhagen and Faro, my dad and I went to one of the airport cafes and got something to drink. We discussed pros and cons.
In the end, Faro won out. We found that the flights were cheaper, it fit all four criteria we had set out to satisfy, the return flight was convenient, and the weather was supposed to be good. On the other hand, Copenhagen had a really early flight back our last day, which would effectively make us lose a day there, it is a place I'll definitely end up in again, it was too cold and the tickets cost far more. So we booked our flight to Faro. And let the record show, that even as I write this at 1am before nodding off at the end of our exhausting first day, I still don't know what this place is, exactly.
The next few hours were spent at a restaurant in Gatwick North, which we went to by bus for our flight out. I took a nap on a couch there and enjoyed a delicious pint of Beck's Vier on tap.
We couldn't check in until 2:45 for our 5:15 flight, so we patiently waited. When the time came, we got our tickets and headed towards the gates. We wouldn't know exactly which gate until 4:25... Which eventually passed, and we headed straight to gate 102. Boarded our flight, got good seats, and I slept on and off the whole way down for the 2:20 flight.
Stepping off the plane didn't feel like much. Renting the car didn't feel like much (we decided we may only spend a night in Faro and then drive down the coast and see what we can find), but when we stepped outside to find our little Fiat we had rented, we could smell the sea, feel the ocean, and hear the breeze winding it's way through the palms.
Since the theme of this trip has thus far been "I don't know, let's wing it," we decided not to go back to get the map of the area we forgot to ask for. Instead, we guesstimated our way into Faro, and began winding through side streets looking for a hotel. This was around 9pm.
We drove down winding streets, trying to find the ocean. We found the old walled city, a great fortress that would have been a formidable defensive post in its day. We passed through quaint squares and rambling cobblestone streets. Eventually we stumbled into an area with a great stone obelisk in the middle of the praca (plaza). On the edge of the square was the hotel Faro.
We ended up booking a cheap room for the night, room 314. We have a 180 degree view of the city, the praca, the marina, and the ocean.
Wanting to explore (and eat) my father and I walked through the quiet streets. It was 10pm and many restaurants were serving for another hour. We stopped in at one that still had several tables full, and proceeded to enjoy a wonderful meal of assorted shellfish, duck with orange, and fish. I would have gotten the lobster had it not been 100€ per kg! We did get a dirt cheap bottle of red wine which was delicious, though.
I was exhausted, but at 11:30 my father decided he wanted to check out some bars. I couldn't let him go by himself (the BigBird story is too fresh, where my dad was picked clean in Barcelona of everything that wasn't in his secret belt pouch because he wandered off alone and was convinced a big bird was shitting on him while a guy politely helped him remove his outerwear to clean the garments), so I went with. He wandered into a bizarre situation; there were about 20 kids, average age 15, mostly girls, standing around listening to some guy on a microphone talk about alcohol. A bunch then went up and took one shot before going back to their friends. I was the second oldest in the room, easily, and my dad was about 4 times the average age, so I forced him to leave.
We wandered around for a while more, even checking out a Che Guavera bar, before heading to the room to hit the hay. It's been an exhausting first day, but tomorrow we'll explore Faro, and then most likely we'll head up the coast and see what else Portugal has to offer.
Went to sleep at 1:30am, Thursday morning.
**_______ (pronounced mmm), is where we were headed, via London. We had no idea, because we hadn't decided yet.
**Four criteria were going to help guide our decision in final destination, and as many of these (listed below) as possible were to be satisfied, in order of the priority indicated:
**1) It had to be a place we've never been. Due to the sheer number of EasyJet choices at London's Gatwick airport, this didn't seem like it would be difficult, despite my father and I being fairly well traveled.
**2) We had to go to a country we had never been to. Slightly more difficult, as my father and I have seen over 20 European countries between us. But exploring a new culture is important, and a new country was a must.
**3) This place had to sound interesting. 'Nuff said.
**4) Neither of us could speak the language, if possible, of our final destination.
I awoke as we pulled into JFK airport. We took our bags (we packed carry-ons only) to check-in, where we were informed that 6kg was the limit for carry-on bags. My dad weighed his: 14kg. I weighed mine, 10kg. My dad was forced to check his bag. I, thinking ahead, had brought an empty backpack rolled inside my luggage, and proceeded to take it out and split my luggage in half, so I could still carry on. So we went towards security with what was now 2 carry-ons.
A voice came over the intercom, telling us about last call on a plane to London leaving 2.5 hours before ours. We began to sprint to the gate (perhaps we could be ahead of schedule!), only to realize we had a bag checked for a later flight we'd have to wait for anyway. There went that plan.
Time was killed outside the gate, the sudden onset of English accents everywhere was quite welcome, and at 7:15 we began to board Virgin Atlantic flight 46 with service to London Heathrow, departing at 7:45. Final destination; unknown.
After watching 2012, a bad movie made worse by featuring many a plane crash inflight, I desired something good to watch, so I flipped on Inglourious Basterds. Fantastic choice, but that meant I got no sleep the rest of the flight.
Landed and deplaned, we rushed ahead of everyone else to be as close to the first as possible to passport control, hearing it would be slow due to an apparant strike. Our fears were dashed, however, when we arrived to find about 10 people in front of us.
When it came to be my turn, the officer called me forward. She took my passport and the card I had filled out en route, and asked "How many days are you in the UK for?"
"None, we're just passing through."
"We?"
"My dad and I" I pointed to my dad, standing at the next counter.
"Where are you headed?"
"Not sure yet." silence.
"Well where are you flying?"
"Don't know. We're just going to easyjet and flying someplace new."
Enjoying the similar conversation to my right, my dad's officer and mine exchanged glances. She remarked "Id never be able to do that," turned to me to clarify, "But you are leaving the UK today?"
"Yes" and we were let go.
The information woman at the bus/train station, when we arrived, looked up the next bus to Gatwick airport. It was necessary to leave Heathrow as EasyJet flies the most flights out of Gatwick. Our next bus was at 9, in just a few minutes. The machine for a ticket didn't accept any card, so we went to the ticket desk. "Gatwick north or south?" the ticket lady asked us.
"Which one does EasyJet fly out of?"
"Both."
"We'll shoot for south, I guess." My dad bought a ticket while i ran to the bus to hold it up. We ended up boarding at 8:59. Saved ourselves the 40 min. till the next one.
A little under an hour later, we arrived at Gatwick South Terminal. We walked straight to the EasyJet information counter and inquired of the woman working the desk, Stephanie, where EasyJet was flying that day with open seats. She didn't seem to find that weird; just that morning she'd already sent a couple to Madrid out of the blue.
The moment of truth had arrived: where would we end up for 3 days?
Stephanie began to list possibilities. Budapest, Barcelona, Rome, Inverness. Those were no good, they violated criteria One, our most important; someplace neither of us had ever been.
Porto. "No wait," she said, "Porto just booked up." there went that idea. "Or Cyprus," Stephanie suggested. My dad and I jumped on the idea. But the flight was 4 hours or so and it'd be too much of a hassle.
It came down to 5 choices. Tariffe, Las Palmas (both Spanish isles off the coast of Morocco), Copenhagen, Helsinki, or Faro, on the southern coast of Portugal. Narrowing it down, we decided Helsinki was too cold; and besides, there wasn't a good flight back. Las Palmas and Tarieffe, while great ideas, violated our second and forth criteria; going to a country we've never been (they're both technically Spain) and speaking a language we don't speak.
Down to Copenhagen and Faro, my dad and I went to one of the airport cafes and got something to drink. We discussed pros and cons.
In the end, Faro won out. We found that the flights were cheaper, it fit all four criteria we had set out to satisfy, the return flight was convenient, and the weather was supposed to be good. On the other hand, Copenhagen had a really early flight back our last day, which would effectively make us lose a day there, it is a place I'll definitely end up in again, it was too cold and the tickets cost far more. So we booked our flight to Faro. And let the record show, that even as I write this at 1am before nodding off at the end of our exhausting first day, I still don't know what this place is, exactly.
The next few hours were spent at a restaurant in Gatwick North, which we went to by bus for our flight out. I took a nap on a couch there and enjoyed a delicious pint of Beck's Vier on tap.
We couldn't check in until 2:45 for our 5:15 flight, so we patiently waited. When the time came, we got our tickets and headed towards the gates. We wouldn't know exactly which gate until 4:25... Which eventually passed, and we headed straight to gate 102. Boarded our flight, got good seats, and I slept on and off the whole way down for the 2:20 flight.
Stepping off the plane didn't feel like much. Renting the car didn't feel like much (we decided we may only spend a night in Faro and then drive down the coast and see what we can find), but when we stepped outside to find our little Fiat we had rented, we could smell the sea, feel the ocean, and hear the breeze winding it's way through the palms.
Since the theme of this trip has thus far been "I don't know, let's wing it," we decided not to go back to get the map of the area we forgot to ask for. Instead, we guesstimated our way into Faro, and began winding through side streets looking for a hotel. This was around 9pm.
We drove down winding streets, trying to find the ocean. We found the old walled city, a great fortress that would have been a formidable defensive post in its day. We passed through quaint squares and rambling cobblestone streets. Eventually we stumbled into an area with a great stone obelisk in the middle of the praca (plaza). On the edge of the square was the hotel Faro.
We ended up booking a cheap room for the night, room 314. We have a 180 degree view of the city, the praca, the marina, and the ocean.
Wanting to explore (and eat) my father and I walked through the quiet streets. It was 10pm and many restaurants were serving for another hour. We stopped in at one that still had several tables full, and proceeded to enjoy a wonderful meal of assorted shellfish, duck with orange, and fish. I would have gotten the lobster had it not been 100€ per kg! We did get a dirt cheap bottle of red wine which was delicious, though.
I was exhausted, but at 11:30 my father decided he wanted to check out some bars. I couldn't let him go by himself (the BigBird story is too fresh, where my dad was picked clean in Barcelona of everything that wasn't in his secret belt pouch because he wandered off alone and was convinced a big bird was shitting on him while a guy politely helped him remove his outerwear to clean the garments), so I went with. He wandered into a bizarre situation; there were about 20 kids, average age 15, mostly girls, standing around listening to some guy on a microphone talk about alcohol. A bunch then went up and took one shot before going back to their friends. I was the second oldest in the room, easily, and my dad was about 4 times the average age, so I forced him to leave.
We wandered around for a while more, even checking out a Che Guavera bar, before heading to the room to hit the hay. It's been an exhausting first day, but tomorrow we'll explore Faro, and then most likely we'll head up the coast and see what else Portugal has to offer.
Went to sleep at 1:30am, Thursday morning.
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